First time buyers - timescale between offer and completion?

CuteMole

Hi there,

Just wondered if anyone could offer an insight to timescales for buying a house.

My husband and I are first time buyers. We are currently renting (periodic tenancy with one month's notice), we have a decent deposit, mortgage DIP sorted and have currently viewed 3 properties. One of them we quite like. It has been on the market for a year, had many viewings but no offers, has recently be reduced in price by over £5,000. The vendor said there is no chain and they can move quickly.

We are planning a second viewing this week and then may put an offer in. My question is about how quickly things can progress. If we were to put in an offer this week (assuming it was accepted, and I think they're very keen to sell) would we be able to complete/move in by the middle of October? Or maybe sooner? How long do surveys, searches, exchange of contracts etc. take? Trying to arrange moving around work/school commitments is scaring us a bit - but I guess there's never a 'perfect' time for the house- moving upheaval!!!

Also, when we set a completion date we will know when we need to give our notice to our landlords - but can completion dates change? Wouldn't want to have to move out and not have a house to move to!

Any advice greatly appreciated! Excited about buying but nervous of all that needs sorting!!

Thanks,

CuteMole :j

PixelPound

Completion date is chosen & fixed when contracts are exchanged.

Two fluid elements to the timescale
- Application, this can take one week, one month, or more, depending how complicated your case is (e.g. requests for additional docs), the workload of the lender, and how on the ball your broker is chasing things up.
- Conveyancing, although the amount of actual time-effort it requires is probably in terms of hours not days, this takes six weeks, maybe more. It depends on both solicitors and how much you pester them.

TBeckett100

Personally you need to see why it's been on a year. It won't be over 5k I'm sure. We bought a similar house and it took us a year to sell it. When we went to view it originally the lack of central heating, downstairs bathroom, small kitchen, peeling tender, postage stamp garden and next to a busy B Road seemed to pass us by.

CuteMole

Thanks for the replies.

We wondered why it had been on the market for so long with no offers (and haven't asked the EA yet) but a number of thoughts were:
- overpriced (vendors bought at height of property boom for £176000, originally put on market last year for £185000, reduced twice, now at £175000 - I guess they were hoping for a higher return but have recently split up so are keen to sell)
- other similar properties have sold in the area for less with nicer garden/bigger extension/newer kitchen/boiler etc. but not many properties like this come to the market - streetchecker shows only 15 sales in the street in 20 yrs! A lot of people bought the houses new and have stayed! Surely a good sign?
- for the area it is not quite a FTB property and not right for downsizing - a bit inbetweeny!! But almost exactly right for us!
- downstairs rooms/layout is great but bedrooms and bathroom are on the small side
- the boiler may need replacing within the next couple of years, kitchen might need the same but these are things we are prepared to do.
- good potential for bedroom/bathroom extension above garage (others in the street have done the same) but maybe people haven't wanted to take on the extra expense or plan this into their homeowning future!

Difficult to second guess why a house hasn't sold isn't it? Maybe the right buyer hasn't come along yet? Maybe it's fate and it was destined to be ours!!!

So is it the conveyancing that takes the time? Is there any way that it could take less than six weeks?

PasturesNew

You can never tell..... anything could hold things up (including you/your solicitor) by going away or time delays as they post stuff to you. Your solicitor has to wait for the info from their solicitor, then read it, then raise issues with you and then write about those issues to the other solicitor, who then has to ask their client and then write back to your solicitor, who then writes to you, then you read it and think about what it means, and post here..... it can drag on.

I'd suggest that an offer today might have you in by mid October. I was renting when I bought; I bought from somebody who was moving into rented. I offered on 2 April, I got the keys on 9 July.

GoldenShadow

We are FTBs. Offer was accepted 16th June. We hope to be in by mid August.

Waiting on mortgage offer which will hopefully come through early next week then homebuyer's survey is on Tues.

My uncle is doing the conveyancing and there is no onward chain. Biggest delays have been waiting for mortgage application and surveys which haven't taken too long, and the searches etc are being done alongside it all.

Our vendors were very on it and had fixture and fittings and property information sheets with their solicitor before we even put an offer in, so that helped a little too.

CuteMole

Thank you! Encouraging stuff that a quick move may be possible! Will keep fingers crossed that we get a reasonable offer accepted and we can get a move on!! :j