Is it too early to start viewing

lwhiteman88

My wife and I have a week off work in the last week of August and would like to use some of this time to view houses.

We will have our 10% deposit and around 25-30% of our fees by the time we go viewing. We will then have the full 100% of our fees by the end of September (potentially before).

Our mortgage advisor is going to get our AIP before we view but my questions are:
Are we are starting our viewing too early?
Would estate agents class us non-proceedable?
Also would it be completely mad, if we found a house we liked, to put an offer in declaring that we could exchange but not complete until the end of September?

Doozergirl

The average house sale/purchase takes three months.

Even four weeks is something of a miracle, reserved for those buying freehold with no chain and a mortgage company conducting surveys at lightning speed.

You're fine. Ideally proceedable with AIP.

amateur_house

I don't think that's too early to start viewing. It took me 18 months to find a house I wanted to offer on, and at least 6 months on the two previous times I've bought. You may need to view a lot of houses before finding one you want to buy. It can take a week just to get a viewing booked in with some agents.

alex_163163

As said above, there is minimal to none chance you would be ready to exchange by end of September, even if you offer on the first house you view in the last week of august.
It took 13 weeks for us to get from offer accepted to exchange date when we bought earlier this year.

NelliePie

I wouldn't have though so, remember buying a property typically takes 2-3 months if straight forward so I wouldn't expect to exchange or complete until September at the earliest anyway. DH and I recently completed (End of June) and apart from the money for the searches ~£325, the legal fees were paid on completion - you may need to check what arrangements your solicitors expect but I would guess it would be similar so they can give you one bill with everything added up at the end. We didn't have a fee with our mortgage but I know some (most?) can be added to the end of the mortgage - so if they request the fee on application and you don't have it yet you may be able to add it to the end of the mortgagor and then if the mortgage allows overpay and effectively pay it off when you can. If they don't request it until completion then nothing to worry about. Our mortgage broker and solicitor needed to see evidence of our deposit (to show we had the means to proceed), but noone asked to see evidence of our fee's too. The estate agent should take you on the AIP and not need to see your deposit etc.

Good luck on your house hunt, keep us posted

lwhiteman88

Thanks everyone for the replies.

NelliePie wrote: »

but noone asked to see evidence of our fee's too. The estate agent should take you on the AIP and not need to see your deposit etc.

Yes the bit I was worried about is if there was any requirement for evidence of having the fees ready to go. We are definitely prepared that the house hunting process will certainly take a while.

One of my main concerns was when I call an estate agent to arrange viewings will they ask for any evidence, other than AIP, of fees but it sounds like that is not the case.

californiagirl

It's not too early. Better to start viewing and get a feel for what's on offer. It will help you firm up in your mind what you really want, and if you're a FTB, you're in a good position to negotiate a good price when it comes to finding the house you want. Many sellers will happily take a lower offer if they know there is no chain.

Very unlikely a purchase would exchange/complete by end of September anyway. I've sold two houses before and each took 4-5 months. If everything will be ready by end of Sept then no need to mention it.

Good luck!

californiagirl

lwhiteman88 wrote: »

Thanks everyone for the replies.



Yes the bit I was worried about is if there was any requirement for evidence of having the fees ready to go. We are definitely prepared that the house hunting process will certainly take a while.

One of my main concerns was when I call an estate agent to arrange viewings will they ask for any evidence, other than AIP, of fees but it sounds like that is not the case.

They will just ask what your position is, i.e. do you have a house to sell and do you have a mortgage in principle? You can answer NO and then YES = the answers they want to hear.

lwhiteman88

californiagirl wrote: »

It's not too early. Better to start viewing and get a feel for what's on offer. It will help you firm up in your mind what you really want, and if you're a FTB, you're in a good position to negotiate a good price when it comes to finding the house you want. Many sellers will happily take a lower offer if they know there is no chain.

Very unlikely a purchase would exchange/complete by end of September anyway. I've sold two houses before and each took 4-5 months. If everything will be ready by end of Sept then no need to mention it.

Good luck!

I think we may even focus our first set of viewings on properties that have been on the market for 1-2 months as we could be in a strong position. There are quite a few at the moment which have been so fingers crossed!

NelliePie

lwhiteman88 wrote: »

Thanks everyone for the replies.



Yes the bit I was worried about is if there was any requirement for evidence of having the fees ready to go. We are definitely prepared that the house hunting process will certainly take a while.

One of my main concerns was when I call an estate agent to arrange viewings will they ask for any evidence, other than AIP, of fees but it sounds like that is not the case.

TheEA we bought through was purple bricks, they didn't even ask us if we had an AIP - I wouldn't take this as the case for all EA though.