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

Claw Hammer · 01-07-2021 2:02pm

Deleted User wrote: »

Can you mortgage a house with a sitting tenant?

I was always under the impression that a bank won't entertain you, unless its a buy to let mortgage (requiring 30% deposit), even if you don't actually intend to continue renting it, and want to use it as you own house.

But someone told me yesterday that they got a normal mortgage on a rented house. Apparently the seller had to issue notice to the tenants, and give a copy of the notice to the bank/lender, too. And the bank were okay with it then? That doesn't sound like real life to me at all, though, but at the same time, i am not sure why the person (I didnt know them personally) would bother lying.

Did the bank actually release the funds? If the tenants don't move out before the closing will the bank release the funds? There may be mortgage in principle but subject to vacant possession on closing. That is different to getting a mortgage where there are tenants in situ who will be staying on.

byron55 · 01-07-2021 2:36pm

ELM327 wrote: »

Starting to get very demotivated at this stage. Looking around the meath/westmeath area near navan, kells, trim, athboy, delvin and everything is going over our 400k budget even if listed at 320-340k "asking".

We're looking at houses with >1 acre so perhaps this plays a factor but I feel like we've been outbid on so many dream houses at this stage its difficult to keep going. Have another viewing later today a bit further out in westmeath so hopefully the madness stops!

In the same boat - looking in same areas (though preferably cheaper price and would be content with a decent-sized garden) and the area is nuts. There is so little out there, and so anything of relative attractiveness is snapped up. Was bidding on one property last week, with EA informing me of 10% increases every day - gave up on day 4. Hard to find the motivation for it. Fingers crossed something miraculous happens and more properties come onto the market.

01-07-2021 3:10pm

Alwandy wrote: »

It's estimated to be completed in February, went by the house today and saw the house I'm purchasing got the windows and roof in plus plastered all around on the outside waiting for the bricks to go in... it looks the house will be completed waaaaaaaay earlier.

It may seem very quick, but the shell of the house tends to go up a lot faster than the inside will. I am not saying it won't be done earlier, but it may well not be much earlier at all. Don't get too excited about the walls and roof being there. They've a long way to go, yet.

01-07-2021 3:11pm

Claw Hammer wrote: »

Did the bank actually release the funds? If the tenants don't move out before the closing will the bank release the funds? There may be mortgage in principle but subject to vacant possession on closing. That is different to getting a mortgage where there are tenants in situ who will be staying on.

I've no idea. The way it was told to me, they "bought the house and just waited for the notice to expire and the tenants to move", but I'm not sure how true or accurate it is.

I don't know the person well at all. Stranger I got chatting to at a house viewing and we were talking about property in general.

tobsey · 01-07-2021 3:23pm

Deleted User wrote: »

I've no idea. The way it was told to me, they "bought the house and just waited for the notice to expire and the tenants to move", but I'm not sure how true or accurate it is.

I don't know the person well at all. Stranger I got chatting to at a house viewing and we were talking about property in general.

People mean different things when they say "bought the house". They might still have a few steps to complete. I'd guess that the solicitor had to give an undertaking to the bank that the funds wouldn't be transferred to the seller until there was vacant possession. All the docs could have been signed well in advance of that though. I'd imagine that would be a condition of the mortgage but it's possible they missed it. I'd be surprised if any solicitor didn't advise their client not to close until they had vacant possession also.

ec18 · 01-07-2021 3:40pm

Deleted User wrote: »

I've no idea. The way it was told to me, they "bought the house and just waited for the notice to expire and the tenants to move", but I'm not sure how true or accurate it is.

I don't know the person well at all. Stranger I got chatting to at a house viewing and we were talking about property in general.

Sounds like he went sale agreed and the waited for the house to be vacant before closing / signing contracts.

I doubt a bank would release fund to a solicitor even with an undertaking as or that purchaser would be happy as they'd have to start repayments when funds are released

Esho · 01-07-2021 3:45pm

Currently trying to sell our house (Sandyford in Dublin) but after an initial burst of interest, there has only been one viewing in the last 3 weeks. I don't understand it. Anyone else having this experience?

