Second time buyer - selling and buying at the same time

Silesian Sailor

Hi everyone,

I am new to boards and this is my first post, so I apologize in advance in case this is not the correct sub-forum or if my question was possibly answered already in another topic - couldn't find one though.

Here is our situation. We want to sell our duplex in Dublin and buy a semi-detached in one of the new developments in county Meath. Our property is in positive equity, and we already have the AIP and the have saved 20% deposit which would be required upon signing the contracts.

Our agent said that our property would sell no problem within weeks after putting it on the market, which seems reasonable having watched the properties around us being sold fairly quickly.

Now, the problem is that the properties we are interested in will not be available until late Q4 of this year as for signing the contracts and would most likely be ready to move in 5-6 months later.

Our agent claims that in the current market, where first time buyers are much preferred by sellers, we would need to sell our property first, rent somewhere for 6-7 months and then move into the new property as we would need to be at least sale agreed at the time of signing the contract for the new build.

In short - the seller will not sign the contract with us even though we have the AIP and the 20% deposit unless we are at least sale agreed on our current property, and there is no way of us putting the deposit on a new build and selling within the timeframe between signing the contract and moving into the new property. Is our agent correct in saying so?

Hope what I wrote makes sense.

Thanks a lot in advance!

peter_dublin

I had this with my EA. To be honest it's BS. They just want a handy sale. Plenty of people sell in a chain and in this market I think it would be madness to sell your place and rent, you could potentially end up missing out of 10000's in growth of value of your property while also paying rent. Will the EA cover you for this cost.

What we did was get full mortgage approval, not just AIP, got all paper work in place (certs), Management company paperwork etc. Only when I had everything lined up did I put my place on the market while putting in bids myself. So we were able to close on our side exceptionally quick, also made it clear to our EA to push any buyers to ensure they had full approval rather than AIP. Close and bought on the same day.

Silesian Sailor

My thoughts exactly, Peter. We have the management company papers sorted out, the deeds were requested and are already with our solicitor. I am not quite sure how to get the mortgage approval without knowing at what price the units we are interested in will be selling, as the seller won't disclose the price until Q4 this year. Thanks for your reply, that was most helpful!

peter_dublin

As an example if you can go though the full mortgage approval process with AIB using their online processes without specifying a solicitor or property which is what we did. Getting from AIP to full approval took the longest time but once done, renewing it was very simple. Over the period our property went up 25k in value so I am glad I didn't take their advise to sell my place first.

Silesian Sailor

Much appreciated Peter, our AIP is with ICS, but I'll check with the broker.