House Sales Falling through?

gmisk

I am seeing quite a few houses come back onto the market having gone sale agreed.
For example two houses right beside me both sale agree signs last month...this week both for sale signs outside.
I have see a few more examples recently.
Anyone any ideas what is happening? Maybe people not getting the mortgages they were expecting from banks?

TheDriver

More than likely the reason I would think. Or else issues with title or contract

MAJJ

TheDriver wrote: »

More than likely the reason I would think. Or else issues with title or contract

My own fell through, the day our purchaser paid deposit the property we were buying fell through. Cash buyer simply matched our offer and game over.

NinjaTruncs

I was taking a look at a house on Saturday that was sale agreed but the purchaser couldn't get the finance from the bank. Another house I drive by on my way to work was sale agreed before Christmas and can back onto the market in January. New sale agreed sign on it now though.

MarkAnthony

My house sale is still being delayed 5 months on. Disorganised vendors.

My brother in law has had two sales fall through. One the vendor's were living in cloud cuckoo land in regards to the price after significant damp issues became apparent. Second the vendors could not produce a party wall agreement when asked and he got short shrift from the vendor's solicitor when he enquired further.

So many reasons, mainly anecdotally and IMO because of disorganised and unrealistic vendors.

ted1

They really need to Introduce penalties .

Buyers Losing deposits , sellers doubling deposits if it's on their side

summer21

Been sale agreed on property to buy since mid October. No mortgage or chain issues.
Still not closed.
It appears bank holding it up as property in negative equality
At this point looking at alternatives.
Major inconvience
Vendor should not be able to go to market without bank approval in these cases

washman3

A lot of 'cute hoorism' at play at the moment. Example: house is 'sale agreed', buyer drags it out for as long as he can before parting with payment while keeping a close eye on whether house prices are rising further or falling.
As it stands at the moment prices are actually falling again so many of these 'sale agreed' are back on the market as the 'buyer' senses this and pulls out of the sale. No quick buck to be made so he's crawls back to where he's been for the last 7-8 years.
I'm aware of one particular nasty bit of scum that made lots of money from this practice during the 'Celtic Tiger'

Bob24

ted1 wrote: »

They really need to Introduce penalties .

Buyers Losing deposits , sellers doubling deposits if it's on their side

Doubt this will happen but yes the lack of transparency and the fact that no one is committing to anything until the transaction is fully completed is crazy.

gaius c

Anecdotally, half of all sale agreeds are falling through but I find this very hard to take at face value to be honest.

Edit: have a bit of a hotlist and there's plenty of sale agreeds on it. Very few of them are shifting to sold but I haven't seen any come back to the market yet.

ABajaninCork

gaius c wrote: »

Anecdotally, half of all sale agreeds are falling through but I find this very hard to take at face value to be honest.

Edit: have a bit of a hotlist and there's plenty of sale agreeds on it. Very few of them are shifting to sold but I haven't seen any come back to the market yet.

I suspect more than a few of them are in NE and were either on sale for strategic reasons (holding off the bank) or were put up for sale without agreement from the bank...

FWIW - I agree with the previous poster. Vendors in NE should not be allowed to put their properties up for sale with prior written agreement from the bank.

gaius c

ABajaninCork wrote: »

I suspect more than a few of them are in NE and were either on sale for strategic reasons (holding off the bank) or were put up for sale without agreement from the bank...

FWIW - I agree with the previous poster. Vendors in NE should not be allowed to put their properties up for sale with prior written agreement from the bank.

Incidentally, the bank's usual first response to such a problem is to try and get the buyer to cough up the extra moolah, invariably suggesting that they should get cash from family members.

kippy

House in our estate was sale agreed in November, fell through and back on market the past few weeks.

I went to view the house and if ever the rule about "don't ever believe a thing an auctioneer tells you" needed hammering home, this was a great example.
Auctioneer gave a completely wrong reason as to why the sale fell through (I knew for a fact it was a lie), the proceeded to tell multiple lies about:
The Estate management fee, the status of a number of items in the estate, the neighbours (hard to explain this one but essentially the EA said the guy next door was a certain (desireable to have next door) profession when he was not.

The EA obviously no idea I'd lived in the estate for years but it really shows how many outright lies and misdirection they will use in an effort to get a sale.

