Currently buying/selling a house? How is it going? READ MOD NOTE POST #1

FYI

If you look at the Council Planning application website - you might see the original house drawings and layout of the stairs that would be included for that side extension in early 1990s which had planning.

Thanks everyone.

I checked SDCC planning site and found just a grant letter dated 1989 with regards to side extension, it didn't have planning drawing unfortunately and just described what is going to be built.

I found another planning document with retention of dormer window construction in 2003 by original owners which was granted. However, this had drawing that showed house with living room wall removed already, as well as side extensions. I also found a house nearby with similar layout and it clearly shows the house having a side entrance(the one we are viewing has front) with stairs in the middle and two walls one for living room and kitchen.

Yeah, it was priced to ignite a bidding war. There were 4 parties bidding; we left after it went over 100k more than asking.

I guess I will have to wait if solicitors gets compliance documents but need to start looking again, so back to square one. Frustrating but learnt so many things to look for.

I don’t think there’s any set rule and comes down to the developer.

We were allowed to get stuff done in the house like floors, etc. as we were approaching drawdown. Not sure if the fact we were delayed played into this or not but we were very happy to be able to get it done before we started the move.

Yeah snag list was done and 95% completed. We were mostly waiting on certs before we could drawdown.

First week in Oct our solicitor advises us to put our insurances in place and send her the deposit money as she was requesting the loan from the bank.

The bank wouldn't release the funds as the undertaking was missing a date. This was corrected and returned.

Now they've rejected the undertaking a second time without giving me any details as to why only telling me they are following up with my solicitor on it.

I rang my solicitor and she hasn't heard anything from the bank,

WTH is going on?

I've gone back a couple of posts on your story. Any tips for a family considering doing similar... selling and buying. We had an exploratory conversation with a broker and we can afford a mortgage that should get us what we'd like in the area we want BUT the deposit is the big challenge and we'd likely have to sell before closing on a new house which feels incredibly sketchy. Now, where we are has little on the market so we think it'd be snapped up quickly but we've no family near where we want to move to (which would involve having to get kids into a new school) so it's either the sale/purchase goes like clockwork (ha!) or we'd need to find short term rental (ha!). Add to that, it's a drip feed of houses in the bracket we're looking at in that new area. It feels like madness to consider the move but it also feels like madness not to put up with short term pain for the long term good.

Eeek, that's tough having to sell twice. Good to have a sense though that it is possible to have the current home "sold" while you try to close the purchase on the new one. One thing we were thinking of doing was having solicitor and auctioneer ready to go (and anything else we might need) to sell our current home until we saw something on the market we wanted to go for. At that point we put our current up for sale and hope everything goes ok... like you say delays can happen.

We're in a similar-ish boat actually to ye... bought in 2016 and the value should be a good deal higher (not double but around 40-50% higher). We've put a lot of work in to the house too, so that might help bump up the resale value. We'd loose the nice 2% fixed interest as well but that's the short term pain.

Thanks for the info. I think our next step is to talk to some auctioneers.

Oh one other question. Are there tax implications on selling the current house at a profit?

Not sure if anyone has been following my updates, but just had a call from AIB to confirm our application is gone into final checks.

Fingers crossed all goes smoothly. If anyone has any questions about buying via the Local Authority Affordable Purchase Scheme, please feel free to reach out, I've had a lot of experiences with it though this.

Extremely frustrating!! It’s house we absolutely love! But they’ve been dragging their heels!

and to rub salt into the wounds, their EA has lied to us about a bid on house they’ve been viewing. We viewed the same house as potential back up before we knew they were! We were actually the first to view and they were the second to view the next day. He told us they had a bid on the house two days later. Only reason I know they viewed that house is because he told me the exact house which is fair enough. They want a certain house…

I rang the EA selling that house and she told there was no bids at all! So who’s lying?

I’m bald as an eagle but I’m losing more hair by the day!!! 😂

We've had our house up in Dublin 3 (Clonliffe rd) since June. Its a lovely, bright, airy 3 bedroom house with all original features, walkable to town, big high ceilings, built in early 1900 or so. Its very liveable, we've been there since 2008 and we take care of the place.

Can't get anyone interested. We've dropped the price but still no real interest. We had one offer below asking, that person disappeared, we had another offer again well below asking, that person also disappeared. We've had probably 12 open viewings and I'd say half of them nobody turned up. The most we ever had was maybe 2/3 groups.

A couple of things, we have a north facing garden. This grinds my gears, the orientation. Estate Agents obsess over it. We get the sun in the back of the garden where we sit out, from May - September, for the whole day. Like not some of the day, the whole bloody day from 8am - 8pm, because the back of the garden isn't overlooked from any side. The back is glorious, basked in sun, yet I would say that a large percentage of people probably don't view the house or consider it because of the orientation.

So, we're looking at options. Our EA has basically said that we will come back in February and push it then, but thats 3 months away.

1. We could turn the front garden into a car space. Our neighbours did it. It looks great. It might be a big addition for some people? Maybe a spend of €7/8k.
2. We could put in colourful shutters, resand the original floors etc., to make it more attractive to the early 30 somethings. Maybe a net spend of €3/4k
3. Could maybe put €1k into the garden, make it look a bit nicer.

So maybe spend 10-15k.

Thoughts on all of this? I just feel if we put it back up in February, the same way it was, that we most likely will get the same result.

Or is the market completely gone?

Thats what people are saying, don't spend another penny. I don't fully get that. Why not try make the house more attractive to people. Does a front driveway make a house more attractive? It doesn't for me, but maybe it does for others? We need more people to visit the house, just need to really get the numbers up. Whats €10k if you make an extra €20k. If it goes the other way, its again not the end of the world.

Its a very wide road, fully lit, never had any issue at night. The odd head banger on their way to ballybough, but you get that in most areas of Dublin.

The large amount would be getting a front driveway so that people can pull in their car. In my mind, that might make the house more attractive. But hey, I'm just surmising, throwing out ideas etc.

Take this with the context that this is based off one conversation with a broker this week, as a family in a very similar position to yourself (in terms of expected sale price, remaining mortgage, expected new property price)...

I was told, we'd be going to the banks looking for the €550k mortgage, not €330k and make up the difference from the sale of the current property. Without selling up front, the new house is being bought with an entirely new mortgage. You get a new mortgage approval for what you need, and get your deposit in place. When the time comes (and the timing of this part confused me a bit), you put your deposit on the new house but can't go further without your current house essentially sold. With your old house sold, your old mortgage is paid off from the sale and you keep the balance so now you have a new €550k mortgage and €200k in the bank. It looks like you may have the same issue we are faced with. €30k in cash is not going to be enough for a 2nd time buyer deposit on a €550k mortgage.

Yeah, and I'd love for someone to correct me on my understanding but that was how it was put to me. If you're not going to sell up front, your current property value has no bearing on the new mortgage. That means a bigger mortgage on a higher interest rate, and having to get the deposit in place for that larger mortgage too.