First Ever House Viewing! Advice Please!

lepetitmanoir

I think it's a good idea to arrange other viewings for that day so you have something to compare it to, as mentioned by someone else.


Do you have money put aside for all the fees, surveys etc. We had to pay for the valuation and part of the solicitor fee not long after our offer was accepted (sorry if this is all obvious but just in case you're unaware)

GoldenShadow

I read your other thread at the weekend. From that, I got the distinct impression you weren't ready to go until the Autumn and thus, this seems like it would be you stretching yourselves. My OH and I are considering buying around Sept time, but there is no way the date will come forward unless the money is there. Not just because I've seen something amazing.

GalaxyStar

EA's won't go on just what a broker says you can borrow. That could change by the time you get your AIP , ours did the amount went down. You can view, but they will most likely not take your offer until you have an AIP, a lot of people get time wasters agreeing to an offer for the buyer to say "i'll have it in a week" to then nothing happen for ages/not at all. Not saying you're time wasters but this is a reason why they want AIP. They may do what a previous poster said and keep marketing it until you have your deposit and AIP

Bristol80

GoldenShadow wrote: »

I read your other thread at the weekend. From that, I got the distinct impression you weren't ready to go until the Autumn and thus, this seems like it would be you stretching yourselves. My OH and I are considering buying around Sept time, but there is no way the date will come forward unless the money is there. Not just because I've seen something amazing.

The reason we were eyeballing Aug/Sep is because we wanted to save £5k on top of our deposit and SDLT in order to buy things. The house that we are going to see is decorated exactly to our tastes, even down to the flooring, and (on paper - to be confirmed in the flesh!) needs very little done to it to have exactly how we would like.

It also has almost all kitchen appliances built in, which is a big part of what we were going to be saving additional monies for.

This property is also at the lowest end of our price range, so the deposit and SDLT are a good bit less than what we'd budgeted, as we didn't think we'd find anything that we wanted for the price this has come on the market for.

I'm 100% confident that we will not be stretching ourselves by the time we'd be able to complete on this, even if we offered at full asking price.

Bristol80

GalaxyStar wrote: »

EA's won't go on just what a broker says you can borrow. That could change by the time you get your AIP , ours did the amount went down. You can view, but they will most likely not take your offer until you have an AIP, a lot of people get time wasters agreeing to an offer for the buyer to say "i'll have it in a week" to then nothing happen for ages/not at all. Not saying you're time wasters but this is a reason why they want AIP. They may do what a previous poster said and keep marketing it until you have your deposit and AIP

As soon as the broker comes back to me I'll be pushing him hard to get an AIP so that we can show something concrete to the EA in the event of making an offer.

martin1959

Property went on market Friday, and we had 6 viewings over the weekend. We made it clear to EA that we did not want anyone viewing who did not have a completed chain below, or funds arranged, as we are 'no onward chain'.


10 mins after the first couple left, he came back, knocked on the door and offered £290 (against asking price of £295). I advised we would not look at any offers until Monday as had another 5 viewings. The EA rang me later to say he had upped his offer to FAP. In the end we had two FAP offers, but the first guy to offer is selling to a FTB, and his previous vendor pulled out a week before exchange, so as soon as he has the searches done on ours, they will be ready to exchange.
The other offer was from a guy who wanted to arrange a B2L mortgage to buy ours, which sounded to complicated, and there was no proof he could get one. So for us it was a 'no brainer'.
He paid his search fees yesterday, and booked an appt with his lender Sat week (cannot get an appt this Sat) to do an amended app and arrange survey.


Was a little concerned they offered without a second viewing, (which both couples did) but EA assures me that people having second viewings before offering, are in the minority, and only normally re view a property shortly before exchange to measure up etc.


In answer to a point OP made earlier, if any of my viewings offered 10% below AP, I would have advised the EA to have no further contact with them (in relation to my property).

Bristol80

martin1959 wrote: »

Property went on market Friday, and we had 6 viewings over the weekend. We made it clear to EA that we did not want anyone viewing who did not have a completed chain below, or funds arranged, as we are 'no onward chain'.