I suspect a lot of them falling through are more do to with sellers thinking they might get more than people failing to get the mortgage but that's not based on any proof.

ABajaninCork

gaius c wrote: »

Incidentally, the bank's usual first response to such a problem is to try and get the buyer to cough up the extra moolah, invariably suggesting that they should get cash from family members.

That's not what I've anecdotally seen at all. Friends of mine were FTB's in Cork. They bid on several properties, and were outbid. Eventually, they bid on one property. Sale agreed very quickly, which rang alarm bells with me. Everything was going through nice and smooth, when at the last minute the sale was pulled. Reason? House was in NE and the vendor did not have permission to sell.

The next property, my friends were a little wiser. They asked if there were any problems with the sale. Told no. They eventually found out that too was a NE sale with no forthcoming permission from the bank to sell. At no point were they asked to increase their bid. Not from the banks anyway.

seamus

gaius c wrote: »

Anecdotally, half of all sale agreeds are falling through but I find this very hard to take at face value to be honest.

Edit: have a bit of a hotlist and there's plenty of sale agreeds on it. Very few of them are shifting to sold but I haven't seen any come back to the market yet.

We had an EA tell us that one-third of everything going sale agreed with him, is falling through.

Which is a pretty frank admission from an EA, so it's probably even higher than that.

We've been outbid on six properties in the last two months, and none of them have even been marked sale agreed yet, never mind sold.

My suspicion is that buyers' finances are the main issue.

Sunny Dayz

As someone who bought a year and half ago, now just from my own experience, but before we even went sale agreed, we were asked for proof of finance by the EA/Vendor.
In our case the vendor was a receiver selling a buy to let investment property on behalf of a bank. However for us the sale agreed period felt quite long, our solicitor was very thorough while the vendor's solicitor didn't want to provide much of the documentation requested and seemed to be trying to fob us off. We persisted and threatened to pull out as out mortgage offer was nearing expiration.

bladebrew

There was a house sold on the Douglas road in Cork a few months back, it was listed at €795k and according to the paper was bid up to €900k by 2 parties, it went sale agreed and has now appeared back on the market at €895k!
I would love to know what happened, a house sale up near a million euro is a bit rarer in Cork than in Dublin,

Miamiheat

Been looking and bidding at properties for the last 3 months: it's a nightmare => I have never seem a system that is so inconvenient for both buyers and sellers. Not sure if to blame this on EA but something has to give. I am not from here and it's really an issue making me wonder if i want to live more time in a country with such nonsense. One Property went from 200K to 280K and the owner not deciding to sell yet and we are not talking mansions...
At the same time there is no way in hell the property is worth that much so someone is committing financial suicide.
met a few buyers at viewings saturday and everyone seems fed up running from viewing to viewing without any real hope. I cannot be suggesting to buyers to drop their price expectations but somewhere in the end any speculation will end up creating the world their kids will live in. You see an advertised price, you offer it, expect a little negotiation but what we have here is EBAY. And then from what i can read 30% was for nothing anyways.
Somehow I think a lot of sellers should sell direct to buyers and i think it is much harder to break a deal on which two persons shook hands rather than have an EA linking 2 solicitors and never really having a grasp on what is going on for months and expect to sign one day. One committed seller working with one committed buyer will push to succeed. I am assuming solicitors still get paid for conveyancing even if the sale does not happen.

Pasty12345

A house in our seaside town went up for sale for 72k last year some damage done to property from a leak in the attic. Usually houses in this estate go for 120 to 150k. On estate agents website it's showing as sale agreed but it hasn't came up on property price register and it's been 7 months since it went sale agreed.
Also I rang estate agent and they said its sold.
Should it have not came up on price register or is it ea keeping it for someone who is tryin to get their finances together.

liam7831

Pasty12345 wrote: »

A house in our seaside town went up for sale for 72k last year some damage done to property from a leak in the attic. Usually houses in this estate go for 120 to 150k. On estate agents website it's showing as sale agreed but it hasn't came up on property price register and it's been 7 months since it went sale agreed.
Also I rang estate agent and they said its sold.
Should it have not came up on price register or is it ea keeping it for someone who is tryin to get their finances together.

It wont come up on the register if its bought for cash

johnp001

liam7831 wrote: »

It wont come up on the register if its bought for cash

I think this is incorrect.
It will appear on the PPR as long as stamp duty is paid.
Cash sales (no mortgage) do not form part of the CSO stats but are included in the PPR.

