Our buyer fell through, vendor putting house back on market

littleteapot

Hi,

We have a small, 2 bedroom terraced house in a desirable area which although generally sound is in need of redecorating, flooring, and replacement of a dilapidated, cold wooden conservatory. We put it on the market in early October and had several viewings on the first day resulting in an offer of the asking price same day, which foolishly accepted despite my wife recommending we wait for more viewings and offers as there was a chain of 5 behind us. We chose a 3 bedroom house to buy in a fairly good area  of which we had our offer accepted which was £35k more than our selling price and no onward chain.

First problem our buyers buyer pulled out as they decided they wanted a different house, but within 2 weeks our buyer got another buyer in place so we agreed to continue with them. The chain was well progressesld and our buyer initially told us they didn't need a mortgage, so we were confident things would work. But then they decided they wanted a mortgage to extend our house as it was smaller than the house they were selling, and the application via a broker went on for weeks and weeks, and was eventually refused, so they had to pull out. From the feedback from our EA it seems they had a lot of outstanding unsecured debt and credit rating issues.

So back to square 1, and our vendor who has been very patient so far has said they will put their house back on the market next week, which is perfectly understandable.

We are desperate to move as living in this tiny house with 2 small children is getting very challenging now. Assuming we get the same house or one at a similar price, I can afford to reduce the asking price by about 10k and accept offers about 5k below that if needed. Should we do this now or wait a few more weeks? I'm well aware this is a difficult time of year for selling and even 10k less than the current asking price probably won't attract chain-free buyers like developers who will renovate/extend and resell the house. First time buyers around here seem to be fussy and put off by anything that needs work, such as this with its dilapidated conservatory.

I'm really stressed and confused as to how to proceed now and my wife is getting frustrated snd depressed about the situation as she hates this area as its full of retired people and little for young children to do.

FlyMeSomewhere79

Please don't feel foolish for accepting the offer, it's been a really tough market in the last 7 months, I our my fairly unique and desirable semi up for sale in June and thanks to the bank of England it took too Oct 31st to finally get ab offer. There's too much choice on the market because of how long it ground to a halt for so not accepting that offer would have been a gamble as it could have been many months before you got another one.

As I see it the fault lies a) with the people that our the offer in because they should have checked their buying power being as they were in debt, they should have made certain they could buy it b) the estate agent should be doing a certain level screening before allowing anyone to put an offer in - proof of definite funds should have been required! I'm in the selling and buying process and we abs our buyers  had to have proof of secured funds to even have the houses taken off the market - you've been let down by your estate agent on this one!

The market has picked up since late Oct, many houses suddenly sold in the town where I live so you've everything to gain by pressing on and if you can afford to drop to entice a sale then why not, we didn't get viewings to turn into offers until we dropped our price.