The nervous wait to exchange....

Soldato
Joined
25 Jul 2010
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4,071
Location
Worcestershire
Just had a gutting result. Had our house on the market for about 2 months, and right from when we put it on I saw a property I liked. We'd been looking at our buying area for ages and not seen anything that fit, but this ticked almost every box, and ticked it well.

I managed to convince the agent to let me look without an offer on ours, and liked upon viewing, expressed that I really liked it and would be in touch as soon as we were proceedable.

Had a decent number of viewings and a couple that felt close to an offer but no cigar as of a week or so ago, but I decided to contact the agent of the house I liked, just to see if they had any offers, and to re-express my interest. No offers on that, so I said fingers crossed we can help out with that after the weekend coming up (as in last weekend) as we had 2 second viewings.

Lo and behold, Monday we get some bids in and accept an offer mid-afternoon. At which point I get straight on the blower to the forward agent to see if we can come and see it again (as my wife hadn't seen it by that point), and they'd accepted an offer literally the day before. This bidder first viewed the property after I did, and so due to our interest shown, she said we could come and view but our offer would need to be in excess of X. I said OK, that might be doable based on wife's opinion, we'll be there tomorrow. 2 hour drive away, no issue.

Viewed it, agent said I'll be in touch in the morning for your offer. I decided to go decently punchy and went x+5k. Come the next morning, I hear back saying it's going to best and final offers between the two of us. I learn that the other bidder hasn't rebid at this point, and shouldn't know what our offer was. I increase ours to x+7.6k, which I didn't want to do really, but in the absence of any other viable properties, I was keen.

As buyers, us and the other bidder were basically identical. First time buyers on each of our properties, and healthy LTVs all around.

In the end, we lost despite bidding what the agent said was around 1-2k more than the others, solely because they had had their offer accepted first, and the sellers didn't want to do them over without good reason. Sort of funny that they did them over to the tune of probably 10k by inviting our offer and then asking for best and finals, apparently money wasn't the factor and yet there we are.

Just a rant really, don't know if I should feel hard done by to submit a better offer and still lose despite being just as good a buyer, or just unlucky we didn't managed to get an offer in earlier, in which case we would have got it and for cheaper. The latter I suppose.
 
Soldato
Joined
9 Nov 2008
Posts
7,081
From a completely different point of view, look how well the agent did for the seller. They've advised at each stage and pushed both parties to offer over what they wanted to pay and then on top of that got even more out by going to best and final. Someone like PurpleBricks or Yopa might be cheaper on the fees but how does that add up if they get you an extra £10k on the sale price
 
Soldato
Joined
9 Mar 2003
Posts
14,056
By doing well, you mean prices rising significantly faster than wages, effectively pricing normal people out of the market? I think one year my house ‘earn’t’ more than I did which is nuts.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m absolutely not in favour of a crash but what is really needed is a long period (probably a decade or more) of below inflation growth to correct it. The returns effectively need to be neutered to zero or close to with very punitive taxes on empty properties.
 
Soldato
Joined
25 Jul 2010
Posts
4,071
Location
Worcestershire
From a completely different point of view, look how well the agent did for the seller. They've advised at each stage and pushed both parties to offer over what they wanted to pay and then on top of that got even more out by going to best and final. Someone like PurpleBricks or Yopa might be cheaper on the fees but how does that add up if they get you an extra £10k on the sale price
Yeah they pulled a blinder. I would be really annoyed tbh if I was the other buyer, having had to up their offer probably close to 10k from what was accepted. Yet I don't think we were out of order in any way at all by getting an offer in. Maybe you could say they would have been very lucky to get it at first accepted price, and what it went for is more like market price.

They seem like good sellers, and chain free too, just gutted to miss out.
 

Sui

Sui

Soldato
Joined
24 Sep 2005
Posts
4,332
Location
Brighton
My ex is being a pain in the arse in this whole transferring equity away from me, I want to get the house valued so I can get an accurate payout yet she's saying "property prices down 3% on Zoopla in last 3 months". Solicitor wants £230+VAT an hour, le sigh.

Just wanted to vent :D
 
Associate
Joined
19 Jun 2009
Posts
1,687
Location
Central Scotland
We put down a deposit on a new build in Feb 2020. The paperwork stated completion in July, however, the sales agent was realisic and advised it would more likely be September. They hadn't started building the house at this point.

March 2020, C19 comes along and the site shuts down for a few months. We attended a meeting with the builders in August and we were advised of a completion date in January this year, which slipped to February, then early March and now, currently, end of March.

