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

KevRossi · 23-06-2021 2:54pm

C14N wrote: »

Got a quote from a solicitor for buying today at around €2.5k excluding VAT (so over €3k in reality) for just professional fees. In addition to that there is around another €1.5 in search and registration fees. I don't have any experience but do these sound like fairly typical fees for solicitor services others have seen when buying a house?

One thing that definitely stuck out as being a bit ridiculous is an extra €200 fee for stationary, postage, fax, and telephone. I'd really want to know how they arrived at such a huge figure for things that sound like they should be a pretty negligible expense.

Should be in and around €2-2,300 for Dublin max. Alone the €200 for sundries is a red flag to me. €100 is considered saucy for that. I'd look elsewhere, maybe PM a boardsie to get the name of a solicitor that they deal with.

KBH2020 · 23-06-2021 2:58pm

C14N wrote: »

I have noticed that almost everything we've offered on though has been bid up a lot above asking/guide price though. Makes me wonder, why does this keep happening? I would have assumed EAs would know the actual market value of houses these days, and it doesn't really do them any favours to have to deal with 25 potential buyers who are interested in a place at price X, but most of whom can't possibly afford to pay the price Y that it will inevitably end up going for. So why do they list properties at prices that attract buyers who realistically won't even be able to bid up the price that far?

o1s1n wrote: »

I'm noticing this a lot lately too, it's infuriating to be honest.

There was one house we were interested in, asking was 45k under what our maximum was. I thought it would nearly be a fallback house to go for if we couldn't secure some of the more expensive spots.

Ended up bidding on it and not only did it exceed our maximum, it went for 60k over asking :eek: - couldn't believe it.

Really starting to regret not doing all of this last year when there was much better value for money to be had.

C14N wrote: »

In this particular house we're looking at we'd have enough wiggle room to even go €75k over guide price and we still don't feel that confident we'll end up getting it tbh. We've done a handful of offers before where the asking gave us €20-35k of slack to bid up a bit, but those quickly got bit up out of our range each time, so don't even know what they ended up going for when the deal was done.

From what I can see some estate agents are putting the value on the house that would have been correct as of 2019/early 2020. In a way this comforts me because it makes me feel "oh maybe this is just temporary and that's why they aren't changing the asking prices!". We have offered 65k over asking on two houses in the same area and been outbid by a good 20/30k more. Last one we bid on we just went in 40k over asking cos we knew there was no point not to. It ended up going another 45k over that. 1 year ago we would have got these houses for 40k less at least. Between that and the terrible supply it is looking like we will just have to call the whole thing off and wait til my partner gets a payrise he is due next Jan and continue saving more. My fear is what if next year we are looking back going "oh wow that only went for 80k over asking last year, now its 120k over asking!". I don't know if that's just anxiety talking or a real possibility.

What's really killing me is the all the money we saved last year feels like a waste because had we bought mid year last year or even late last year we would have A. got a house B. spent less on it C. probably had money leftover from our savings to actually buy a bit of furniture! Now we have all our savings from last year but they are no good to us due to the overinflated prices/lack of supply.

I actually saw an article saying in the USA sellers are starting to flood the market with houses trying to capitalise on the high selling prices but obviously that's having the impact of quelling the mania as the supply increases. Can't say same is happening here unfortunately!:mad:

Starlord_01 · 23-06-2021 3:00pm

KevRossi wrote: »

Should be in and around €2-2,300 for Dublin max. Alone the €200 for sundries is a red flag to me. €100 is considered saucy for that. I'd look elsewhere, maybe PM a boardsie to get the name of a solicitor that they deal with.

We priced 7-9 solicitors for our purchase, "all in" prices ranged from 2.2 - 3k. The solicitor we picked was €2.3k, best money we spent.

C14N · 23-06-2021 3:18pm

KBH2020 wrote: »

From what I can see some estate agents are putting the value on the house that would have been correct as of 2019/early 2020. In a way this comforts me because it makes me feel "oh maybe this is just temporary and that's why they aren't changing the asking prices!". We have offered 65k over asking on two houses in the same area and been outbid by a good 20/30k more. Last one we bid on we just went in 40k over asking cos we knew there was no point not to. It ended up going another 45k over that. 1 year ago we would have got these houses for 40k less at least. Between that and the terrible supply it is looking like we will just have to call the whole thing off and wait til my partner gets a payrise he is due next Jan and continue saving more. My fear is what if next year we are looking back going "oh wow that only went for 80k over asking last year, now its 120k over asking!". I don't know if that's just anxiety talking or a real possibility.

