House buying is the worst

[Kav]

Solicitors take forever doing anything it seems... constantly having to chase them.

Should be getting confirmation of completion date & the contract pack through this week we've been advised (last week), so far this week we've heard nothing... well, it is only Tuesday, but I want to know damn it! Haha

[Raining_again]

I have all but one side of one door replaced now, down to painting.  Which is going to take forever.  I am sore & my living room is covered in sawdust... lol 

It can be a helpful thing that I have adhd, but otoh, jobs general get done to 95% completion.  Real life example, the edges of my living room walls are the white from the ceiling and not the yellow they should be.....I am however determined to get this job done, and will do the living room when im painting around the door. 

I am just hurting all over today, and have a metric ton of pebbles arriving tomorrow which i have to move from front of house to back as there is no back garden vehicle access... i am a sad han..... :-( 

[Raining_again]

5 hours ago, Kav said:

Solicitors take forever doing anything it seems... constantly having to chase them.

Should be getting confirmation of completion date & the contract pack through this week we've been advised (last week), so far this week we've heard nothing... well, it is only Tuesday, but I want to know damn it! Haha

Keep ringing them.  I was never off the phone to mine, don't care if it annoyed them because they all had their fingers up their arses instead of actually sorting out my issues!!!

[Aneres11]

My BF and I have owned our home for 18 months now, and he's ready to buy somewhere new. I'm happy enough where we are but he wants some place bigger where we can actually fit a dining table and room to have people over for food etc. 

I'm down as I've already told him I'll only move if the third bedroom (we have 2 currently) can be a full on games room. Which he's agreed with. 

We want a new build. I know they come with all sorts of problems of their own (as if house buying isn't bad enough) but we're not even sure if we will get the house we want as it is dependant on a number of things. 

We have no option to add additional extras which you normally get the luxury with in a new house, because it's already built and they're currently finishing off the inside. The only thing we can pick is the flooring. All the bathroom tiles and kitchen was pre-chose. Thankfully, we love what they picked which is a relief as next door to the one were looking at they've picked in that too and it's awful. 

It all hinges on us selling our house now. We have enough equity in it for our deposit even if it sells less than we hope, and our figure is realistic anyway. We have had all the valuations done and gone through mortgage advice / agreements in principle but it all gets halted until we get a buyer. Our house goes up tomorrow but the agents have already got people waiting to buy a house in our area so they've started making them aware it's going up already 

We have 4 weeks to sell otherwise we reduce the price and that's when we start getting uncertainty creeping in as we then wouldn't have our deposit for the new build if we reduce too much. We haven't got too much in the way of savings and the sensible thing would be to wait until we'd saved and buy in a second phase next year. However, the house we want is one of a kind and they're only building one on the while estate. 

It's a three bedroom town house with a master bedroom with en suite in the roof so perfect for two gay guys who don't want kids haha. As it's already built and no one has bought it yet, we get the luxury of bargaining with them and they've already agreed to carpet the whole house for free wherever we want it in whatever carpet we choose. Were also in talks to waive stamp duty so all we will be paying for is solicitor fees (my other halfs mum and dad use someone for their businesses and property who will not charge us full cost and they've agreed to very kindly pay it) and to buy the lease hold so it's free hold. 

It seems rushed and feels it a bit too, but it's only due to the fact we won't have another opportunity for this particular build and we really want it. Need our house to sell in 4 weeks and we should be set. 

Thankfully, as were going through the easy move scheme, the company we're buying from pay our estate agents fees, so that's also covered 

Decided to just go for it, let fate decide if it is meant to be but fingers crossed it comes off. If we find a buyer in four weeks we could be in it in august! Madness. 

[Ashley]

Meanwhile I felt grown up for buying a new shower head last week  

[TonieCoury]

On 7/4/2017 at 11:25 PM, Raining_again said:

I have all but one side of one door replaced now, down to painting.  Which is going to take forever.  I am sore & my living room is covered in sawdust... lol 

It can be a helpful thing that I have adhd, but otoh, jobs general get done to 95% completion.  Real life example, the edges off my living room walls are the white from the ceiling and not the yellow they should be.....I am however determined to get this job done, and will do the living room when im painting around the door. 

I am just hurting all over today, and have a metric ton of pebbles arriving tomorrow which i have to move from front of house to back as there is no back garden vehicle access... i am a sad han..... :-( 

I sympathise with you.

Same things are happening with me.