10 mins after the first couple left, he came back, knocked on the door and offered £290 (against asking price of £295). I advised we would not look at any offers until Monday as had another 5 viewings. The EA rang me later to say he had upped his offer to FAP. In the end we had two FAP offers, but the first guy to offer is selling to a FTB, and his previous vendor pulled out a week before exchange, so as soon as he has the searches done on ours, they will be ready to exchange.
The other offer was from a guy who wanted to arrange a B2L mortgage to buy ours, which sounded to complicated, and there was no proof he could get one. So for us it was a 'no brainer'.
He paid his search fees yesterday, and booked an appt with his lender Sat week (cannot get an appt this Sat) to do an amended app and arrange survey.


Was a little concerned they offered without a second viewing, (which both couples did) but EA assures me that people having second viewings before offering, are in the minority, and only normally re view a property shortly before exchange to measure up etc.


In answer to a point OP made earlier, if any of my viewings offered 10% below AP, I would have advised the EA to have no further contact with them (in relation to my property).

Having done a reccie of the neighbourhood this evening, and discussing at length with the OH, we have tried to bring forward our viewing to tomorrow evening. We have decided that if we don't come away from the viewing with any pressing concerns, we would go straight in at FAP if we want the house.

We will make it very clear to EA that we will be great buyers as we are not pushing for as quick a purchase as possible and have no chain. We are on a rolling tenancy so if we came away thinking it was what we wanted, we'd be more than happy to wait several months if needs be to allow the seller to not have to be pressured into finding somewhere quickly.

At the end of the day, all we can do is try. We might come away thinking it's awful once we've viewed it.

dirty_magic

GalaxyStar wrote: »

EA's won't go on just what a broker says you can borrow. That could change by the time you get your AIP , ours did the amount went down. You can view, but they will most likely not take your offer until you have an AIP, a lot of people get time wasters agreeing to an offer for the buyer to say "i'll have it in a week" to then nothing happen for ages/not at all. Not saying you're time wasters but this is a reason why they want AIP. They may do what a previous poster said and keep marketing it until you have your deposit and AIP

We didn't have an AIP and our offer was accepted. We did get one a couple of days later but they just said give it to us when you have it. We deliberately didn't get one because although we'd seen the mortgage advisor, we were told their AIP is only valid for a month and we didn't know how long it would take us to find somewhere. We didn't want repeated footprints on our credit files if it took forever.

OP you sound just like I was, I was so excited to be looking and I thought I'd fall in love with the first one we viewed. I didn't though because it didn't feel right. With this house, which was about the 8th we viewed, we both knew straight away.

We did everything wrong really, we didn't even have a second viewing. We had to wait until the Monday to put the offer in because the agent was closed on the Saturday, but we would have offered straight away if we could! I don't regret it, but I think we could have got it a bit cheaper if we hadn't been so eager and worried about losing out to other buyers.

kinger101

Bristol80 wrote: »

Having done a reccie of the neighbourhood this evening, and discussing at length with the OH, we have tried to bring forward our viewing to tomorrow evening. We have decided that if we don't come away from the viewing with any pressing concerns, we would go straight in at FAP if we want the house.

We will make it very clear to EA that we will be great buyers as we are not pushing for as quick a purchase as possible and have no chain. We are on a rolling tenancy so if we came away thinking it was what we wanted, we'd be more than happy to wait several months if needs be to allow the seller to not have to be pressured into finding somewhere quickly.

At the end of the day, all we can do is try. We might come away thinking it's awful once we've viewed it.

Do yourself a favour. A least try negotiating with a below asking price offer. It's an easy way of saving several thousand pounds.

kinger101

dirty_magic wrote: »

We deliberately didn't get one because although we'd seen the mortgage advisor, we were told their AIP is only valid for a month and we didn't know how long it would take us to find somewhere. We didn't want repeated footprints on our credit files if it took forever.

I have one valid for 90 days for Nationwide.