James Casey Posted March 3, 2011 Share Posted March 3, 2011 After almost six years in our current flat - and fifteen months on the market - we're finally moving on (fingers cross the sale goes through). It's time to get a grown-up place to live - if only because our little girl needs a garden we can banish her to for a bit of peace and quiet... On Saturday my wife and I spent the day looking for suitable properties in our area. I was relatively selective and had to look through over 300 3+ bed houses. My wife was less selective and had to look through over a 1,000 Anyway, this coming week we'll be looking around our shortlisted properties. There's a wide mix of new-build and older houses, two and three-storey, detached, semi-detached and terraced, large gardens and small, urban, suburban, rural... A bit of everything, basically. If anyone has any stories I may need to hear, tips on what we need to watch out for, what the pitfalls of the buying (and selling) process can be, and especially tips on haggling over the price, I'd love to hear them. Buying our flat was easy - this seems a bit more daunting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bigpapa42 Posted March 3, 2011 Share Posted March 3, 2011 I bought my place 3-4 years ago. I can relate the story and what I had to look for, go through, etc... but I don't know that the concerns of the market here in Saskatchewan would match up to your search over there... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brashleyholland Posted March 3, 2011 Share Posted March 3, 2011 After almost six years in our current flat - and fifteen months on the market - we're finally moving on (fingers cross the sale goes through). It's time to get a grown-up place to live - if only because our little girl needs a garden we can banish her to for a bit of peace and quiet... On Saturday my wife and I spent the day looking for suitable properties in our area. I was relatively selective and had to look through over 300 3+ bed houses. My wife was less selective and had to look through over a 1,000 Anyway, this coming week we'll be looking around our shortlisted properties. There's a wide mix of new-build and older houses, two and three-storey, detached, semi-detached and terraced, large gardens and small, urban, suburban, rural... A bit of everything, basically. If anyone has any stories I may need to hear, tips on what we need to watch out for, what the pitfalls of the buying (and selling) process can be, and especially tips on haggling over the price, I'd love to hear them. Buying our flat was easy - this seems a bit more daunting. Two words - Property Auctions. Mate of mine just dropped £129,000 on a three storey (four counting the massive basement which has been converted into a gym), five bedroom semi in Halifax (near Leeds). Obviously the further south you go, things aren't that cheep, but now is a great time to snap up a bargain at auction. Set yourself a limit and if you miss out on something that you really like, ask the auction house for the seller's details anyway, as often it's not met the reserve or the buyer will drop out. This can leave the seller in a fix and you could step in with a lower offer. My mates place originally went for £140,000, but there was a £142k reserve and the winning bidder couldn't make it. The auction house contacted my pal a couple of days later and said that the seller was desperate (bad move) and would take £135k. He started off at £119k and they met at 129. Definitely worth looking into. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juggaloninjalee Posted March 3, 2011 Share Posted March 3, 2011 My girlfriend and I are house hunting currently. Found some nice ones here in Michigan for around $50,000 with an acre of land, 3 bedrooms, garage, and 1.5 bathrooms. Square footage between 1,100-2,600. We are excited to get one hopefully soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Imarevenant Posted March 3, 2011 Share Posted March 3, 2011 My girlfriend and I are house hunting currently. Found some nice ones here in Michigan for around $50,000 with an acre of land, 3 bedrooms, garage, and 1.5 bathrooms. Square footage between 1,100-2,600. We are excited to get one hopefully soon. And my family keeps asking me why I'm planning on moving out of CA next year. I bought my house for 530K. 3 Bed/2 Bath; 1400 square feet. Nowhere near an acre of land. Now worth 300K.....maybe; lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juggaloninjalee Posted March 3, 2011 Share Posted March 3, 2011 And my family keeps asking me why I'm planning on moving out of CA next year. I bought my house for 530K. 3 Bed/2 Bath; 1400 square feet. Nowhere near an acre of land. Now worth 300K.....maybe; lol. Yeah, most of the houses in the area are actually about double for the same type of house. Just depends on the city and how far out you are willing to move. I'm willing to commute 30 minutes to and from work though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emark Posted March 3, 2011 Share Posted March 3, 2011 JC, You and your wife may go to see a house that you both fall in love with at first sight and decide that is the house for you. That happened to my wife and I when we purchased our home and we made sure we could #1 afford the mortgage payments and #2 get a very good home inspector. The inspector can worth their weight in gold if they find everything wrong with the house before you finalize the deal. That alone will save you a lot grief and sleepless nights. Once we knew what we had, the sellers and us made equitable concessions and I'm happy to say we are still in our home today and extremely happy. It all boils down to what style of home you and your wife feel the most comfortable in when you see it in person. Best of luck! -Eric Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bigpapa42 Posted March 3, 2011 Share Posted March 3, 2011 Falling in love with a place can be awesome. It can also be dangerous. Especially if its a seller's market, where that can lure you into paying well over the odds for a place. Or overlooking negatives that your home inspector notes. Or ignoring your actual needs for wants. Basically, if you do fall in love with a place, be smart about it. Completely agree about the home inspector. You want to know what you're getting into and be realistic about what you can and want to do after the purchase. