The nervous wait to exchange....

[IvanDobskey]

These days it seems to take a minimum of 6 months to buy a house. I remember buying my first one 18 years ago and it was done and dusted inside two months. Crazy.

 

[ChrisD.]

Apparently stamp duty up to £500k being scrapped to help the housing market. That’s a massive benefit in my situation.

 

[a1ex2001]

Is there a general rule of thumb of offering below asking price, say a certain percentage? We're looking at a house that's up for £475k however the kitchen is dated and needs new units, flooring etc. The rest of the house just needs redecorating and maybe some new tiles in the bathroom. Would £450k be offensive? Or even lower? We don't want to annoy the seller but we also want to pay as little as possible so we have money to do the work we want.

There was another house of similar size which sold for £475k, the kitchen was perfect as was the rest of the house, however we think it was listed around £25k below what similar properties go for.

That will be entirely down to the area and then to a lesser extent the house, in the area I live pretty much every single sale follows the same pattern:

• House listed mid week
• First viewings on the Saturday
• Second viewings mid week
• Best and finals the Friday

Sometimes the timings change but they all go to sealed bids and they all sell over asking it has been that way since before we moved in and I don't see it changing. In popular areas it maybe a question of how much over asking not how much under, if in doubt ask the agent they will likely give you a steer as to where you need to be money wise to stand a chance. The fact you think all houses in the area are over priced worries me, you get a few outliers where owners insist on silly valuations but estate agents are generally very good at pricing a property to sell as that is how they make money and a small difference in sale price doesn't make a huge difference to the fee they get.

 

[mid_gen]

I put offers in on a couple of good properties after the lockdown, 5 and 10% below asking, no chain at my end. Not a sniff of interest, and the properties were off the market in a matter of days. It's going to depend a lot on the local situation, what sort of property it is etc. but good properties are going to sell fast, and get asking, unless it's ridiculous.

There are some laughably overpriced house in the area I'm buying in...or properties that would be reasonably priced if they didn't have glaring deficiencies like a ridiculous 6ft long 'garden'.

 

[happy_2008]

Possible stampy duty holiday incoming for the autumn should be interesting for the market.

 

[Jez]

Possible stampy duty holiday incoming for the autumn should be interesting for the market.

Wondering how this will work...normal bands above the exemption do we think?

 

[mid_gen]

Can't honestly believe the incompetence of my solicitor, potentially just a few days away from exchange and I'm actually just about to tell them to do one and start the whole process again with someone that knows what they're doing, and pushing the sale back months. Utterly useless.

 

[MrKnifey]

Can't honestly believe the incompetence of my solicitor, potentially just a few days away from exchange and I'm actually just about to tell them to do one and start the whole process again with someone that knows what they're doing, and pushing the sale back months. Utterly useless.

I am getting exactly the same. Absolute nightmare with everyone involved. Ive no idea how they think its acceptable to be so poor?

 

[kitkat9933]

I hope the stamp duty isn’t like it used to be and the relief dips of in a staged approach, rather than just full price on properties over £500k.

Looking to exchange this month on a property way past that amount and saving a few % on the first £500k would be much appreciated.

 

[happy_2008]

I hope the stamp duty isn’t like it used to be and the relief dips of in a staged approach, rather than just full price on properties over £500k.

Looking to exchange this month on a property way past that amount and saving a few % on the first £500k would be much appreciated.

Latest update is that stamp duty threshold to be up to 500k. I wonder how the market would respond to this change, for me if i was to move this is potentially a 10k saving

 

[Junglist]

These days it seems to take a minimum of 6 months to buy a house. I remember buying my first one 18 years ago and it was done and dusted inside two months. Crazy.

To be fair we were almost done within 3 months. Viewed house on 28th December, Reserved it, had all mortgage stuff sorted by first week of January and had a completion estimate of end of March/Start of April. Then the storms back in February pushed it back to June then Covid said hello and here we are still in my grandmothers spare room living out of boxes!

 

[kitkat9933]

Latest update is that stamp duty threshold to be up to 500k. I wonder how the market would respond to this change, for me if i was to move this is potentially a 10k saving

Would save me £15k if the threshold is moved to £500k but past £500k is standard rates. Or even more if they move the % bands up.

 

[kitkat9933]

These days it seems to take a minimum of 6 months to buy a house. I remember buying my first one 18 years ago and it was done and dusted inside two months. Crazy.

I think the main reason for this is that Conveyancing has been moved to a highly competitive race to the bottom market, meaning that conveyancing firms overload themselves with just way too many projects at once and then use under-qualified staff to complete then.

 

[Semple]

Wondering how this will work...normal bands above the exemption do we think?