What's really killing me is the all the money we saved last year feels like a waste because had we bought mid year last year or even late last year we would have A. got a house B. spent less on it C. probably had money leftover from our savings to actually buy a bit of furniture! Now we have all our savings from last year but they are no good to us due to the overinflated prices/lack of supply.

I actually saw an article saying in the USA sellers are starting to flood the market with houses trying to capitalise on the high selling prices but obviously that's having the impact of quelling the mania as the supply increases. Can't say same is happening here unfortunately!:mad:

Wow, so that's three houses you've looked at gone for €85k-95k over asking? :eek: This is exactly what I'm worried about with the one I viewed yesterday. We did have one other one where we put in an offer at asking and someone else (presumably using same logic as you) went and put in €25k higher than us immediately afterward to scare off the competition.

Honestly, in some ways I'd like to think supply problem is being fixed to some extent, but most of the large-scale new housing built is entirely build-to-rent, so I don't know to what extent it will impact prices of individual units. Beyond that, most new units built to sell seem to be getting built in further-away commuter-belt areas, rather than increasing the density inside the M50, which is where we're looking. I would be more inclined to think prices will stabilise than drop significantly because of that.

KBH2020 · 23-06-2021 3:53pm

C14N wrote: »

Wow, so that's three houses you've looked at gone for €85k-95k over asking? :eek: This is exactly what I'm worried about with the one I viewed yesterday. We did have one other one where we put in an offer at asking and someone else (presumably using same logic as you) went and put in €25k higher than us immediately afterward to scare off the competition.

Honestly, in some ways I'd like to think supply problem is being fixed to some extent, but most of the large-scale new housing built is entirely build-to-rent, so I don't know to what extent it will impact prices of individual units. Beyond that, most new units built to sell seem to be getting built in further-away commuter-belt areas, rather than increasing the density inside the M50, which is where we're looking. I would be more inclined to think prices will stabilise than drop significantly because of that.

Yeah, the houses we really wanted went like 85k over asking, the trend we have seen is 60k over asking is the minimum. We dropped out of another 1 or 2 when our limit was passed. I will say though go to myhome.ie and look at price changes, there are agents putting some asking prices down (now I presume this is because the price isn't generating bidding war, not that they couldn't sell it at asking) but at least that means there are some houses not causing the mad frenzy. Fingers crossed for you that it goes your way. You only have to be the lucky one once

A levelling off of prices would be a great improvement. We are inside M50 too and would buy a new build if there was one to buy. The second hand market is really where the demand is in Dublin cos of this and people just don't seem to be trading up or down right now. Most we have seen have either been: landlords selling off ex rental house, receivership, probate, moving outside Dublin, etc. Generally just terrible value for money in terms of house standard, etc. I think the gov should have tried to do something to stimulate second hand market, create incentive for those already in homes to trade up or down, freeing up more homes in the range of the market that FTB's may be able to afford.

Don't know about you but it is hard to not feel angry after years of saving, getting promotions, partner and myself living with parents for 2 years, no holidays, no car, hardly any meals out..(not to mention the pandemic

). I feel like what we have had to sacrifice to try get the house is just not worth it after what has happened this year with prices. Even if we get one next year that has just taken too much effort, too much sacrifice, too much time. We feel now because we have put so much effort in we have to get something we do really like as well (nothing special but either house or area has to feel right). A friend of mine has only saved for a year and is just going to try and get whatever they can. In a way I wish that is just what we had done.

In the game but the goal posts were moved mid play, its really tough for everyone right now

23-06-2021 4:07pm

I've been experiencing the same. I'm just going to sit it out and see what happens.

I don't have to buy a place. I don't have to live in Dublin or in Ireland.

I'm not going to panic or anything. Let the cards fall where they may.

23-06-2021 4:35pm

Infuriatingly, and curiously, I’ve bid on a few houses that the first offer has been 10-20k above asking. Asking prices have no relation to reality at the moment unfortunately.

23-06-2021 4:43pm

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm just going to sit it out and see what happens.

This is in my head, too. My fear, unfortunately, is that the Shared Equity Scheme is going to come rolling into town and raise the price of everything by the equity amount as people suddenly have "more money" to spend.

Thus, if you don't get in "now", you're gonna be paying two mortgages. I'm probably being dramatic, but that's my worst case scenario.

23-06-2021 4:50pm

[Deleted User] wrote: »

This is in my head, too. My fear, unfortunately, is that the Shared Equity Scheme is going to come rolling into town and raise the price of everything by the equity amount as people suddenly have "more money" to spend.

