Offer accepted on house. Keep going viewing other houses?

fjon

We've had an offer accepted on a house and paid a deposit.
I realise there is still a long journey after this and nothing is certain until the contracts are signed.

Should we continue viewing other houses to get an idea of what else is out there in case this sale falls through? If something were to happen with this sale it would be nice to be able to have a few options without having to start looking at everything again.

Obviously this isn't going to look good if we are viewing other houses on sale with the same EA though!

DubJJ

Definitely, there are still plenty of opportunities for your sale to fall through and you may come across another property that offers better value.
In an ideal world you would commit to a property once the offer is accepted but the truth is if the vendor got a better offer from elsewhere before the contracts are signed the chances are they would accept it.

gerrybbadd

100% keep looking.

I had an offer accepted on a house, deposit down etc. Nothing happened for like 6 months, no movement whatsoever, despite repeated pressure from my solicitor.

Turned out, the guy selling the house didn't have the deeds (the bank still did), and he didn't have permission to sell. We walked away, and ending up panic buying something else while our mortgage offer was still valid.

theteal

Yes, keep viewing other houses, especially with the same EA. That way you're not blindly focussed on one house and the EA can see you're not emotionally attached to the one house. If they try an of the usual EA shenanigans you can easily walk away as you know what's out there.

fjon

gerrybbadd wrote: »

100% keep looking.

I had an offer accepted on a house, deposit down etc. Nothing happened for like 6 months, no movement whatsoever, despite repeated pressure from my solicitor.

Turned out, the guy selling the house didn't have the deeds (the bank still did), and he didn't have permission to sell. We walked away, and ending up panic buying something else while our mortgage offer was still valid.

Just curious, in your case, did you lose any money because of this (e.g. solicitor fees, surveys)?

Twat-Badger

Absolutely keep looking. I could be wrong but I think I read somewhere that about 60% of sale agreed's fall through. So if it were me I'd be keeping as many fingers in as many pies as I could until the contracts are signed.

gerrybbadd

fjon wrote: »

Just curious, in your case, did you lose any money because of this (e.g. solicitor fees, surveys)?

We lost money on surveys, and the solicitors fees likely were more than they would have been due to all the calls, letters etc that were exchanged for the house.

annoyedgal

Yep keep looking. Our sale almost fell through as buyer couldn't get mortgage protection. So many reasons a sale can fall through and it's good to have a back up in case. I'd have no qualms telling agent that i was keeping my options open in case sale falls through.

Krombopulos Michael

Keep looking. We had an offer accepted on a house and got a survey done which found some issues that caused us to withdraw. We are now back looking again from the start.

Samuel T. Cogley

+1 billion on the above.

Keep looking. If you have to start from scratch it could cost you thousands in price increases. You've always the risk of losing money on surveyors etc. budget that in.

theteal

Krombopulos Michael wrote: »

Keep looking. We had an offer accepted on a house and got a survey done which found some issues that caused us to withdraw. We are now back looking again from the start.

Yup, we did that too, right before exchange of contracts. Sellers were idiots, whole thing cost me close to £3k i.e. the let’s do a few things to the house fund. We nearly lost the next house coz the bank changed their mind about our affordability at the last minute. If it weren’t for stamp duty being abolished that week (how lucky can you get???) we would have had to pull out of this one too.

Loads of reasons to sales can fall through.