Help calm me. House buying and selling stress *Part 10*

Yesterday one of my g.children moved into their own flat (rented not purhased). They were 18 years of age just a couple of weeks ago, in full=time employment and have been waiting - impatiently - to reach that 18th birthday so they could sign contracts, etc.

Nice little one-bedroom flat just around the corbner to their parents house. Six month contract, so will be interesting to see if they continue when this comes to an end. They have been told in detail as to the extra costs having this little flat will involve them in, utility bills , council tax, food etc. etc. but have so wanted their OWN place.

It is unfurnished and has been completely re-done, new carpets, all freshly decorated, etc. Rent is quite reasonable. All the furniture they have comes from her parents and my lovely little microwave that I had in my house and has spent the last three years in my garage awaiting a g.child to need it, has now been happily re-homed.

I did give them some cash for a home warming pressie, but also went round there whilst she mwas moving in with a bag full of cleaning magterials, none of which they had thought of purchasing.

No room in the tiny kitchen for a washing machine, so they will take that back home, weekly, probablya lso staying for ameal there once a week. I managed to find them a good quality second hand under-the-counter fridge, the old fashioned type that has a small freezer at the top inside. Their Dad is still trying to source a free-standing electric cooker. Curtains need to go up on the large bay window in their living room and the smaller one at theback in their bedroom. And, of course, they need to get themselves a good vacuum cleaner, particlularly as they do suffer from very bad ecxma with skin shredding involved. As the little bathroom only has a shower alongside the loo and wash hand basin, they will also need to go back to parents house weekly for a long soak in bath with their medication.

Very exciting, their two older siblings are both at University - so parents left with just one child (13 years old) at home. They have now put their five bedroomed house on the market.

Gave me nostalgic memories of moving into our first house the day after we got married. We had loads of nice things -presents from our engagement party and wedding= but we had to go shopping for basics like brooms, washing-up bowl, biscuit tin. etc. etc.

I am reaping the benefits of buying a house with a stove, I upgraded the stove to defra standard and multi fuel. The ch has been off for several days by choice and if I felt cool in the evening, I lit my stove, which has an eco fan on top. Only one full fill and that was enough to warm my whole house, the fan sends heat into the kitchen/diner and hall and it rises to upstairs and even my bedroom temperature rises until I close that door

Only this year have I appreciated it so much as I am saving and not spending, if possible. I have ordered over 1 cu m of local seasoned hardwood logs, to store for the next three winters and I have enough additional different fuels depending on slow, moderate or hot burn. It took me all this time to get to know my stove, how to stop smoke coming out, top down lighting, keeping the glass clear just via the burn temperature etc

Highly recommended when house hunting or renovating, depends of course on storage provision, fitness etc

Nothing else, everything is good

Just wondered how the movers were getting on selling and buying?

Hello whiff. The sellers will want to sell quickly and buyers could well pull out, now that house prices have started to fall. I am glad I am not in either camp right now. I can only imagine the worry

I am starting to reap the benefits of living local to groups etc. I walked to u3a the other day, walked to a very good chiropodist today and then came home and walked to a really interesting group talk. I am going to join that group. Definitely not twinset and pearls and very chatty and nice and also linked to visits to interesting places.

It seems that people are emerging in droves, after lockdown

AfterLockdown!!!!! That ended long, long ago. All the groups I go to on vifrtually every day of the week have been operating now for something like 18 months.

One of the things I love living in the centre of a small town is how everything is in such easy reach for me. Using my mobility scooter, all groups are reached in 10-15 minutes. This is one of the reasons I got rid of my car 18 months back.

I had a great time in Telford last weekend at the English Gymnastic Championships. My daughter (from WsM) drove me there and we stayed in a very pleasant hotel together, which had a nice swimming pool, etc. She swam in it and I splashed about (have not been in a swimming pool for something five years), I discovered I had 'forgotten' how to swim!!!!

One of the flats here is now under offer so I am busy with Solicitors. Hope it all goes through quickly, much nicer when all flats are occupied than having empty ones.

Definitely been a slow down in the buying/selling market. The continuing rise in interest rates on mortgages are obviously effecting many at the bottom (and even middle) of those chains. People coming to these flat are mainly down-sizing and rarely need mortgages BUT they usually come from large houses and their buyers usually DO need those. So it is a problem for all.

There's so little in the way of good properties on the market at the moment that I think people are reluctant to put their own on in case they have nowhere to go.