DataDude · 01-07-2021 4:24pm

Esho wrote: »

Currently trying to sell our house (Sandyford in Dublin) but after an initial burst of interest, there has only been one viewing in the last 3 weeks. I don't understand it. Anyone else having this experience?

I saw similar with a family member selling in SCD. I think the vast majority of people looking either have email alerts or use the "recently added" section of the property pages these days with properties moving so fast. If it's of interest, they'll set up the viewing sharpish.

Think that "first wave" you get when the property goes up is your best shot. After that, the audience will come through in drips and drabs so think what you've experienced is not unusual.

Alwandy · 01-07-2021 4:37pm

Deleted User wrote: »

It may seem very quick, but the shell of the house tends to go up a lot faster than the inside will. I am not saying it won't be done earlier, but it may well not be much earlier at all. Don't get too excited about the walls and roof being there. They've a long way to go, yet.

Thanks, good to know these kind of stuff, I am a first buyer after all... (First one in the family too) so trying to grasp the responsibilities and how things gets done.

iColdFusion · 01-07-2021 5:11pm

Sorry if this has been asked before but what is the deal with people bidding 50k over the asking price of a house and the bank going along with that?
Will an independent bank valuation actually sign off on that house being worth 50k more or do the buyers need to fund that from savings?

It seems like an immediate negative equity scenario to me unless 3-4 other similar houses in the area have sold for the higher amount and the house was put up for sale below market value, one bidding war does not mean the house is actually worth more if the bank had to sell it.

C14N · 01-07-2021 5:16pm

iColdFusion wrote: »

Sorry if this has been asked before but what is the deal with people bidding 50k over the asking price of a house and the bank going along with that?
Will an independent bank valuation actually sign off on that house being worth 50k more or do the buyers need to fund that from savings?

It seems like an immediate negative equity scenario to me unless 3-4 other similar houses in the area have sold for the higher amount and the house was put up for sale below market value, one bidding war does not mean the house is actually worth more if the bank had to sell it.

If it's happening everywhere and it got to that point by multiple parties bidding it up, it kind of is though. I don't think the "asking price" really factors in at all in the actual value of the house the bank will assess it at. Even in the best case scenario, this is just a guess based on what the EA thinks it will sell for, or what the seller wants to receive.

odyssey06 · 01-07-2021 5:17pm

iColdFusion wrote: »

Sorry if this has been asked before but what is the deal with people bidding 50k over the asking price of a house and the bank going along with that?
Will an independent bank valuation actually sign off on that house being worth 50k more or do the buyers need to fund that from savings?
It seems like an immediate negative equity scenario to me unless 3-4 other similar houses in the area have sold for the higher amount and the house was put up for sale below market value, one bidding war does not mean the house is actually worth more if the bank had to sell it.

Bank are cushioned by 20% deposit likely.

ELM327 · 01-07-2021 5:34pm

iColdFusion wrote: »

Sorry if this has been asked before but what is the deal with people bidding 50k over the asking price of a house and the bank going along with that?
Will an independent bank valuation actually sign off on that house being worth 50k more or do the buyers need to fund that from savings?

It seems like an immediate negative equity scenario to me unless 3-4 other similar houses in the area have sold for the higher amount and the house was put up for sale below market value, one bidding war does not mean the house is actually worth more if the bank had to sell it.

If the house is listed at 400k, but goes sale agreed at 450k, the buyers are funding 90k of the 450 with 20% deposit so the bank would still be in positive equity.
Or, the bank may only give the amount they deem appropriate and the buyers would have to give a bigger deposit.
It's not unknown out in the country for the valuer to ask how much you went sale agreed at, and they then put that down as the valuation. Valuers are estate agents and higher property values are in their interest.

