Beginning the Buying Process

In this post I wanted to cover the actual process of buying your first home. After our initial offer was rejected I was heartbroken and panicked that we had blown our chance at buying Number 1. Secretly I’d already set my heart on it, even though I knew it was far, far too early to emotionally commit.

To make a new offer, we reconsidered what our broker had told us about how much the bank would lend us. We decided to email the vendor directly, to discuss what he might accept and explain our situation. Eventually we came to an agreement and placed our bid in the knowledge it would be accepted via the agent’s website; thinking about it, getting the vendor’s email address really was a big advantage for situations like this. An estate agent could have instigated a bidding war, like our first accepted offer. We were also able to discuss additional terms directly with the vendor; he wanted to move quickly, which helped us with later negotiations as we knew we were in a strong position.

The difference in the feeling I got when this offer was accepted, in comparison to ‘the one we were glad got away’ property was really eye opening. Everyone always says that you will 'just know’ when the property is for you. I was sceptical about that until that moment but it’s definitely something I believe in now, and would tell any friend who had reservations about buying a property not to do it. It’s a life moment when you have to listen to your gut instinct.

Once accepted, we let our broker know what we had accepted so he could get our mortgage confirmed. Before you view a property most agents like to know if you are a cash buyer, have a mortgage or a mortgage in principle. We were the latter as nothing was finalised until we knew what we needed within the bracket that we could borrow. This confirmation was really important in the process, so I’d advise getting this part done as early as you can. For us, this meant getting a survey by a Damp and Timber registered surveyor; the results would help the lender understand the risk before giving us a mortgage offer.

The results of the damp survey came back indicating work had to be done, and because of this we received a retention on our mortgage offer. We had to get the work done within a certain time of completing on the house to received the balance of our offer, meaning we had to find the extra cash in the interim. As I had asked about damp whilst viewing the house, I decided to go back to the vendor with the information. He’d said there was categorically no damp, and may have not realised how much work needed to be done. The timing of this worked in our favour as the EU referendum was taking place that week and I have a feeling our vendor was worried about us pulling out due to the results. There had been warnings about property prices dropping, although we weren’t concern about that at the time. In any case, he dropped the price as requested to keep the process moving quickly.

At the same time as contacting the broker, we exchanged solicitors details to start the legalities of the process. Most people complain about the whole process being quite slow, but we were lucky and ours didn’t take much time. It also helped that our vendor was putting pressure on those involved to keep momentum. Our solicitor worked on pulling together the information she needed to proceed. This included being instructed to carry out the searches, which we had to pay for. She gave us the recommended searches, although we could have asked for additional ones to be completed. This can vary property to property; we instructed environmental, drainage, planning and flood searches.

Before reading the reports, I felt very clueless about this part of the process. Our reports were fairly easy to digest, and didn’t find anything particularly unusual or that I had not already found out through my previous Google searches, for example I knew there was a flooding risk as our house is nearby a site of substantial flooding within the last ten years. I felt we were higher up a hill so wouldn’t be in danger of this in the future, although I kept in mind that the home insurance company might put a bigger premium on the property. My advice when reading these reports is to be realistic about what is ok for you, and what is risking your purchase. Things to watch out for could be someone’s planning permission nearby that might interfere with your view or overlook your property. Conservation areas could mean you would not get planning for any work you want done, so that would be worth looking into further amongst other things. Read carefully and ask your solicitor if anything looks unusual.

Next time, I will talk you through our Homebuyer’s Survey, the exchange and completion! I would also love to hear from you via the comments section here, or on Facebook about your experiences; I have been contacted by a few people already and it’s been lovely to hear other people’s points of view and experiences. Other than recording our progress with the house, the advice and experiences of others is the whole point of  writing this blog, so don’t be shy!

Image | Fabian Blank via Unsplash.com