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Casey Posted March 3, 2011 Author Share Posted March 3, 2011 A full survey of any house we buy is a must - most, if not all, mortgages require it. In a way I'm a bit annoyed about how this has all played out because, despite saying that we wouldn't look for houses until we had a bid, I was keeping an eye on what was on the market. One house (four bed + downstairs playroom + conservatory + large garden) seemed perfect - but the sellers accepted a bid on it the day before we accepted the bid on ours. Evidently it wasn't meant to be, but that was just harsh. Still, it means we'll look at the dozen or so places we have booked over the coming week without bias - the 'perfect' house is off the market and I'm sure it had its issues anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BurningHamster Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 I live in a van. That is all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BHK1978 Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 I live in a van. That is all. Is it down by the river? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genadi Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 Some advice that helped me secure a great buy on my house. * Find a reliable real estate agent and build a strong relationship asap. * Be ready to buy, have approvals and all the other things needed done so when/if a property becomes available you can snap it up straight away. I can't stress how important this is. I saved roughly 80k on my house because I was all approved ready to go. My agent called me about a house that had to be sold asap (divorced couple in a rush to settle). I saw the house that day, surveyed and inspected (termites etc) the next day and signed the day after that. I bought for 300k and had the house valued a month after moving in at 380k. * If it's your first property start small, look for the worst house on the best street. Not sure how the market is in the UK but here location is everything. Not only that but if your plan is to invest and buy another one day a low mortgage on your first property will help alot. My accountant has made it clear to me that I'll prob never pay off my first house, it will be used as equity to buy more. * Don't be afraid to wait. So many people told me there was no way I'd find a house for the price I wanted in the area I wanted (where I grew up). I waited and was patient and out of nowhere one day I got the call (agent relationship helped). the 'perfect' house is off the market and I'm sure it had its issues anyway. * Another one will pop up I'd bet on it! Hopefully you're all ready to go when it does. Good luck mate!!! Hope that helps some Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Casey Posted March 4, 2011 Author Share Posted March 4, 2011 Our estate agent seems decent, actually. The first bid we had was on the low end of what we considered acceptable, but after so long on the market we just wanted to get rolling so we accepted. Our guy went back to the buyer off his own back and managed to talk him into pushing the offer up a bit, so that was great news - it all helps Thanks for all the comments so far, guys. We're looking for a place that, ideally, will see us through until we're back to being just the two of us again, so it's important to find the right place. We're trying to pick somewhere in a reasonable budget so we have money to maintain it over the years - mortgage stress isn't something I want. That said, I don't have the patience for major building works so about my only immovable criteria is that it needs to be in decent condition from day one. Redecorating is a necessary evil, dampproofing after six months less so Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juggaloninjalee Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 Our estate agent seems decent, actually. The first bid we had was on the low end of what we considered acceptable, but after so long on the market we just wanted to get rolling so we accepted. Our guy went back to the buyer off his own back and managed to talk him into pushing the offer up a bit, so that was great news - it all helps Thanks for all the comments so far, guys. We're looking for a place that, ideally, will see us through until we're back to being just the two of us again, so it's important to find the right place. We're trying to pick somewhere in a reasonable budget so we have money to maintain it over the years - mortgage stress isn't something I want. That said, I don't have the patience for major building works so about my only immovable criteria is that it needs to be in decent condition from day one. Redecorating is a necessary evil, dampproofing after six months less so We are kinda in this boat. I want to lean towards the cheap end though since I don't mind fixing up the house. My gf has needs like a big NICE kitchen, and at least 3 bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms. My logic is we can save up a lot for OUR PERFECT house if we buy cheap now. Settle her student loans and such and once we have a chunk of money saved we build our own house where we want it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eayragt Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 Don't got too excited about any one house... even if you have an offer accepted. Also try and rate houses on the complete package - you'll always see places with better kitchens / bathrooms / living rooms / gardens, butnever in the same (affordable) package. When we bought our house our offer was accepted, then the current owners went away to sort out buying a bungalow, delayed us with some bs about planning (well, partial bs because it was true but I eventually found out that they overcame this obstacle quickly but never told us), and then eventually came back to us to ask for another £5k... which we politely declined, and withdrew our offer. Two months later their estate agent rings us up to ask us if we're still interested, and it all eventually went through. I wish I'd knocked £5k off our offer then, but hey. Had to strip wallpaper from the entire house (revealing orange (!?!) paint under some of it), but although time consuming that's dirt cheap decorating. Just make sure you can get your living room up to a living standard within a couple of weeks. It's a buyers market out there, but be prepared for long and very slow chains, liable to break down at any moment. