another thing, floorplans on rightmove are always in-accurate!! we sit at home thinking about which walls you can knock down but you get to the site and its completely different!

Most of the places we’ve been to see the vendor has done the viewing, but at the weekend we went to an open viewing of a pretty dilapidated place in a prime spot where we want to buy. Too much of a wreck for me to consider,

My perfect purchase! An undefiled virgin property. I’m fed up with being offered “tastefully and sympathetically” updated properties. I was a joiner for 30 years and have the sort of tastes I couldn’t afford if I had to buy them. I’m not going to pay over the odds for someone elses poor taste or DIY experiment. Sadly though, people do…

we sit at home thinking about which walls you can knock down

Not just me then!

it’s worse than decorating

Try meeting the agent on your pub bike, he looked at me like I had dog mess on my face, the scorn was tangible.

Same agent couldn’t fawn enough when I arrived in a white BMW, I don’t even think he clocked I was the same person so closed where his perception blinkers.

I loved viewing houses, but we struggled to find what we wanted, and houses coming up where we wanted to live were hard to find, in the end we had to live without a couple of things, parking being one, but that’s an issue for another thread!

If we hadn’t of took this house we would of ended up with a flat, I did things a bit odd, we could of had a mortgage of £200k but I refused to borrow that sort of money so we got a house at £128k it was trying to work within the budget and proximity to the OH work as she walks to work.

We viewed using Purple Bricks they tend to allow viewings anytime as he seller set these up, we viewed our current house at 8am, 8pm and dinner time before we finally decided, not on the same day lol!

We’re feeling frustrated, tired and grumpy with house hunting and viewing too.

We saw a house we liked in a different area pretty early on in our search. We decided that was it and we sold our house within a few days. Second thoughts kicked in and we decided we couldn’t leave the area we live in so we pulled our of the purchase, but our morals got the better of us and we honoured the sale of our home. We had been mortgage-free and ended up getting a rental, at nearly a grand a month!

Now finding the right house is proving very very hard. The levels of interest in the ones we like is insane; one in particular (I spoke to someone who knows the agent) had 106 viewings and 10 offers! Another, last week, went for more than our offer of £47k over the ‘offers over’ price (£12k over the home report price).

Not sure if I want to go into all the details, but we’ve an offer accepted on one now, but again, doubts are gnawing at us as it’s not in one of the prime school spots we’re really after and the sellers haven’t got a house to move to yet so who knows how long it might take.

And there’s one we went to view at the weekend that had probably a dozen different families viewing at the same time! Needs a lot of work but is definitely on the list and we’re waiting for updates. Not cheap though…

So we’re sitting here paying a fortune and feeling time pressures when we should have really been smarter, waited for something we weren’t going to have doubts about, and remained mortgage/rent-free for the interim period of time. BUT, you can’t change the past, and being in a rent may work in our favour if we end up offering very close to someone else who isn’t ready to move.

We’ve done 37 viewings since January and really have had enough of them. One thing it certainly does is teach you what you DON’T want in a house!

Not just down here then GlasgowDan.

I have spent the evening designing flyers to homeowners, going door to door at the weekend…

Glasgowdan – almost the same as us except we have been living bill and rent free with friends for 9 months. Finally got a house which needs work but I am really hoping it goes through ok. I don’t think it’s been as mental round here as you have described it where you are but it’s certainly brisk trade at the moment and the sellers hold all the cards.

I did around 60 flyers but silence. A friend of a client is putting theirs up and my client mentioned me looking but she wanted it on the open market rather than selling direct. Agents are telling sellers exactly what to do, and because most sellers around here are old people they’re doing it!

Personally, I’d pay more if a seller wanted to negotiate than a closing date final offer.

Same round here to be honest, we’re stuck in the endless loop at the moment where we want to move, but the properties we are looking at are pretty scarse, so we are a bit reluctant to put ours up for sale until something comes to market we want to buy. I don’t really want to put ours up & mess the buyers about when we have nowhere to go to yet, but for us, there just isn’t really anything to buy

but our morals got the better of us and we honoured the sale of our home. We had been mortgage-free and ended up getting a rental, at nearly a grand a month!

Expensive morals! But fair play to you.
I quite enjoy looking at property, spotting potential and layout alterations that others completely miss. You’re all correct though there’s lots of ‘middling’ property on the market, I put it down to the sellers being absolutely maxed out financially with no money spare for improvements or even basic maintenance a lot of the time.

mitsumonkey – Member
but our morals got the better of us and we honoured the sale of our home. We had been mortgage-free and ended up getting a rental, at nearly a grand a month!

Expensive morals! But fair play to you.

If they were a young professional couple then it would have been different, but they had 2 young girls and had moved in with relatives miles away for a few weeks until conclusion so there’s no way we’d have wanted to upset them. Kids need to feel at home more than anyone I think. Our wee boy’s too young to care, as long as his mum and dad are around he’ll be grinning and enjoying every second of life as always!