How do you cope with the uncertainty of the house buying process?

marmage

I'm in the first couple of weeks of having had an offer accepted, instructed a solicitor, put in my application for a mortgage. The vendor is currently away on holiday so they can't get their solicitor on board until they return.

I have now paid a non-refundable valuation/homebuyers report fee of £450. In 10 years of full time work, I have saved just enough money to pay for my fees. (my parents are helping me out with a deposit).

I'm worrying myself sick with all the things that could go wrong. The vendor might just pull out, which means I'll lose my £450. I find that the whole house buying process is a gamble. Nothing is certain until the exchange of contracts. The survey could come back with issues. The vendor might decide to re-market it.

How does anybody cope with the uncertainty? I just don't have hundreds of pounds to throw away like that. I don't understand why this process is such a risky business.

bigfreddiel

Buying is an extremely stressful process as you're finding out. People going on holiday is one of them. Solicitors will seem to drag their heels as will local councils when searches are carried out. They aren't really it just seems like it.

Tips. Communicate. Keep in touch with your solicitor. Be persistent but don't over do it. Ask when to expect various stages to complete and follow up on the date. Ask what you can do to help. Get documents signed an witnessed and back with your solicitor ready for exchange. Ask them to check with you on the day you exchange. They should do that anyway. Contact the local council and find out how long searches are taking.

That should do it

Cheers fj

love_lifer

I sympathise. sleepless nights and fairly constant anxiety for me. maybe accepting its a gamble is the way to come to terms with it; a gamble most home buyers take.

agrinnall

There are ways to reduce some of the issues that you are concerned about, such as buying a new build (although from what I hear that brings it's own set of stresses). But in the main people cope because it's better than not coping, as is the case with many things in life.

Daerve

Wine

good_advice

Uncertainty, worry and if I hear those words "we are dealing with issues" any more I will scream!
WHAT ISSUES? no, they are not saying....

A lot seems to be on trust of others in the chain.
The months of waiting after agreeing on a sale.
Finnaly getting a moving date.

Good Luck.

Davesnave

Wait until you're selling.....

Back in 2008, I remember saying, "OK we'll drop the asking price by £20k, and see what happens."

What happened was that we had to drop another £15k at a late stage when our buyer was forced to drop theirs.

And both parties had already dropped long before that happy time.

Right down our chain, everyone took a hit, except the first time buyer at the bottom. Sometimes, FTB's hold most of the cards.

Are you seriously going to wait for that situation to arise again, or will you take a few risks and get on with your life?

dragonsoup

Daerve wrote: »

Wine

Didn't find that strong enough - G&T though kept me sane!

moneyistooshorttomention

Have you tried to do what you can to minimise the risks - ie of having made your offer on the house subject to the vendor not accepting any further viewings?

I made a bit of a mistake when I bought my current house - of knowing that its "obvious" that further viewings cease once an offer (ie my offer) is accepted. Then I found evidence the vendor wasn't "singing from the same songsheet". That was daft on my part - as I had judged him as being a tricky little wotname when I saw him (and I was right in more ways than one.....:().

I clicked that I should have said the "no more viewers" bit when making my offer and (because I didn't trust him) I kept an eye on things to see if he looked as if he was still thinking of showing my house to other buyers. I duly found evidence that he was doing so - and rang the EA and bawled them out bigtime about it and the message got passed on to the vendor and he then accepted he wasn't going to be showing my house to any other potential buyers.

************


The survey is a different matter and "it is what it is" and we all only have a survey done basically in order to get told "This house has a clean bill of health and is fine to purchase" and sometimes we get a different result to the one we paid for so to say. The only thing you can think then is curse the vendor for not letting on (as they almost certainly knew of the defects being mentioned) and cut your losses OR cut the price you are offering.

AdrianC

That period before exchange, where either party can pull out with no penalty, is as useful for buyers as it is for sellers. If anything, more so.

Why is a seller going to pull out?
- Somebody's put a better offer in. Well, a buyer can pull that, too.
- They decided not to sell. Well, a buyer can pull that, too.

Why is a buyer going to pull out?
- Their funding's fallen through.
- Their solicitor's unearthed something about the property.
- Their survey's unearthed something about the property.

pinkteapot

I've bought three times. The first two purchases were chain-free and despite my usual control freakery, I was really relaxed. Probably because there was no onward chain and, having met each vendor, I knew they were keen to sell so was as sure as I could be that they wouldn't pull out on a whim.

Third time we were in the middle of a long chain. That was HORRIBLE. We were buying a house in a really popular area where houses like ours very rarely come up, so if we'd lost it we'd be gutted (only one more has come up for sale in the 18 months we've now lived there). Our vendor was *only* selling because they'd found a perfect one-off bungalow. If that fell through they weren't going to move.

That third time, I just coped as best I could and pushed for as early an exchange as possible. We ended up with two months between exchange and completion because people couldn't complete on various dates, but were all ready to exchange. That really helped - problems after exchange are unbelievably rare, so I relaxed once we'd got exchanged.

So:
- focus on what you can control - do your forms etc ASAP
- get the EA to keep chasing the chain and pushing everyone to exchange when possible

I have absolutely no statistics to back this up, but I suspect the majority of agreed purchases go through. You get lots of people post about problems on here. The people who have smooth chains and no issues don't need to post.