Posts tagged ‘diary of a seller’
Sell my home blog: More mortgage hoops to jump through
This is a legacy post from the findaproperty.com blog which is now maintained as an archive within the Zoopla blog. Links have been preserved.
I feel like the last month has been a total whirlwind. Our second offer was accepted on Friday afternoon at 4pm so we are now well on our way.
Monday morning was spent on the phone to my current mortgage lender to persuade them to lend us 8% more than we currently borrow so we can buy a home. After an hour and a half the answer was no. Their reason was that we wouldn’t be able to afford the repayments. These huge repayments were roughly 50% of the money you would pay to rent a one bedroom flat where we currently live and only £100ish more than we currently pay each month.
The second bank I contacted were able to lend us the money although their underwriter has final sign off so fingers crossed for that. It seems that being a second time buyer with a huge deposit does not make it any easier to secure funds. With the new FSA rulings looking to prevent more “risky lending” I feel that I would have been getting no’s from everywhere and not just my current lender. Also watch out for banks not accepting e-payslips or e-statements. They did finally accept these but only after another morning on the phone and in and out of the bank.
We are exhausted and in need of a rest but I received an email today showing a property we love that has come back on the market. We are both mad but may take a peek…..just to be sure it isn’t THE dream house!
Sell my home blog: Making a second offer as the clock ticks
This is a legacy post from the findaproperty.com blog which is now maintained as an archive within the Zoopla blog. Links have been preserved.
With December well and truly started and our buyer eager to move in by March (eeek) the home hunt is on. Having a large search area has let us see a variety of property although the options are a little limited. One agent said he was much busier than normal for the season and January looks set to be a record month. It seems those selling homes have been holding off but are now coming forward in droves.
Last Monday we saw a flat in our price range and made an offer the next day. The husband had originally written it off, but on a second internet search and a Monday night viewing, we were both totally in love. Now, although estate agents are famous for being difficult, we have only experienced good things from the selling side. I think this vendor has a slightly unrealistic view of how much their property is worth but they are also overseas so all communication is taking ages. Our first offer was knocked back, but following a strongly worded email to the agent on Thursday, the vendor is now considering our second offer. Always remember that the agent is working for the vendor and not the buyer.
I was hoping to have the whole buying and selling thing wrapped up by last week but it looks like we are playing the waiting game. I can’t really complain though, as someone said to me the other day: if we manage to secure the property by the end of this week, the whole process of getting our property to market and finding a new home would have taken less than two weeks!!
Sell my home blog: Getting the estate agents round
This is a legacy post from the findaproperty.com blog which is now maintained as an archive within the Zoopla blog. Links have been preserved.
The day has finally arrived, I have three estate agents booked in to come this week. After what seems like a decade of cleaning, we are finally there. I feel that the meet the agent part will be a little bit like blind date as I will be speaking to them quite a bit over the next few months:
Estate Agent number 1: Local firm with four offices. They are very enthusiastic and I have high hopes that they will be swayed to lower the commission rate to sell my home with homemade cake and Earl Grey.
Estate Agent number 2: A national firm that recently flyered the flat and said that they had 19 people are willing to buy the property. They are also sending the sales director so I feel very important. I had a good chat with them about when the property should be marketed and they seemed interested to get moving as soon as possible.
Estate Agent number 3: A small local firm that has 2 offices. I wanted to try and use a more local agent but they didn’t sound very interested which is a shame. Maybe it is the thought of all that extra work just before Christmas, I hope that in the flesh their approach is better.
Fingers crossed that everything goes well. This is a huge step in the right direction and I feel that we are finally progressing. I am now off to the shops to buy half cooked breads so that I can stick them in the oven and make the flat smell delicious.
Sell my home blog: Should we DIY every nook and cranny, asks Hannah
This is a legacy post from the findaproperty.com blog which is now maintained as an archive within the Zoopla blog. Links have been preserved.
People who enjoy DIY either a) own a home built after 1980 b) haven’t done enough or c) are lying.
While the husband is on summer holidays from college he’s been spending his days sanding and painting. For such a small flat you would think this would only take a week, but paint has to dry and sandpaper has to be bought.
Unfortunately he is losing momentum slightly so I have been trying to get him moving a little faster by telling him about the wonderful holiday we’ll go on after we finish (this is a white lie but am sure he will understand). As a result, this weekend I spent my time sanding iron railings and trying to decide if the paint I was sanding off was green because it was meant to be or green because it was lead based. After a quick read of Wikipedia I think it may be the latter. I finally started painting about 6pm on Sunday night and as dusk settled over Stockwell, I was fumbling around in cupboards trying to find white spirit to clean black hammerite of my hands and face.
One of the worrying things about selling a flat at the moment is the pressure on prices. A few months ago we were going to get a couple of estate agents to come and value the property before we finished the bathroom and painted the floor. I think they would have told us to get the work done as the property is very near the stamp duty threshold and anything we can do to stand out from the crowd would help the sale.
Apologies to those reading who thought that the house buying process would be fast. If you are selling for the first time, as we are, there seems to be a mountain of things to consider for your potential buyers – do you let them have an imagination and leave some work to do? Or do you create a lifestyle that they want to buy and DIY every nook and cranny out of the place?
Answers on a postcard please!!
Sell my home blog: The clear out declutter phase is crucial, says Hannah
This is a legacy post from the findaproperty.com blog which is now maintained as an archive within the Zoopla blog. Links have been preserved.
We are edging ever closer to getting the flat ready for sale.
When we bought the flat and started taking down walls, one of my jobs “because I was small” was to get covered in soot and clear the loft of debris. While I didn’t leave any soot up there, I did find myself saving pieces of the original wallpaper and rusty nails (by “hiding” them between floor boards and behind the new shelves we built). I’m hoping for a less emotional journey as we declutter this time.
My husband and I are both obsessed with storage. Last week he started to build a cupboard to hide everything under the stairs – the latest of our storage solutions aimed at packing more and more into smaller and smaller spaces.
Even though we’re lucky enough to have this extra space now the cupboard is built, last weekend we acquired a 50’s French refrigerating cupboard, a 60’s Ercol chair and a nut cracker similar to the below.
What I’ve found is that owning our own home has given us licence to buy tat and hoard rubbish. One thing I know for sure is that charity shops near us are going to have a field day when we finally move!
