House Sale & Move, 2nd attempt!

Home & DIY Home & DIY: Chat / Discussions
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Bit of news on our house move; we’d given up hoping a 2-bed will come up because there’s been sod-all for weeks and our buyer’s getting nervous so we decided to look at the 3-bed houses despite the fact that we want to down-size.

We have a good, firm offer of £213,000 and now we have a house to view tomorrow about a mile away in quite a nice area.

Yes it is a 3-bed but it’s about 35 years younger than his house, it has a conservatory which my wife’s very keen on, it has a small garden and - an added bonus - it has a garage attached!:038:

This house it is quite compact and it is end-of-terrace instead of semi like this one so we are hoping it’ll be easier on the wallet keeping warm etc. although we will have to pay more Council Tax as this house is Band B and we are assuming that the house we are viewing tomorrow is C - bit of a worry there for my retirement next year.:confused:

Bit concerned that only 2 of 3 bedrooms have been shown in the photos and not the bathroom either. :017:

It’s at the top of what we can afford too so it has to be right as we won’t have anything left over as the fees / costs will be more so we are a bit apprehensive. We have decided to make an offer despite the fact that it’s been reduced already - must be some reason it’s not sold! stevmk2

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Good luck with the viewing, stevmk2.

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Mixed feelings about the house we’ve been to see.

As I suspected, it’s a rather small 3-bed house but that wasn’t the main negative - for both of us.

This house has three adults, a cat plus something else living there.

The other thing’s an entity, spirit, ghost or whatever you wish to call it and it’s obvious to me that the lady of the house knows full well it’s there because I saw her look in one direction where I felt something was there.

The “man of the house” gave me a peculiar smile - as if he knew me but I have never met him before.

He has a presence that I cannot explain but I felt uncomfortable and it’s something to do with this other “thing”.

I couldn’t wait to get out of this house but my wife was in tears outside but she just didn’t know why.

“There’s something oppressively wrong in there” she said, so that’s a write off.

The agent felt it too - we could tell she was glad to get out of this house too.

Got another one to see Saturday but we have a feeling this was a rental but being dressed as a family home to sell.

We will see. stevmk2

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Good luck with future viewings, Steve …

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Spooky…:shock:

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Give it a wide berth Steve. Listen to your instincts.

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I do Mups.

Often I curse this “gift” that I have but something just wasn’t right about that house.

Our present home on the other hand also has “something” living here with us but it’s benign and everyone says it’s a warm, welcoming house because that’s exactly what it is!

The house seems to care about us - daft I know but that’s how we feel!

Beginning to wonder why we are looking elsewhere now…stevmk2

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Sounds like maybe you ought to stay after all?
You could re-decorate and change things around, use different colours etc, so it looks a bit different, but you won’t have the stress and expense of moving. :slight_smile:

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Our initial reasons to move were as follows Mups: -

  1. We have a heating system dependent on a 42-year-old Back Boiler and just 5 radiators.
    (It’s not just the boiler that needs replacing either!)

  2. We have 2 bedrooms we do not need.

  3. This house is 1926-built so no cavity walls.

  4. The garden’s getting too much for us, physically and financially, (expensive tree surgeons!).

  5. Our income will drop when I retire next year yet costs will continue to increase, probably stretching our income to the limit.

Despite all of that, we love this house so leaving it, or just the thought of leaving is actually painful yet we know that this house is a family house so should really be the happy home of a family, not two people of our age with an increasing number of health problems that really should be in a more modern home.

That’s the conformist bit out of the way so I’d just like to say we would love to stay here - truly - but we can’t.

It’ll get too much for us Mups, no matter how much we love it. stevmk2

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Rather odd development.

Our neighbours across the road brought a load of pallets and I was helping off-load them and taking them around the back to the garden a little while ago and for some reason and Tim, (Tymoteusz!) asked me about our house sale.

I told him we had sold but couldn’t find another home to suit us.

He asked that if our sale fell through we would let him know so I told him we couldn’t accept any less for our house but he said he understood that but he could find buyers within his local community easily!

I said I’d let him know - d’you think that’s for the best?

He’s a good neighbour and they’re a nice family group and we’ve known each other 5 years now. stevmk2

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It’s all a risky business Steve, sorry but i wouldn’t trust them not unless you were definitely sure about them, but me i would smell a rat? i don’t trust people anymore in the house buying market, ours is up for sale and the people that i’ve had come through the door are unbelievable, one foreign gentlemen tried to pay cash for a quick sale, but never said how much for? I guess 30 grand less i bet!! I’ve had the same FTB’s couple come back 3 times because they love the house, and can’t make their minds up? although they put an offer of 10 grand less which to me it’s a bloody cheek. I just won’t accept that.