Edited July 21, 2017 by TonieCoury

[Shorty]

I replaced a light fitting in my house. I thought it was going to be super easy, but everything went wrong. I feel a need to document this:

1. The flex on the light was way too long
2. After cutting it, I realised there was no easy way to tell which was Line and Neutral, so I had to buy a multimeter
3. After figuring out the live wire with the multimeter, I realised there was actually a tiny blue thread in the neutral so I didn't need it after all
4. Couldn't get the wire screws out of the old ceiling rose because my mini screwdriver was too crap so had to go to B&Q to buy another
5. Couldn't get the old, tough wires into the terminal box so had to cut that open
6. Thinking I was at the last step, realised that this very heavy light fitting was near impossible to put up by myself because it couldn't be left to hang from the fitting while screwing the wires together. I actually had earth and switch live in at this point, all I had to do was get neutral in and I was done, but... impossible.
7. Not wanting to give up, dragged a bookcase downstairs that I want rid of anyway, putting dents in the plaster on the way
8. Leaned cheap bookcase against coffee table and put the light on top of the bookcase, realised it was too far away
9. Moved coffee table, bookcase and lamp fell and hit me on the head, thought I was going to pass out from the pain/impact, probably looked like I was in slapstick comedy
10. Finally with everything in place, lost the last small screw for like ten minutes
11. Bought myself a massive pizza - this is on the list of negatives because I was doing pretty well calorie wise - because of feeling sorry for myself and because the electricity was off (didn't trust the old labels on the circuitry or my cheap voltage tester) so I couldn't cook anything
12. Light in place, Hue bulb in, noticed at the last minute that Phillips Hue dimmer switch holders are not wide enough to cover the gap left by a standard light switch, wth Phillips.

But at least I didn't get zapped.

[Charlie]

Every single flat I look at seems to sell for significantly above the Home Report value (this is a Scottish thing and replaces the stage where in England you need to get a valuation). This means that you need to find the extra money yourself as banks won't lend above HR Value. It's ridiculous. One I looked at had a HR Value of £145k and sold for £193k! This one was an extreme but others  regularly go for 10-20% over Home Report. Basically need to save up another deposit to be in with a chance.

I spoke to a friend who owns an estate agents and he said that HR values are usually 3-6 months behind market rate so that if house prices don't rise too far they will eventually catch up but it's incredibly annoying that the only guideline we have for what something is worth is pretty much useless. 

I'm either going to have to significantly drop the price of what I'm looking at or just accept I'll only be able to get a 95% mortgage to begin with and the rest will go on this.

[bob]

Or, you could not live in Scotland?

Seriously though, what's to stop you getting a mortgage in England to buy a house in Scotland?

[Shorty]

Followed up my electric works installing a Nest thermostat from Prime Day  went much smoother except for the gash I put in my thumb with a pocket knife while stripping flex...

I spent most of yesterday tidying my house and I'll probably spend most of today on it too. Took 2 whole bin bags of stuff to charity! Gradually killing the hoarder within.

[Charlie]

On 21/07/2017 at 2:42 PM, bob said:

Or, you could not live in Scotland?

Seriously though, what's to stop you getting a mortgage in England to buy a house in Scotland?

A bank still won’t lend more money than the valuation of the property. 

[Fierce_LiNk]

1 hour ago, Shorty said:

Followed up my electric works installing a Nest thermostat from Prime Day  went much smoother except for the gash I put in my thumb with a pocket knife while stripping flex...

I spent most of yesterday tidying my house and I'll probably spend most of today on it too. Took 2 whole bin bags of stuff to charity! Gradually killing the hoarder within.

We have a Nest thermostat and two alarms. They're awesome! Our thermostat installation wasn't as plain sailing as yours as it took a succession of plumbers/nest experts to actually get it done. Think there was some sort of complication with our boiler. Works fantastic now though and would highly recommend.

[Aneres11]

So we had Swetenhams estate agent out to take photos and description of our house to list it for sale last Wednesday.  He knows the score and that we need it sold ASAP. 

Still not on their website or RightMove for sale. Going to be kicking some ass tomorrow morning. 

We bought our current house from them and they were shite then too but it's Bellway (the new home suppliers) who requested we sell with them through the easy mover scheme. 

So still waiting. Fingers crossed we get a buyer and can get this new build! 

[bob]

Just because it isn't on their website doesn't mean they won't be telling people about it. Often things only make it onto Rightmove etc. once a load of people have already refused it.

[Charlie]

10 hours ago, Aneres11 said:

So we had Swetenhams estate agent out to take photos and description of our house to list it for sale last Wednesday.  He knows the score and that we need it sold ASAP. 

Still not on their website or RightMove for sale. Going to be kicking some ass tomorrow morning. 