I have been watching the local property market and done some calcs. Those that have been reduced have done so by around 6% and only since the news that property prices are falling

Rightmove have over 50% of properties in my area sstc but most are from last autumn. They keep those stats on RM to make it appear as though they are busy estate agents

we did have signs of property prices falling, or would be falling, from december to january

If reducing prices, best not to do so in drips and drabs, otherwise buyers will think there is something wrong with the property. Sometimes it is best to come off the market completely and then re-list after some months

We're still moving but our buyers are procrastinating. Their buyer is pushing for an exchange asap, as are we. Frustrating! But just what we expected really. We have decluttered our house completely, it's very cathartic.

Jackaranda I do feel for you. Any idea WHY your buyers seem to trying to delay things? Try to get your Solicitor to get an agreed date for Completion.

With regard to falling prices, do wonder how real this is. Okay, the only ones I can know definitely are where I live. Two flats on the market in this block, As soon as they were put on by the EA, I said they were overpriced. One, similar to mine, was up for more than a third higher than I paid three years back!!! That is a daft amount extra. So, they had to lower it, even then to a price that is more than 25% up on the price I paid. It is now Under Offer. The second one, had the problem of not having a garage, and even that was put on the market at 25% higher price than I paid (mine does have a garage),. Has not yet sold, and I said straight away it is too expensive. They will need to lower it, and even then I expect it to sell at more than the price I paid. So, a lot of 'lower' prices is virtually an illusion. Lower than WHEN?????

WsM is 'cheap' when compared with many other places. One of the reasons I was able to afford such a very lovely, big flat with only the price of half a house when I moved here.

My daughter here has their family house on the market at present. She is pragmatic about it, but her hubbie cannot really understand the property market at present. Keeps going off and viewing flats (this is what they wish to make their move to), and she keeps having to tell him that until they get an offer, there i no point in looking at the next stage. Theirs is the sort of family house that is particularly difficult to sell at present due to mortgage rates frightening off people.

Good Luck to all in this horrible process.

I was on this site some months ago when my son had been looking for a property for two years. Last March he bought a bungalow. Thank goodness for that.
Prices in this area of North Devon are not coming down, particularly bungalows and some are in a not very good state but still going for well over £300,000..
(I do realise prices of relative to the area of the country you live in)

I am close to n devon. I think prices were over-inflated due to the surge in property demand, people wanting to be out of cities during covid. Sellers are remembering those prices and are being mis-guided by some estate agents, hence the 6% drop that I see now. Best always to be realistic, which can garner a quicker sale

It certainly is a horrible time for buyers and sellers right now, extra stress on top of the usual buying/selling/moving stress

Yes, Devon went bonkers pricewise, as did Norfolk and Suffolk during covid. At the school I sometimes teach at in London we lost a dozen or so affluent families because they found working at home easy at a distance, and they wanted their children out of the capital. They were willing to pay top prices and more, often in sealed bids. Both my son and daughter bought here in lockdowns and one recently had their property revalued at 10% more (having done some work on it).
There's hardly anything on the narket at the moment, but bungalows in our part are fetching £7 - £800,000 because they will always be sought after by retirees.

Jackaranda I think firm dates need to be discussed to get your buyers moving. Some people think they have all the time in the world!

Thank you! Yesterday our solicitor emailed our buyer's solicitor to give a nudge. We are harassing nudging our estate agent to speed up our buyers.
They may not be deliberately delaying, just not active with chasing/responding/keeping other parties up to date etc. It has taken them a year to find the right house apparently, just local to their family.
I am ensuring we get every conversation logged by email so I can refer back if necessary.
Hopefully this next week will see our buyer's surveyor visit and the enquiries come back from their solicitor. If not, we will have to ask our own solicitor to set a time limit.

I would have thought that your buyers surveyor would have been much earlier in the process. Perhaps your EA has a dedicated legal person who can help hurry the process, mine helped tremendously.

The upside is that the surveyor will be costing the buyer money, so they are less likely to pull out

Such a tense time

Thank you karmalady - I will keep pushing! It will be so very worth it. I'm sure we'll look back in 6 months and forget all the worry and sleepless nights, as someone mentioned on this thread a while back!

Ask your solicitor to phone the buyers’ solicitor, not just email. It is, I assure you, much more effective. You get a more accurate impression from what someone says than what they take time to compose and send. And you can interrogate better if necessary.

That's good advice GSM Thank you, I will ask her.