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It’s hard for me to say without knowing the chap Steve. Do you feel you can trust him?
I think I would only consider taking him up on it as a last resort, but make sure they don’t expect it cheaper for ‘doing you a favour’. I think I’d sooner continue down the normal route if possible.

I think buying/selling will slow down now because no one wants to be in upheaval over christmas, but I’m sure it’ll pick up much better in the new year.

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I told him the price it had gone on the market for Mups but I also told him that if our buyer does pull out we will put it back on the market in the Spring and we may bump it up a little; he said that was very fair so you never know.

We have been to see another house this morning - very, very nice place but the viewer just leaving as we arrived, 10 minutes before us, told the agent he’s prepared to pay a lot more than we can afford and the agent told us the seller wants to make as much as she can from this house.

Not much point in our trying but we said what we’d offer - no chance he said!

Of 11 viewers booked today for this house, 7 are buy-to-let! stevmk2

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Hmm, that one don’t sound right then, so I guess it’s back to the drawing board. Try not to worry, the ideal place will come along for you in time.

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Another house viewing yesterday.

2-bed house in the area that we like and prefer in fairly good condition, although there were a number of things I was concerned about.

Rooms a nice size and decorating OK-ish - not quite our taste but we could learn to live with it with a few tweaks.

The only problem is that the vendor has put this on for £239,995!

Could not believe that asking price for an ex-Council house which actually does need updating in terms of the electrics at the very least and the roof’s green with moss so insulation is piss-poor.

EPC said D with a possibility to achieve a C but I think that’s a bit optimistic and typically skewed IMHO as this house has cavity walls.

Ours doesn’t and got lots of tut-tut-tuts from the EPC assessor who said it’s an E because of the lack of cavity walls AND it’s got a nasty, hideously inefficient Back Boiler!

Our fuel bill for the past full year was £838 on a Dual Fuel Tariff with OVO; well BELOW average for the average 3-bed!

Told him and he shut up after that!

We have offered our top whack but I’m regretting that now because it’ll leave nothing left from the sale of this house and I wanted to hold back some to do things that might have cropped up - and this house does need some TLC.

My fault really as my wife fell for this house and I feel so guilty we’ve not found anywhere yet so didn’t point out the things wrong!

As it is now 14:00 on Saturday we assume our offer didn’t get anywhere but even the agent’s annoyed that these people have insisted on £20,000 more than the place is really worth and we have given a good offer.

There is another one similar nearby that’s asking £235.000 but it’s a rental with a sitting tenant!

The next nearest was sold for £193,000 in May and to be honest it wasn’t that much lower in standard and it did have a moss-free rough!

Oh well.

At least the standard of house we are seeing is getting better but finding anything where we want to be is proving much harder than we expected. stevmk2

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Steve we been looking at houses for ages and never find one we like but what with being overseas such a lot we always seem to miss out .
Added to that my indecision and lack of motivation !
Hope you find a nice place soon :slight_smile:

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Took us 6 years to sell the kennels and bungalow in the West Midlands. Seems no one wants 2 acres of land and a business on the property.

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An eventful afternoon - and more than a little annoying!

The owner of the house that we went to see has had just one offer - ours - and he went back to the agent saying he might accept £215,000!

We have offered £213,000 tops as it’s what was the agreed price with our buyer BUT that’s still subject to contract.

Her surveyor came this week so we have yet to find out if the accepted offer for our house still stands, although my wife says the surveyor wasn’t negative about our valuation.

It turns out that the vendor of the house we went to see has made an offer on another house of £230,000 and added £10,000 on top for “expenses” and then told the agent he wanted £240,000 for the property because he thought that’s what you did!

Unbelievable.

We have reaffirmed to the agent that we will go no higher than £213,000 and that’s still dependent on our buyer and subject to any survey that we instigate.

We will NOT over-stretch our position no matter how much we would like that house as we are no longer financially secure in as much as we could get extra finance!

What you see is what you get! stevmk2

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Well we got a refusal as we more or less expected so that’s that. stevmk2

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Hi Steve what a trama this all is .
Just got a call today from a house agent on one property which we were interested but someone else bought .
Now they have changed their mind so do we want it?
The fact is having resigned myself to not getting it I am no longer sure I do want it ! It’s fairly isolated which worries me.
Meanwhile the house we did really want has declined our above
Asking for price because they hadn’t seen anywhere they like ( they say) I think it’s because they want to ramp the price up.