We bought our current house from them and they were shite then too but it's Bellway (the new home suppliers) who requested we sell with them through the easy mover scheme. 

So still waiting. Fingers crossed we get a buyer and can get this new build! 

If they were shite last time whey are you using them again?

[Aneres11]

1 hour ago, Charlie said:

If they were shite last time whey are you using them again?

As I said in my post, we don't get to choose it's Bellway that make the decision who sells it due to easy move scheme. 

 

Edited July 25, 2017 by Aneres11

[Kav]

On 04/07/2017 at 3:35 PM, Kav said:

Solicitors take forever doing anything it seems... constantly having to chase them.

Should be getting confirmation of completion date & the contract pack through this week we've been advised (last week), so far this week we've heard nothing... well, it is only Tuesday, but I want to know damn it! Haha

So, 3 weeks later and we've still not had exchange... although they've finally said today that they can complete 08/08.

Just need them to hurry and exchange so it's set!

Edited July 26, 2017 by Kav

[Aneres11]

House ended up going on the market yesterday. 

Had a call this morning to say someone's coming to view it tomorrow evening. He's an investor looking for property to buy so no chain, which would be perfect. Don't want to get our hopes up but keeping everything crossed. 

Had another viewing today but they didn't show up and then the estate agents called saying they put an offer in on another house so wouldn't be coming. This was after telling us they were coming on three occasions, each one having a different time slot attached to it. Good old swetenhams. 

 

[Raining_again]

On 7/23/2017 at 0:14 PM, Charlie said:

A bank still won’t lend more money than the valuation of the property. 

bit late to the party but yea, i'm pretty sure this is applicable in every country of the UK (it certainly is in northern ireland). 

 

The banks have to be sure that they are not running a risk of losing the money they've given you, in a nutshell

[Aneres11]

So 6 days later... We sold our house. For the full asking price! 

Its all go now! 

[Eenuh]

1 minute ago, Aneres11 said:

So 6 days later... We sold our house. For the full asking price! 

Its all go now! 

Congratulations! I hope the rest of the selling/buying/moving process all runs smoothly for you!

I personally don't want to go through it again anytime soon haha (6 months of waiting just stressed me out too much).

 

I've finally started tackling our massive garden. Well, I had already been doing some things before, mostly cutting down overgrown bushes and weeding (lots of it!). Now I've started digging out some of the plants/bushes (with some help from Jim). I want to start from scratch with the garden, or at least remove as much as is possible. I have some ideas in my head for what I want to do with it, but it's just a case now of saving up the money and possibly finding a gardener for help.

[Aneres11]

Thanks Eenuh!

And tell me about it. I said I didn't want to go through it ever again when we bought our current house but here we are again lol.

Thankfully the couple that bought it are first time buyers so no chain (hooray). They're both just lovely too.  Lady is expecting a baby in January and it's the perfect first little house really. 

We have our mortgage appointment on Wednesday so fingers crossed all goes as we hope and we can celebrate. We've had a mortgage in principle type thing but not an actual offer yet as not been able to go that far until we had sold. 

:-) 

[nightwolf]

2 hours ago, Eenuh said:

Congratulations! I hope the rest of the selling/buying/moving process all runs smoothly for you!

I personally don't want to go through it again anytime soon haha (6 months of waiting just stressed me out too much).

 

I've finally started tackling our massive garden. Well, I had already been doing some things before, mostly cutting down overgrown bushes and weeding (lots of it!). Now I've started digging out some of the plants/bushes (with some help from Jim). I want to start from scratch with the garden, or at least remove as much as is possible. I have some ideas in my head for what I want to do with it, but it's just a case now of saving up the money and possibly finding a gardener for help.

I'd definitely recommend getting on your local Facebook page and see if anyone knows anyone! I rent of course, but I needed some help with our garden, we managed to get recommendations that way and super cheap too

[Kav]

Finally expecting to exchange tomorrow, with completion on Tuesday... bloody hell I hope it goes through ok, it's been a right ball-ache waiting for them!

[dan-likes-trees]

On 23/07/2017 at 0:14 PM, Charlie said:

A bank still won’t lend more money than the valuation of the property. 

I bought in Edinburgh recently and found that the valuation survey by our mortgage lender came out a lot higher than the home buyers report valuation was. So even though we were paying a lot more than the home buyers report suggested the flat was worth, the mortgage lender's valuation was in line with what we were borrowing. Might be worth looking into this as I'm sure we didn't just get super lucky.

 

Speaking of - have been in our new flat for a month now - whole process was utterly seamless! Can't believe what a cash drain getting all the 'essentials' for a liveable house came to tho. Cleared me right out!