Hi,
We generally scout rightmove etc dreaming away at houses we can afford but I have seen a house in a place we like and completely in price range.
Thing is we haven't even got our house on the market as it wasn't taken seriously until now.
We are dur for an evaluation tomorrow hopefully to check feasibility but how does this all work. Do I need mine sold before making any offer? The house is vacant currently also.
I hope/believe we have 30% equity in which used on the next house would be around 20%

Please educate me

You can do what you want. The weakest link in the chain is the person at the bottom who has not got a buyer. The chain relies on the new first time buyer at the bottom.

You can put in an offer at any time but it is not all confirmed till the contracts are exchanged. It is a trust based routine with the Estate agents being referees, and like them they are .

The answers to your questions depend heavily on what the market is like in your area.

In my area we would probably politely decline your request to view the majority of properties as demand is so much higher than supply.

We have loads of people who walk through the door telling us that they want to buy a house but they're not on the market yet, "but don't worry, my house will sell really quickly." Perhaps, but it won't sell quickly enough to fend off an offer from a cash buyer, which I have a big list of waiting for the same house.

In your area it may be different and it may be slower paced. Take the advice of a few local independent agents to find out what the market is doing in your area.

Bear in mind they want your business and don't let them massage your ego. It's not uncommon for agents to overvalue your house to win the instruction.

Get them to back up their valuation with comparable evidence and ask them why you should choose them over the rivals or over a cheaper alternative (online agencies, for example).

Thanks John, so if I have no buyer the house I buy can't go through?

Does everyone exchange on the same day? So the advantage would be to sell with the same agent who is selling the house I want. I presume they will want the commission from both properties and More likely to mediate.

Don't believe everything the agent says his sole goal is to get commission so he May drop your price like a ton of bricks to sell it easily with little effort!
Do your homework checkout actual sold for prices and decide on what you think your property is worth!
Work out your budget pointless budgeting on your high price when you may need to drop your price then the affordability may be a bit tight!
My house moves have cost me approximately £7000 made up by estate agent fees conveyance mortgage stamp duty removal van (did it myself) this will obviously vary with price of houses and your negotiated fees
Choose your agent carefully some will work hard for you others hope the houses sell themselves!
You may not be the most popular person to people you were dealing with but if something does not feel right don't be afraid to pull out and walk away no matter how much you or others have spent, if it's wrong it's another 7odd grand to move again
Research as much as you can about neighbours
Don't assume you can get a garage or access to one obviously I'm being general don't know what your looking at but they are the sort of things to think of
Nobody will take you seriously until you have a verified buyer!
Best of luck!

Generally exchange is on the same day!
then there's that strange moment when you fell like it's your house still but it actually belongs to the guy that's annoying you because he's trying to move his stuff in!

Yep, this is frustrating. We couldn't get the vendors out of ours. They didn't bother to pack, caused loads of damage to the finish as they left and were very threatening.

From a different perspective, you need to start making sure you have everything in place for a mortgage application. The main one is making sure your bank accounts are as clean as possible as the mortgage provider will want to know everything. Keep costs as low as possible for the next 3 months to help affordability. If you say you spend £300 on food each month but your bank statements show £500, then that's what they'll take for their affordability calcs, whether that's reality or not...

There isn't any harm in expressing an interest in the property. You don't have to make an offer.

Check out Zoopla to see house valuations in your area and the area the other house is in. Also worth checking out ourproperty too.

As others have noted, the whole process is dependent on the market in the local area and the property you have to sell.

I have just sold one of my houses in under a week, for almost the asking price, but in our area two-bed houses are in short supply and good ones even rarer! I had three offers after 3 days.

Two were cash buyers and the third was a first time with mortgage arranged. Anybody in a chain wasn't going to get a look in!

I have three-bed to market in January and I don't think that's going to be so easy.

The house is in an area we want to settle , very few houses come u for sale where we are but just don't know the true value of our house yet.
The values in the locality go from 10k less then what I would like to achieve to 30k plus.

I would be happy to get what I paid original and paying the additional mortgage for the house I am interested in. I don't think we have enough time realistically to sort things to make this other house a feasible purchase so likely staying where we are.

Our aim is not to spend the additional that I need to on our house if there is enough equity and put that to our potential future purchase.

I have a mortgage advisor who only deals with buy to lets and he's never been busier than now. Plenty of cash about with lots of people raiding small pension pots to enable them to buy a second/third property... A lot of competition unfortunately.

Is that the values you see in the Estate Agents window or the actual sale price?

The only way to judge it accurately is through what the houses have sold for.

Zoopla, Land registry and ourproperty are where I started before instructing agents.

I think you are right in so far as they will have more incentive to mediate, but personally I would generally feel better if I was selling with a different agent- that way they are only dependent on what they get for your property for their commission, rather than encouraging you to take a bath as they've got two commissions to think of.

(Many, but not all) agents will be happy to get a marginally lower commission for a lot less effort by encouraging you towards a lower price once they've got the mandate.

Obviously, in a typical scenario you won't know at the time you put your house on the market who will be selling the property you'll end up buying. Usually therefore you'll be best picking the best one you can for your circumstances

The advantage of selling your house with the agent who has the house you want is that they are more likely to encourage their vendor to accept an offer from you than one from somebody else.