I think it would be too much work for what might only be a temporary measure to make up new bands past 500k.

Also i guess there's less sympathy for people buying houses past the 500k mark - i.e. if you can afford half a mil on a house, a few K on SDLT isn't exactly much in the grand scheme of things.

Latest update is that stamp duty threshold to be up to 500k. I wonder how the market would respond to this change, for me if i was to move this is potentially a 10k saving

I think this will incentivise people to upsize. It's not really a big thing for any FTB'ers as they're already exempt on the first 300k. But for anyone who's looking to move, a saving of anywhere from 2-10k can be a big help. I think i read that the exemption might only be for 6 months, so won't leave people with a lot of time to make their minds up.

 

[PudWud]

I think the main reason for this is that Conveyancing has been moved to a highly competitive race to the bottom market, meaning that conveyancing firms overload themselves with just way too many projects at once and then use under-qualified staff to complete then.

Completely agree - we recently bought our first home, and I can't express how angry the solicitors made us.
They essentially ignored all of our emails for 3 weeks when we were due to complete - we ended up nearly losing the house as the seller couldn't wait much longer and we had to take it to their public Facebook page to get them to reply to our emails and do the job we were paying them for.
We would have changed solicitors, but this would have meant new searches and would have delayed the process past the point that we would have lost the house.

 

[kitkat9933]

I think it would be too much work for what might only be a temporary measure to make up new bands past 500k.

Also i guess there's less sympathy for people buying houses past the 500k mark - i.e. if you can afford half a mil on a house, a few K on SDLT isn't exactly much in the grand scheme of things.

I agree it's not that much in the grand scheme of things, but having bands like we currently do where you pay % for any amount over X, then this % past Y is fair to all. As someone who is over that £500k threshold, I already contribute a lot of money to society which I don't have a problem with, but if it's not bands and sliding scales but just a cut off point to target rich people it ticks me off.

If it goes back to how it used to be that once you went past X you paid full whack, even if just paying £1 over, isn't fair to the people around the cut off point, as sellers won't drop £10k's from their side to save the buyer saving the same. This happened on my first house purchase in 2014 where I was paying like £500 over the stamp duty threshold then suddenly had to pay £1,3k stamp duty as well. The buyer refused to take £500 less and then work out an agreement to make the difference up an alternate way via fixtures and fittings.

 

[Semple]

I agree it's not that much in the grand scheme of things, but having bands like we currently do where you pay % for any amount over X, then this % past Y is fair to all. As someone who is over that £500k threshold, I already contribute a lot of money to society which I don't have a problem with, but if it's not bands and sliding scales but just a cut off point to target rich people it ticks me off.

If it goes back to how it used to be that once you went past X you paid full whack, even if just paying £1 over, isn't fair to the people around the cut off point, as sellers won't drop £10k's from their side to save the buyer saving the same. This happened on my first house purchase in 2014 where I was paying like £500 over the stamp duty threshold then suddenly had to pay £1,3k stamp duty as well. The buyer refused to take £500 less and then work out an agreement to make the difference up an alternate way via fixtures and fittings.

I agree that not using a sliding is a bit unfair, especially as you say in your previous experience having a seller unwilling to drop by £500 to save paying quite a bit over the previous band.

As i say my guess is that there would be too much work involved to rejig the current bands. So would assume the current SDLT levels would apply. I.e. if you're buying a house for 600k, then it would be 20k SDLT (2.5k for 125-250k, and then 17.5k for the 250-600k).

The article did say that there's rumours this may pave way for a more permanent exclusion upto a certain price point, which if they do decide on doing, then i can see them having to readjust the bands again.

 

[happy_2008]

I think this will incentivise people to upsize. It's not really a big thing for any FTB'ers as they're already exempt on the first 300k. But for anyone who's looking to move, a saving of anywhere from 2-10k can be a big help. I think i read that the exemption might only be for 6 months, so won't leave people with a lot of time to make their minds up.

Yes and no. Its almost catch 22 situation! Many people could still be on furlough and the market may change in Q4 2020 when the government scheme ends and some people may end up in default etc. Also, i have noticed that the market prices are coming down so there could be a balancing saving or either house price or stamp duty if you play the waiting game.

 

[Temujin]

At the stage of needing to organise surveys now, think we'll be going with a buildings survey which is in the realm of £550-570 dependent on the company but one is offering a bespoke building report for £780 which includes much more detail, including any rectification costs for issues found, and just generally *more*.

Unsure whether to spend the extra £230 or if this is extra for nothing!

 

[bloodiedathame]

If Rishi announces stamp duty freeze I'll very much wish I'd waited a week to have an extra £15k in my pocket.