Our mortgage offer also expires at the end of March. We have a clause in the missives which states we can walk away if not completed by this time. We don't want to, nor can we, as we've spent extra on custom building work and would lose too much dough. Also, if we end up completing after March, then we would have to pay stamp duty, or LBTT as it is up here.

We're (me, the mrs, 2 kids) currently living with my parents, which if truth be told, has been absolute hell. It's affecting our relationship, the kids behaviour, everything. Simply put, we need out of there.
We moved back up here last year with the intention of only staying a couple of months til we found somewhere to buy. It never quite worked out that way.

So, fingers crossed for 4 weeks today :)
 
Soldato
Joined
30 Sep 2005
Posts
16,526
By doing well, you mean prices rising significantly faster than wages, effectively pricing normal people out of the market? I think one year my house ‘earn’t’ more than I did which is nuts.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m absolutely not in favour of a crash but what is really needed is a long period (probably a decade or more) of below inflation growth to correct it. The returns effectively need to be neutered to zero or close to with very punitive taxes on empty properties.

Rising faster than wages is a concern, but can't be much of one since a lot of people are paying over asking price. I mean, yeah they are expensive.......but just look at how fast they're selling. We're looking to move ourselves, and every one we've showed interest in has either recently sold, or under offer.
It's crazy.
 
Soldato
Joined
4 Jul 2011
Posts
4,267
Location
England
Just looking for some advise here, me and my girlfriend are buying our first house and are currently awaiting all the checks being done by our conveyancer. I've chased them up this morning just to see how things are going and we've been advised the council have not adopted the road fronting the property. Our conveyancer is awaiting information back regarding this. We are aware of a management fee for the private car park but weren't aware of the road.

Now we are a bit puzzled as the road has always existed, the house we are buying was built in 2017 and is one of a small group of houses built on land that was previously occupied by a pub. The road fronting the property is a fairly busy road in the town and it seems odd that this wouldn't be maintained by the local authority.

Is this something we should be worried about?
 
Soldato
Joined
9 Mar 2003
Posts
14,056
Yes, if it’s not a road which is only used by residents/visitors (e.g. dead end) and is a through road used by traffic I would be worried. If it’s not adopted you would be responsible for its upkeep.

I’d look to get confirmation that information is correct as it may be wrong. Through roads are normally adopted.

Are you sure it’s referring to the main road and not the road which the other properties on the development front on to. Your management fee may go towards the upkeep of that road even if you don’t use it.
 
Soldato
Joined
4 Jul 2011
Posts
4,267
Location
England
Yes, if it’s not a road which is only used by residents/visitors (e.g. dead end) and is a through road used by traffic I would be worried. If it’s not adopted you would be responsible for its upkeep.

I’d look to get confirmation that information is correct as it may be wrong. Through roads are normally adopted.

Are you sure it’s referring to the main road and not the road which the other properties on the development front on to. Your management fee may go towards the upkeep of that road even if you don’t use it.
The specific road they have stated is the one that is to the front of our property, it has a post office and a few shops and even a bus route, there are also many existing properties on the road and even another road leading to an existing estate that has been there for well over 20 years. There are only 5 houses in this "estate" as it was a small development by a local builder.

The road is question is Clementhorpe Road in Gilberdyke. Me and my partner are fairly confused as to how it couldn't have been adopted as it's such an old road with lots of existing infrastructure.
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
13,997
Location
Sandwich, Kent
The road is question is Clementhorpe Road in Gilberdyke. Me and my partner are fairly confused as to how it couldn't have been adopted as it's such an old road with lots of existing infrastructure.
That doesn't seem to make any sense, that appears to be a completely normal road. If it wasn't adopted - who pays for the street lighting? Sounds like your conveyencer is getting mixed up.
 
Soldato
Joined
4 Jul 2011
Posts
4,267
Location
England
That doesn't seem to make any sense, that appears to be a completely normal road. If it wasn't adopted - who pays for the street lighting? Sounds like your conveyencer is getting mixed up.
The only thing we can think is that the builder has had to make alterations to the road, path and drainage to build the houses and maybe the council have been difficult about it but it still doesn't make sense as the road predates the houses by many years.
 
Soldato
Joined
4 May 2007
Posts
9,347
Location
West Midlands
Is 2 months really that much of a long time? The sellers' property had been on even longer than ours.
My experience is anecdotal to be fair and based on my area. I've unfortunately had to put mine up for sale 3 times (due to flakey buyers twice) and each time under 3ish weeks. (1st time when it was lower was 1 week).

I know houses in the area we were looking if competitively priced lasted only a couple weeks.
 
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