Thus, if you don't get in "now", you're gonna be paying two mortgages. I'm probably being dramatic, but that's my worst case scenario.

I'm not concerned in the slightest. I'm unmarried. I don't have kids. I've no debts. I've a good job with great career prospects, with remote work and the possibility to move to other jurisdictions.

I appreciate that other people might be in a position where they feel the need to buy. But I'm not in that position. Therefore I'm not going to panic, regardless of how manic it gets.

kippy · 23-06-2021 4:54pm

C14N wrote: »

I'm kind of in the same boat right now. Put in an offer at asking price on a house yesterday and still no reply back. The house is currently a good bit below our max budget and we'd be willing to go all-out for it, but there's been a lot of interest. Estate agent said they were doing 16 viewings that day and another 9 expressed interest already in addition to those by the time we viewed it, so we're worried it'll get bid up a good bit to out of our budget, which has happened on a few others before (although admittedly the asking price on those was already close to our maximum).

But my thinking is que sera sera. No point getting worked up and having regrets over something we never could have done anything about anyway.

I have noticed that almost everything we've offered on though has been bid up a lot above asking/guide price though. Makes me wonder, why does this keep happening? I would have assumed EAs would know the actual market value of houses these days, and it doesn't really do them any favours to have to deal with 25 potential buyers who are interested in a place at price X, but most of whom can't possibly afford to pay the price Y that it will inevitably end up going for. So why do they list properties at prices that attract buyers who realistically won't even be able to bid up the price that far?

Yeah I think I will at least try a few others. Was your quote substantially less than the >€4.5k I've been quoted above?

There are a few reasons this happens. It's generally increase the pool of potential purchasers.
People tend to have alerts setup on daft at various price points - the lower you go, the more interest you might get with people at that price point (for example, auctioneer things house is "worth 215,00" however knows that there's a while heap of people with alerts set up for houses below 200k. Places house on market for 199K. More people view, and potentially more people bid/get serious about it.
Realisticilly buyers can and often do go above what they may have originally perceived to be their "ceiling" when the "right property" comes along.
It's not really any skin off the auctioneers nose - they end up meeting many more potential buyers for other properties they may have on their books, the more viewers, generally the more bidders, and for the seller, they can end up with a quick sale agreed due to the numbers involved, and often times above the original asking price. So it works for everyone bar the potential buyers but it is what it is.

Sue de Nimes · 23-06-2021 5:37pm

Looking around at houses at the moment. Pretty sick of stuff being up on Daft as available and when you call up being told it went sale agreed weeks ago.

23-06-2021 5:38pm

Sue de Nimes wrote: »

Looking around at houses at the moment. Pretty sick of stuff being up on Daft as available and when you call up being told it went sale agreed weeks ago.

Free advertising. Or else a tactic to squeeze more money out of a buyer. “We’ll take it down if you pay an extra 5k”.

cintec · 23-06-2021 5:55pm

Sue de Nimes wrote: »

Looking around at houses at the moment. Pretty sick of stuff being up on Daft as available and when you call up being told it went sale agreed weeks ago.

The house i'm buying was taken down from daft and republished as for sale.
I just signed the contracts and my solicitor sent them to the vendors solicitor so I don't know why the estate agent does this but I can see half a dozen properties that they do this with.

C14N · 23-06-2021 7:36pm

kippy wrote: »

There are a few reasons this happens. It's generally increase the pool of potential purchasers.
People tend to have alerts setup on daft at various price points - the lower you go, the more interest you might get with people at that price point (for example, auctioneer things house is "worth 215,00" however knows that there's a while heap of people with alerts set up for houses below 200k. Places house on market for 199K. More people view, and potentially more people bid/get serious about it.
Realisticilly buyers can and often do go above what they may have originally perceived to be their "ceiling" when the "right property" comes along.
It's not really any skin off the auctioneers nose - they end up meeting many more potential buyers for other properties they may have on their books, the more viewers, generally the more bidders, and for the seller, they can end up with a quick sale agreed due to the numbers involved, and often times above the original asking price. So it works for everyone bar the potential buyers but it is what it is.

If the EAs were making some kind of portfolio of buyers I could understand, but in my experience none of them have ever really kept any details for other properties. They don't have to. If they put up another ad, buyers will swarm to it anyway, they don't need to chase down old contacts they think might be interested. I get the alerts thing to some extent. If you thought your ceiling was €200k but you can get your "dream home" for €210k, you might stretch it, but if your ceiling was €200k and the house is definitely going to be going for over €250k then you don't really benefit by reeling in the ones with the lower alerts.