GatsbyGal

liam7831 wrote: »

It wont come up on the register if its bought for cash

We were cash buyers and the property was on the register a few months later.

ForEffsSake

liam7831 wrote: »

It wont come up on the register if its bought for cash

Not true, they register all sales. Just depends on how long it takes the solicitor to get around to registering it. I've seen properties where the people have moved in and it didn't show up for several months.

Pasty12345

liam7831 wrote: »

It wont come up on the register if its bought for cash

Really? God that makes sense. There are a lot of houses that we as sale agreed and I've never seen them up on a website for sale and they haven't appeared on price register

Bob24

Pasty12345 wrote: »

Really? God that makes sense. There are a lot of houses that we as sale agreed and I've never seen them up on a website for sale and they haven't appeared on price register

I'll agree with others and say it is incorrect - all properties sales will be on the register.

Why I believe is based on mortgages data only is the CSO price index (but correct me if this is wrong).

Glenbhoy

ForEffsSake wrote: »

Not true, they register all sales. Just depends on how long it takes the solicitor to get around to registering it. I've seen properties where the people have moved in and it didn't show up for several months.

All sales must be registered, the data comes from stamp duty returns which is payable regardless of how the purchase was funded. These are supposed to be paid within 29 days of completion, if a property hasn't yet come up on the register, it's likely that it hasn't actually completed yet.

HeidiHeidi

ForEffsSake wrote: »

Not true, they register all sales. Just depends on how long it takes the solicitor to get around to registering it. I've seen properties where the people have moved in and it didn't show up for several months.

Without wishing to derail this thread (mods, please feel free to delete if this is inappropriate), there's a house a few doors down from me which was sold about two years ago and still has never appeared on the PPR. If they got anything like the price they pitched it at, it would have fairly big implications for our LPT next time it needs to be assessed.

How could it be possible for a house to be sold, through a well known estate agent, and never appear on the PPR?

seamus

HeidiHeidi wrote: »

How could it be possible for a house to be sold, through a well known estate agent, and never appear on the PPR?

Crap solicitor, has yet to properly register the sale?

There were a few horror stories during the boom years of solicitors holding onto their clients' stamp duties and filing fees and failing to register the property.
It was only when the banks contacted the owners a couple of years later threatening to call in their mortgage that they became aware that the solicitor did not complete the sale.

If someone bought in cash, I could certainly see how there may be a long delay in the solicitor bothering to register the deed.

Woshy

The search function on the PPR isn't great either and sometimes there is ambiguity in what suburb a house is listed as being in so that can throw off the results. For example, I was interested in a house but pulled out of the bidding when we went sale agreed elsewhere. I couldn't find it on the PPR for ages but it turns out the house had been registered as Ballycullen when it was referred to as Furhouse everywhere else. Just putting in the first line if the address (e.g 21 x Avenue) didn't get it to appear for me. It's on,y when I thought to try Ballycullen myself did I find it.

Also things can be listed differently e.g one house in an estate called something like Daisy Hill can be Daisy Hill or Daisyhill making them harder to search for.

In hindsight I should have used Google to search but I've found the results not great there either.

Bob24

Woshy wrote: »

The search function on the PPR isn't great either and sometimes there is ambiguity in what suburb a house is listed as being in so that can throw off the results. For example, I was interested in a house but pulled out of the bidding when we went sale agreed elsewhere. I couldn't find it on the PPR for ages but it turns out the house had been registered as Ballycullen when it was referred to as Furhouse everywhere else. Just putting in the first line if the address (e.g 21 x Avenue) didn't get it to appear for me. It's on,y when I thought to try Ballycullen myself did I find it.

In hindsight I should have used Google to search but I've found the results not great there either.

Absolutely. And I don't know whether it was on purpose to make them unsearchable or just carelessness, but I have seen a few where their were typos in the street/block/town/suburb name which were excluding them from my filters.

seamus

Yeah there's a lot wrong with the PPR. It's a good start, but I'm guessing that they either didn't consult any data specialists for it, or they decided to go for minimum functionality with the idea that they would enhance it later on.

A proper register would link the sale to the folio/deed reference and include other stats like no. of beds/baths, floor area, land area, is it leasehold or freehold, BER, etc.