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BurningHamster Posted March 5, 2011 Share Posted March 5, 2011 Is it down by the river? Most of the time, but it looks like the kind of van that a paedophile would drive so I try to make at least one lap of the local school a day just to keep people on their toes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZMAN Posted March 5, 2011 Share Posted March 5, 2011 Are you guys looking online for these places, or know of a good website? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Casey Posted March 9, 2011 Author Share Posted March 9, 2011 Rightmove.co.uk is the site to use in the UK. It's far and away the most popular house site, and even though our property is/was listed on various other sites, rightmove was the only one the estate agent talked about when we signed with them. We've looked around the first five (of fifteen) of our initial shortlist. Two were too small, one needed way too much work doing to it, and one had no garden to speak of, so we have one that's survived to the next round so far. We're doing eight or nine more tomorrow, and one or two on Thursday, and hopefully by the weekend we'll have made an offer. We were expecting to see another one tomorrow, but just as it struck us as being too good a deal to be true, so it apparently seems to have taken someone else the same way - it sold yesterday Hey-ho. A few things we're looking at in terms of the non room size/cracks in walls criteria, would be interested if anyone thinks we need to add anything: School proximity/quality, utility costs, potential for extensions, on/off street parking, Sky/cable availability, and crime figures. Also, for people who've bought before, how did you go about working out what your first offer would be? What did you take into account (apart from what you could afford, obviously:p)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Casey Posted March 10, 2011 Author Share Posted March 10, 2011 Well, having looked around about a dozen properties over three days, had three sold in between us seeing them online and seeing them in the flesh and another one taken off the market between us booking our viewing and arriving for it... ...we've had an offer accepted on a house! We saw a great house yesterday - four bedrooms, lounge, kitchen diner and two bathrooms across three floors. Mrs C and I both like that kind of townhouse property, and we were all set to offer on it then and there, but decided to sleep on it. When we got home we looked up online to see if any others of that type were available in the area. Amazingly, there was an identical property less than five minutes away, so we went back to the original house today to take measurements, and then popped over to the second one straight after to compare. Long story short, the second house is newer, in better condition and quite a bit cheaper. We made our offer, haggled a little, and settled on a price. Now all we need is for the surveys to come back clean on our flat and the house, and as it's a short chain we could be moving in just a couple of months. Not quite how I imagined spending this week, but it's fantastic it coincided with us being on leave - how people manage trying to fit househunting around work I don't know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bigpapa42 Posted March 10, 2011 Share Posted March 10, 2011 Congrats. Hope it all works out and you enjoy the new place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoNdOn Posted March 10, 2011 Share Posted March 10, 2011 Well, having looked around about a dozen properties over three days, had three sold in between us seeing them online and seeing them in the flesh and another one taken off the market between us booking our viewing and arriving for it... ...we've had an offer accepted on a house! We saw a great house yesterday - four bedrooms, lounge, kitchen diner and two bathrooms across three floors. Mrs C and I both like that kind of townhouse property, and we were all set to offer on it then and there, but decided to sleep on it. When we got home we looked up online to see if any others of that type were available in the area. Amazingly, there was an identical property less than five minutes away, so we went back to the original house today to take measurements, and then popped over to the second one straight after to compare. Long story short, the second house is newer, in better condition and quite a bit cheaper. We made our offer, haggled a little, and settled on a price. Now all we need is for the surveys to come back clean on our flat and the house, and as it's a short chain we could be moving in just a couple of months. Not quite how I imagined spending this week, but it's fantastic it coincided with us being on leave - how people manage trying to fit househunting around work I don't know. A four bedroom house around London?.....................You must be minted! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emark Posted March 11, 2011 Share Posted March 11, 2011 Congratulations!! Very true, looking for and making an offer on house while working is a chore but as with anything if you want it bad enough you'll make it work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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