My new sink unit arrived yesterday and the front corners were quite bent. Poorly packed franke. Very frustrating, I waited over a month for it to arrive, the plumber will be here soon too

I kept the packaging and the broken bits of polystyrene and laid the unit on my dining table,I don`t want to wait another month. I decided to try and fix, was very careful, using two wooden blocks and a cloth, rubber mallet and cork. Bit by bit the corners are flattened, apart from one tiny curve (because one surface stretches when metal is bent). There are no marks and it now looks fine and is flat apart from that tiny little hump. I could have sent it back but do not want to wait and anyway the replacement would likely be as badly packed, it looks as though it is the original franke packing

I asked the young tap fitter if that size would fit and he said yes, I double checked the measurements and they seem fine with 5 extra mm on each side. I am a bit nervous, this is what happens when there is no dh to take over responsibility for type and measurements

It is a nice sink,one and a half bowls made from rigid, thicker stainless steel. None of this stuff is cheap and this is the one and only thing I am doing to improve my kitchen. My present sink is only held down by one clip and is flimsy and obviously cheap. Yet another thing I would check on buying a new build

Some purchasers use their Surveyors report as a way to try to pressurise the seller to lower the agreed price. So, Jackaranda beware of this tactic. However, as you say your buyers have taken so long to find the 'right property' for themselves, they are not going to want to lose it.

As I (as Secretary of our Management Company), always feel very much that once a flat is under offer I need to ensure that I am not causing any delays, I reply to ALL solicitors queries within 48 hours. Imagine this is quite a shock to some of these 'professional' companies!!! I was (pleasantly) surprised yesterday (Saturday), that an email I sent to the current vendors solicitors with a whole lot of information was replied to immediately (I was not expecting any reply until Monday at the earliest).

I am quite proud of myself as in the past all these documents had been sent to vendor solicitors by land mail, taking time, and costing us money for a lot of photocopying and postage. I have now managed to get everything onto my laptop (learned how to scan in large documents), and can now send everything electronically.

On the subject of kitchen sinks, I have had a one and half bowl sinks for a very long time, cannot imagine going back to
a single sink again. I decided to have a black one when kitchen done last year. It looks beautiful, but I was slightly cocnerned as to maintenance (no bleach to be used), but have found it verysimple, just keeping it as dry as possible when not in use for a time (like overnight), and mineral oil on it ever few weeks.

Thank you for the reminder Franbern - we accepted a realistic offer on our house originally, bearing in mind it is a 1930s build and may have a few issues show up on a surveyors report. We think it is fairly priced. We don't feel inclined to consider any reduction in offers unless something really dire crops up, fingers crossed that doesn't happen!

Well done fixing the damaged sink karmalady. I agree that a sink plus a half sink is the best solution. At our previous house we had two large sinks, and a drainer, I've no idea why as there was also a large sink in the utility room too? I used it exclusively for washing up dog and cat bowls.

Thought I would 'bump up' my favourite thread. Just wondering how people are doing. Is new kitchen all installed and underway now?, any news from people trying to move home?
I had a very nice weekend away. My daughter who lives in WsM was given a token for a jewellery making day for her 50th birthday - which she booked on Southampton so she could combine it with a visit to her eldest who at Uni there..

So she suggested I might like to join her to make a weekend away. We could use the Saturday to go to Salisbury, where I had never been previously. Had wonderful day there, Cathedral is brilliant and guided tour was excellent and, at the end, we could view one of the four remaining original Magna Carta's.

That evening we met up with her son and their 'friend' for a very nice Greek meal. Stayed the night in a Premier Inn and whilst she was at the course I was collected by some old time friends for the day. Lovely day, these are both younger than my own children, gymnasts then coaches who I have known from their childhoods. Their children were there and we sill have so much in common to chat and laugh about.

Pretty tired today, but it was so worthwhile. No idea if I will actually ever be able to see them again.

A friend here has just put her house on the market, she really wants to buy of the flats where I live, but of course until she gets an offer cannot do anything. The market seems almost at a standstill here as younger people are so concerned about interest rates and mortgage costs.
'

That sounds a really lovely weekend Franbern
Salisbury is a beautiful city and well worth a visit. Happy memories for you.
Our house sale is chugging along, we are chasing and chasing for an exchange and have put forward a completion date for 4 weeks time.
We now realise our buyers' (online) solicitors are the hold up. If we don't nudge our estate agent to nudge our buyers to nudge their solicitors nothing progresses....
Our new build is progressing and all being well we will be in by June.
We will have a gap between houses of about 4/6 weeks so all our belongings will go into storage and we will have a slow meander north.