Bob24

seamus wrote: »

A proper register would link the sale to the folio/deed reference and include other stats like no. of beds/baths, floor area, land area, is it leasehold or freehold, BER, etc.

I guess there also is a lot of push-back from the industry. If all you mentioned was included and standardized it would be great for buyers and analysts to get very accurate information about the market - but probably not so much for EAs as everyone would come to viewings with a much better knowledge of the market for the specific type of property they are looking at.

UsBus

As a seller whose house has fallen through twice in the last 5 months i have to say i am traumatised by it. The first buyer, a cash buyer took my house off the market after 5 days as they wanted a quick sale which we were happy with. the day she was to sign contracts she went missing blaming a family anniversary. 2 months later it turned out she didnt have cash...... the latest buyer has just fallen through with no excuse given on the day we were planning to sign... disgraceful is all i can say and much worse. There is just no protection for genuine sellers out there. penalties cant come in soon enough. You are after all committing to a huge financial purchase.

johnp001

UsBus wrote: »

As a seller whose house has fallen through twice in the last 5 months i have to say i am traumatised by it. The first buyer, a cash buyer took my house off the market after 5 days as they wanted a quick sale which we were happy with. the day she was to sign contracts she went missing blaming a family anniversary. 2 months later it turned out she didnt have cash...... the latest buyer has just fallen through with no excuse given on the day we were planning to sign... disgraceful is all i can say and much worse. There is just no protection for genuine sellers out there. penalties cant come in soon enough. You are after all committing to a huge financial purchase.

Do you mind if I ask what proof of funds your agent looked for from the buyers and also broadly what area and price range your property is in?

Bob24

UsBus wrote: »

As a seller whose house has fallen through twice in the last 5 months i have to say i am traumatised by it. The first buyer, a cash buyer took my house off the market after 5 days as they wanted a quick sale which we were happy with. the day she was to sign contracts she went missing blaming a family anniversary. 2 months later it turned out she didnt have cash...... the latest buyer has just fallen through with no excuse given on the day we were planning to sign... disgraceful is all i can say and much worse. There is just no protection for genuine sellers out there. penalties cant come in soon enough. You are after all committing to a huge financial purchase.

Note this also happens with sellers. Friends of mine were sale agreed and had paid the deposit on a property. 3 months after they paid the deposit the seller was still not moving pretending there was an issue with his solicitor. Needless to say it was pretty stressful for them as they were looking froward to move to a larger house having a young child (and they eventually get their money back and bough somewhere else).

Yes the bottom line is that both from the seller and the buyer's side there needs to be more financial penalties if a sale is agreed and they subsequently pull-out (I think one exception should be if people have an AIP from a bank and the bank then refuses to grant the mortgage - but then banks should also incur financial penalties if they had given AIP and are then saying no while people circumstances haven't changed and the valuer/surveyor hasn't raised any major concern).

But hey ... this is all daydreaming :-)

GatsbyGal

UsBus wrote: »

As a seller whose house has fallen through twice in the last 5 months i have to say i am traumatised by it. The first buyer, a cash buyer took my house off the market after 5 days as they wanted a quick sale which we were happy with. the day she was to sign contracts she went missing blaming a family anniversary. 2 months later it turned out she didnt have cash...... the latest buyer has just fallen through with no excuse given on the day we were planning to sign... disgraceful is all i can say and much worse. There is just no protection for genuine sellers out there. penalties cant come in soon enough. You are after all committing to a huge financial purchase.

Yes it's a horrible situation. Unbelievably frustrating for you. We were on the other side of the table. We, as buyers, were sale agreed on two properties which went belly up after several months due to vendors messing us about. One wanted an extra 50k for "furniture" and the other was Nama owned. It is so unregulated that dare I say laughable. There needs to be a bid fee paid by each bidder to make sure that they are indeed serious about purchasing the property. This is how it is done in most European countries and it works very well. It's much more transparent for both vendor and bidders if every action on the property is documented.

UsBus

johnp001 wrote: »

Do you mind if I ask what proof of funds your agent looked for from the buyers and also broadly what area and price range your property is in?