And of course they get double the fees!

I'll freely admit you know the sector much better than me, but do you think they actually would encourage them to accept an offer from somebody with no buyer (whose house they were selling) vs a cash buyer?

There's an element of double or quits I guess, but it does make both lots of fees dependant on selling the first house compared to banking one lot, and seeing if the first house owners still want to sell?

There are some that would certainly try, whether they'd be successful or not is another matter.



True, we try to avoid chains if at all possible. Far too many sales fall through and having the issue exacerbated by having several potential people to pull out is uncomfortable at best.

There are also a growing number of buyers who will try to use their own property as leverage. "Get me this house for this price and I'll let you sell mine."

I'm currently going through this process.
I choose a independent estate agent, say sold my parents places in 6 days for top money.
They sold mine for £5k more than I hoped for to a investor in 5 days too.
Just had a offer accepted on another place with no chain, so hopefully it should be straight forward.
Finally have a garage to store my coop !!!

Reubs - I sold my last 2 houses privately using an online agency to get my houses listed on rightmove.

Saved me over 8k in fees, and I got more money for both houses than any of the valuations agents gave. Both my last 2 houses I'd put a lot of blood and sweat in making them the homes they were and I'd be buggered if I wanted to give £4k+ to an agent, none of which have any code of conduct or required training - then having to deal with a 21 year old who's never owned a home in selling it!

This thread gives some useful links - http://www.propertyinvestmentproject.co....e-on-rightmove/

Come on, tell us what you really think

It's the same with anything in life- a good estate agent is worth their weight in gold and a bad one is worse than letting a monkey deal with it. Unfortunately there's a lot of hairy estate agents...

We have had a valuation today at about 5-8 k more than I expected.
This makes it feasible as to have the additional available if indeed it sold near that amount.
We like the agent but the selling fees seem very high. The fees are £3k plus vat for a house they would market at offers over £105k..

I don't know your area, but that seems really high. How does it compare to your other valuations and quotes?

That exactly what we thought. Apparently fixed fee with dixons, we are arranging another valuation and possibly using as suggested by Dan an online estate agaent

The best valuation is by comparing the local market. Agents will tell you whatever they think you want to hear!

A well presented property may sell above the market and a poor one below - checking the competition is always wise.

Definitely go with on-line.

I just sold a house for £155k and my fees were £599 (agent), plus £560 for solicitors.

Will be doing the same again after Christmas.

The fee is high in percentage terms, but not necessarily in monetary terms. It may be the norm in your area.

We’re lucky if we can get a fee above 1% around here due to the high number of agents and fierce competition for business. However, we don’t generally sell anything below £250k and our average sale is around £500k, so we still manage to get decent fees and earn a living.

Using an online agent might be right for you provided you go in with your eyes open and you keep your expectations low.

Their business model is based on high volume and constant turnover of stock. As a result, their ‘local expert’ (the person they employ to be the local representative of the business, who will come out to see you and take the photos, etc.) will be covering a huge patch and probably be dealing with stock of available properties much higher than he or she can realistically cope with. If they’re not, it means they aren’t making any money, which will inevitably result in them quitting at some point.

The people that work for online agencies are usually recruited on the promise of something like ”earn £70k per annum working the hours you want” which hopefully I don’t need to tell you is completely unrealistic. Even if they get half of the £600 they charge each punter they need to sell 20 properties per month and that doesn’t take into account any of their costs.

Bear in mind also that there will be little to no aftersales service. They might have a call centre somewhere who deal with chain-progression but the reality is that they are call centre workers who have never been to your town and couldn’t care less about whether or not your property completes. They’ll get their £6.50 per hour regardless.

In your situation, I would recommend you get at least two more opinions from reputable high street agents and see what they’ll offer fee-wise. At least this way you’ll have an average valuation to work from and you can take that to the online agency if that’s still the way you want to go.

Agreed that you have to be careful of which agent you go with (on-line or on the ground), but I think you are in danger of generalising here about the service provided by on-line agents.

There are poor ones like there are poor local estate agents, you just need to do the homework first.

I'm not going to name ours, but we have had very good service - the photographer spent almost an hour with me and also produced the floor plan whilst there. Quality of finished photos was excellent. I also got to choose which to use etc.

We got an EPC as part of the package, plus the listings on Rightmove etc. are 'premium'

I also have a named account manager / negotiator, with direct line number and scheduled calls whenever needed to take us through the process.

I have seen the sort that you describe too ... but then one or two of the traditional estate agents locally have given an equally poor service!

As ever, do your homework and go with who you trust!

I would try another estate agent, I paid 1%.
I tried to view a property via Tepilo and can't say I was impressed with the site, I don't fancy selling with them.
Try to find a independent agent.

Trying another but just don't get back to me. Seems they don't like to sell houses either.
the mine field that is house buying eh.

Thank you for all your help guys.. Keep you posted on what happens next.

Ok guys, new question.

Looking at houses and obtaining valuations.

Mortgage in principle questions now.
I know that these only last for a number of months? Should I have this in place before offering on a house?