As a real example, the EA for the house we bid on yesterday has gotten back to us and said the price is now €55k over asking, based on just 1 day of viewings. I'm not shocked by that, and we were ready to go that much over asking, but out of the 25 interested parties, a lot of them must have been interested in it because it seemed like such a good price at what it went up for (same as we have done on properties listed for higher initial asking prices). We don't have the same level of information on sale prices and market demand as a professional EA, and we still knew this house was going to go for a lot more, so he obviously knew that even better than us, but he still wasted his own time with a bunch of people who likely thought they could get it at or close to asking price.

Sue de Nimes wrote: »

Looking around at houses at the moment. Pretty sick of stuff being up on Daft as available and when you call up being told it went sale agreed weeks ago.

I've had that experience a lot too. Sellers never seem to be in much of a hurry to take things down. Browsing around is almost a complete waste of time. If you aren't setup with email alerts to call within 24 hours of it going up, it'll probably be gone before you get to it.

silver_sky · 23-06-2021 10:00pm

KevRossi wrote: »

Should be in and around €2-2,300 for Dublin max. Alone the €200 for sundries is a red flag to me. €100 is considered saucy for that. I'd look elsewhere, maybe PM a boardsie to get the name of a solicitor that they deal with.

Just paid ours within the past few weeks and professional fees were €1,500 ex VAT. Sundries of 50 quid. In Dublin also... It seems we didn't do too bad!

TheSheriff · 23-06-2021 10:07pm

silver_sky wrote: »

Just paid ours within the past few weeks and professional fees were €1,500 ex VAT. Sundries of 50 quid. In Dublin also... It seems we didn't do too bad!

This is what it should be.... quotes of 3k are madness.

busylady · 23-06-2021 10:34pm

errlloyd wrote: »

Pretty specific question, but it looks like it's the hold up on my apartment closing right now.

Has anyone bought an apartment and had to provide the bank with a letter showing they were now an interested party in the Apartment Block Insurance policy?

If so - did the letter of interest from the insurer / broker name the bank, or name the buyer as the interested party?

The letter I provided my bank names me as the interested party, which my solicitor thinks is correct. But the bank think it is meant to name them.

The letter of interest should note both your interest and the bank's interest.

Cash_Q · 24-06-2021 5:46am

cintec wrote:

The house i'm buying was taken down from daft and republished as for sale. I just signed the contracts and my solicitor sent them to the vendors solicitor so I don't know why the estate agent does this but I can see half a dozen properties that they do this with.

This happened frequently with the house we bought last year. The EA seemed to refresh a number of ads like this. We bought our first house in 2018 and never really stopped looking on Daft in the meantime so we had a good idea of which houses were advertised over and over again. We had to contact the EA and get them to take the ad down once we moved in even though we had been Sale Agreed for over 4 months.

Red Silurian · 24-06-2021 9:40am

C14N wrote: »

Seems to me like it should almost do the opposite though. Like, if I was in any way feeling on the fence about whether or not to buy right now or to just wait until later, knowing that there is a huge amount of competition would make me feel less inclined to bother. Who wants to be buying when you have to compete with a big crowd on every property you look at?

Maybe it makes sense to entice sellers to put their property up, but even then I'd have to imagine that most people selling will also be looking to buy somewhere else to move into at the same time, and I'd be more apprehensive about that if I knew part of selling the house meant I'd be having a hard time finding a new one. Even aside from that, you'd have to think most sellers ideally don't want dozens of strangers poking around their houses if they could help it. The owner is never present in my experience, even if the house is obviously still their primary residence, so that's 25 periods you have to make yourself scarce for, compared to say 5, if you narrowed it to just the most serious parties.

That could be a part of it also, most of the houses I've viewed in the last 3 months have been going through probate, possibly a sign of COVID killing off nursing home residents, sorry if that sounds morbid, offensive or un-caring

Wandering2021 · 24-06-2021 9:54am

C14N wrote: »

I'm kind of in the same boat right now. Put in an offer at asking price on a house yesterday and still no reply back. The house is currently a good bit below our max budget and we'd be willing to go all-out for it, but there's been a lot of interest. Estate agent said they were doing 16 viewings that day and another 9 expressed interest already in addition to those by the time we viewed it, so we're worried it'll get bid up a good bit to out of our budget, which has happened on a few others before (although admittedly the asking price on those was already close to our maximum).