I think the ea slipped up with checking proof of funds the first time. My solicitor delayed so much the second time. the house is not expensive, estate house selling for 140k.
i think any genuine seller would not be delaying for fear of it falling through.
The whole auctioneer solicitor property transaction is a disaster. Solicitors sending faxes and not following up to see if they have been received......???? dark ages stuff...

seamus

It's a complicated thing to include penalties early on because of the way that we do house buying in this country.

The deposit goes down, but then there's setting up the contracts which typically takes weeks, but could take months. During which the buyer is in the cold while the vendor's solicitor sits on their hands and drags their feet.
Then you discover issues that potentially affect the value of the property and require a revised offer and a withdrawal if that offer is not accepted.

On the purchaser's side they have to chase down mortgage approval. What if they don't get it? Banks will be far less eager to provide mortgage approval if there are consequences for failing to deliver on it.

You could have a tiered agreement whereby the purchaser puts down a deposit and both parties sign a contract where if contracts are not issued in X weeks, the purchaser is free to withdraw their deposit. But if the purchaser really wants the property, then that's not a lot of leverage for them.

Perhaps a form of escrow could be useful - in order to sell, both vendor and purchaser put down an equal deposit and then agree on a set of milestones in the process and dates for each. Failure to deliver on a milestone results in a certain % of your deposit being forfeit and given to the other party.

But still, it becomes complicated then, and arguments about whether something has been rightfully forfeit becomes a pain in the ass, and both parties will start inserting all sorts of no-penalty exit clauses that render the whole thing useless.

Ultimately at some point someone has to sign contracts and until then all bets are off. And there's not really any way around that.

Bob24

I think if we look at how it is done in other countries there are ways to make the process a lot more transparent and secure for both the seller and the buyer (if other countries can do it, why can't we?).

In my view imposing financial penalties on any stakeholder (seller, buyer, EA, bank, solicitor) which relents on previous commitments or doesn't fulfill them within a given time-frame is a good way.

It would indeed make the market a bit less fluid as all of these would be more cautious before selling/advertising/offering a mortgage/buying/etc - but I see it as a good thing (no more ghost sellers/buyers/bidders, and sales falling through would be rare and incur financial compensation for whoever did not fail to comply with their commitments).

ABajaninCork

I think the Scottish system is the best one. Properties are advertised as 'Offers over'. So everyone knows what the ballpark is. Of course, you do own research to find out what prices are. You can also get a surveyor out to look at the property at this stage.

You place a sealed bid. Once the bidding process is over, and your bid is accepted, then that offer is binding, and you can be sued if you pull out for any reason.

MarkAnthony

ABajaninCork wrote: »

I think the Scottish system is the best one. Properties are advertised as 'Offers over'. So everyone knows what the ballpark is. Of course, you do own research to find out what prices are. You can also get a surveyor out to look at the property at this stage.

You place a sealed bid. Once the bidding process is over, and your bid is accepted, then that offer is binding, and you can be sued if you pull out for any reason.

You can also buy the survey off someone else if you want. Great is there are problems with the property or at the other end of the scale, everything seems grand and you just want a quick check.

Bought my place in Fife at 21 it was so easy even a drunken student could do it!

Personally though I'd amend the system to open internet based bids. Basically ebay for property, probably based on your PPS number or some such to prevent phantom bids. If you're the highest you're bound. But regardless of that even with closed bids the Scottish system is vastly superior in every respect IMO.

Bob24

ABajaninCork wrote: »

I think the Scottish system is the best one. Properties are advertised as 'Offers over'. So everyone knows what the ballpark is. Of course, you do own research to find out what prices are. You can also get a surveyor out to look at the property at this stage.

You place a sealed bid. Once the bidding process is over, and your bid is accepted, then that offer is binding, and you can be sued if you pull out for any reason.

Sounds like a good one ... is there not any get out clause in case your mortgage is declined though?

My brother just bought in France, and once your offer is accepted and you pay the deposit you are committing to buying. If you are a mortgage buyer you need to specify how much you are borrowing and how much your deposit is (can't remember if he had to give his income), and the seller can decline if it doesn't make sense to them.

Once accepted by the seller, it then gives you a get-out clause whereby if the information you provided is correct and you can show at least 2 banks declined your mortgage application, you can pull-out and get your full deposit back (otherwise the deposit is kept by the seller).

MarkAnthony

Bob24 wrote: »

Sounds like a good one ... is there not any get out clause in case your mortgage is declined though?

It may have changed, but no. That's the beauty of the Scottish system. Time wasters need not apply. You are ready to go before you bid.

Bob24

MarkAnthony wrote: »

It may have changed, but no. That's the beauty of the Scottish system. Time wasters need not apply. You are ready to go before you bid.

So a bank there will give you a full approval before you find a specific property, and you can be sure they will give you the money if you find a property within the agreed amount? (if not this seems a bit harsh to buyers as a bank would have the power to make them lose their deposit for any stupid reason they can think of)

MarkAnthony

Bob24 wrote: »

So a bank there will give you a full approval before you find a specific property, and you can be sure they will give you the money if you find a property within the agreed amount? (if not this seems a bit harsh to buyers as a bank would have the power to make them lose their deposit for any stupid reason they can think of)

Another great facet of the Scottish system is the valuer comes out from the bank before you bid. I was shocked when wanting to spend €295K on a flat in Dublin during the boom the valuer said:

"It's worth whatever the market says it is, if a buyer says it's 295K it's 295K"

In Edinburgh I had 3/4 flats where the valuer came out and said it's worth X, where X was well under the amount I needed on a mortgage. There was nothing to stop me buying it, I could top it up myself, but given I was on a 100% mortgage that wasn't really an option.

- So we had 100% mortgages being used responsibly
- People not going mental on bids unless they were cash buyers, or cash buyers to an extent meaning fools could be parted with their money but the bank were not exposed.
- Everyone knowing where they stood

Oh Scotland the brave, Scotland the beautiful. :pac: the only downfall was the wife staying with me in Perth where people are bonkers. She now thinks all Scottish people are like people in Perth and won't move back

Bob24

MarkAnthony wrote: »

Another great facet of the Scottish system is the valuer comes out from the bank before you bid.

Sounds pretty good indeed!

Getting the property valued and financing sorted before you make an offer ... who would have thought of that? :-)

MarkAnthony

Bob24 wrote: »

Sounds pretty good indeed!

Getting the property valued and financing sorted before you make an offer ... who would have thought of that? :-)

You have to bear in mind the banks are set up to deal with this aswell though.

So you go in and get approved for, say £250,000. Thats a firm offer (subject to valuation - which you get before placing an offer), it's not as tenuous as here. The way they handle apartments is also better IMHO although it can lead to dives, my 'management fee' in my apartment was £30 although I obviously paid council tax and had my own insurance.

The only drawback it is fecking cold :pac:

Bob24

MarkAnthony wrote: »

You have to bear in mind the banks are set up to deal with this aswell though.

Yes I think it is the main thing ... better regulation and more professionalism in the whole chain.

MarkAnthony wrote: »

The only drawback it is fecking cold :pac:

You are talking to someone who moved from France to Ireland 10 years ago .... fecking rainy place but I'm still here, I must like it :-D

Uno my Uno.

In my experience very few sales fall through but when they do it is rarely because of banks, estate agents or lawyers. Rather it is sellers and vendors who either change their minds or never actually intended completing the sale. I know of one buyer who went sale agreed on three properties within weeks of each other and only completed n one of them. I suspect he never intened to buy the other properties, it's very selfish behaviour. The other problem is sellers who aren't up front about defects in the title or building, they will accept an offer but when it turns out the property needs a new roof and gable wall won't allow an adjustment to the sale price.

MarkAnthony

Uno my Uno. wrote: »

In my experience very few sales fall through but when they do it is rarely because of banks, estate agents or lawyers. Rather it is sellers and vendors who either change their minds or never actually intended completing the sale. I know of one buyer who went sale agreed on three properties within weeks of each other and only completed n one of them. I suspect he never intened to buy the other properties, it's very selfish behaviour. The other problem is sellers who aren't up front about defects in the title or building, they will accept an offer but when it turns out the property needs a new roof and gable wall won't allow an adjustment to the sale price.

+1 (bazillion)

5 months I've been buggering about as the vendor would not admit they have positionary title only to a small bit of land to the side of the house. I'd have simply put in a slightly lower offer and gone with it anyway. Instead I've had 5 months of back and forth finally getting to a price I would have paid anyway.

Maybe I'm just stupid, maybe there needs to be more understanding about minor defects in title. I dunno. There's just a complete lack of transparency IMHO.