But my thinking is que sera sera. No point getting worked up and having regrets over something we never could have done anything about anyway.

I have noticed that almost everything we've offered on though has been bid up a lot above asking/guide price though. Makes me wonder, why does this keep happening? I would have assumed EAs would know the actual market value of houses these days, and it doesn't really do them any favours to have to deal with 25 potential buyers who are interested in a place at price X, but most of whom can't possibly afford to pay the price Y that it will inevitably end up going for. So why do they list properties at prices that attract buyers who realistically won't even be able to bid up the price that far?

Yeah I think I will at least try a few others. Was your quote substantially less than the >€4.5k I've been quoted above?

Good luck! Sounds similar to us. We are now just going to chill out and be of the thought that we're not likely to get it. There's another place we're interested in as well so might view that in the meantime. Nothing is certain until signed on the dotted line!

The EA told us about the asking price thing that (not sure how true this is) they don't even know how much a house will sell for, the market is that crazy. He told a colleague off for putting a house up for more than he thought it was worth and it sold for much over the asking price again. Certainly is mad at the moment.

coldfire1x · 24-06-2021 11:34am

Madness but its not going to stop anytime soon:

https://extra.ie/2021/06/24/property/asking-price-bidding-frenzy

https://offr.io/property/9-fortfield-terrace-rathmines-dublin-6-d06-yv12-ie/1832

ionapaul · 24-06-2021 11:50am

I wonder if all the attention that Rathmines house has received will end up being a good thing for the sellers - unless the review of interest and proof of funds is very thorough, I'd guess at this point the chances that people are making bids just for the sake of it is very high!

PropBuyer101 · 24-06-2021 11:56am

coldfire1x wrote: »

Madness but its not going to stop anytime soon:

https://extra.ie/2021/06/24/property/asking-price-bidding-frenzy

https://offr.io/property/9-fortfield-terrace-rathmines-dublin-6-d06-yv12-ie/1832

absolute madness! an average house in Rathmines and now they are millionaires - sure they can move to Malibu now

PropBuyer101 · 24-06-2021 11:57am

ionapaul wrote: »

I wonder if all the attention that Rathmines house has received will end up being a good thing for the sellers - unless the review of interest and proof of funds is very thorough, I'd guess at this point the chances that people are making bids just for the sake of it is very high!

it will be good for them if the sale goes through!

PropBuyer101 · 24-06-2021 11:58am

ionapaul wrote: »

I wonder if all the attention that Rathmines house has received will end up being a good thing for the sellers - unless the review of interest and proof of funds is very thorough, I'd guess at this point the chances that people are making bids just for the sake of it is very high!

who would be making bids for the sake of it though?

Claw Hammer · 24-06-2021 12:01pm

PropBuyer101 wrote: »

absolute madness! an average house in Rathmines and now they are millionaires - sure they can move to Malibu now

It was quoted well under a reasonable figure to start with. With a makeover that will be an exceptional house in an excellent area. It is walkable to St Stephens Green in 2o minutes, near the Cowper Luas, Rathmines, ranelagh and rathgar village centres and accessible to all manner of amenities.

Brock Turnpike · 24-06-2021 12:02pm

Hi all.

Anyone have a template/website for doing an all in mortgage repayment calculation that they would recommend? Looking for not just the mortgage repayment but also the other bits on top of buying a house for the first time i.e. legal fees, assessor fees, life insurance, home insurance, etc..

Thanks.

24-06-2021 12:03pm

PropBuyer101 wrote: »

absolute madness! an average house in Rathmines and now they are millionaires - sure they can move to Malibu now

They were millionaires anyway, as was anyone owning a similar property

The country is full of millionaires we just pretend that the family home doesnt count

24-06-2021 12:04pm

Brock Turnpike wrote: »

Hi all.

Anyone have a template/website for doing an all in mortgage repayment calculation that they would recommend? Looking for not just the mortgage repayment but also the other bits on top of buying a house for the first time i.e. legal fees, assessor fees, life insurance, home insurance, etc..

Thanks.

Mortgage amortization spreadsheets are a Google away. As are an estimate for fees.

Insurance is case specific, so it's difficult to have a template for that.

Callendro · 24-06-2021 12:05pm

Looking to move to Wexford area. Any tips or help regarding area, house prices, pitfalls with properties etc.? I noticed that there are septic tanks and well water on quite a few of the properties. Is this for rural properties only? Please excuse my ignorance as I have never lived in Ireland but we are really excited to get there soon.

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

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