Jasna1982 · 01-07-2021 6:24pm

Can anyone recommend a good solicitor in Galway? About to put a booking deposit down on a new build and need a good solicitor. PM for details please

taylor3 · 01-07-2021 8:02pm

iColdFusion wrote: »

Sorry if this has been asked before but what is the deal with people bidding 50k over the asking price of a house and the bank going along with that?
Will an independent bank valuation actually sign off on that house being worth 50k more or do the buyers need to fund that from savings?

It seems like an immediate negative equity scenario to me unless 3-4 other similar houses in the area have sold for the higher amount and the house was put up for sale below market value, one bidding war does not mean the house is actually worth more if the bank had to sell it.

Absolutely head wrecking stuff. I looked at a 2 bed asking price €295 I really liked it and offered €300, 2 days later the estate agent rang me to say they had an offer of €325 but someone else put an offer in of €360,000 !!! It's a frenzy out there atm.

Cash_Q · 01-07-2021 10:27pm

brianc27 wrote:

Anyone know what would be a reasonable time frame to expect to receive a closing date on a sale, place I'm buying, signed contracts received by solicitor a week and a half ago and he said he was reaching out to vendor then for closing date, I told him I'm good to go so whenever suits the vendor will suit me (house is vacant so no chain involved), a week and a half later still not date, was I niave to think I'd have a date the next day after solicitor reached out to the other side. Been in contact with my solicitor twice who just said he's heard nothing yet.

If I were you I would contact the EA and ask them to contact the vendor to make sure they're aware that your solicitor reached out to their solicitor. They might not have heard anything yet themselves but if they know you're keen to set a date they should be putting pressure on their own solicitor to get it sorted. For all anyone knows their solicitor is on leave or something, this was the only issue that arose for us when it came to silence from solicitors, but at least knowing that someone was just on leave gave us peace of mind that there was no other issues at play. Our EAs were really excellent at being the middleman between us and the vendor and buyers for both buying and selling.

Cash_Q · 01-07-2021 10:27pm

brianc27 wrote:

Anyone know what would be a reasonable time frame to expect to receive a closing date on a sale, place I'm buying, signed contracts received by solicitor a week and a half ago and he said he was reaching out to vendor then for closing date, I told him I'm good to go so whenever suits the vendor will suit me (house is vacant so no chain involved), a week and a half later still not date, was I niave to think I'd have a date the next day after solicitor reached out to the other side. Been in contact with my solicitor twice who just said he's heard nothing yet.

If I were you I would contact the EA and ask them to contact the vendor to make sure they're aware that your solicitor reached out to their solicitor. They might not have heard anything yet themselves but if they know you're keen to set a date they should be putting pressure on their own solicitor to get it sorted. For all anyone knows their solicitor is on leave or something, this was the only issue that arose for us when it came to silence from solicitors, but at least knowing that someone was just on leave gave us peace of mind that there was no other issues at play. Our EAs were really excellent at being the middleman between us and the vendor and buyers for both buying and selling.

brianc27 · 02-07-2021 7:47am

Cash_Q wrote: »

If I were you I would contact the EA and ask them to contact the vendor to make sure they're aware that your solicitor reached out to their solicitor. They might not have heard anything yet themselves but if they know you're keen to set a date they should be putting pressure on their own solicitor to get it sorted. For all anyone knows their solicitor is on leave or something, this was the only issue that arose for us when it came to silence from solicitors, but at least knowing that someone was just on leave gave us peace of mind that there was no other issues at play. Our EAs were really excellent at being the middleman between us and the vendor and buyers for both buying and selling.

yea i was actaully speaking to the estate agent a few days ago, she was updating me on what furniture/appliances will be taken or left, so im assuming that could be what the slight hold up is, i told her im ready to go and my solicitor reached out to the vendor side for a close date that suits them, she said they are keen on closing quick too so hopefully i get some movement in the next few days. My own solicitor just keeps saying he's waiting for a reply but i think im going to push him to contact the other side again if there still nothing by monday.

tscul32 · 02-07-2021 9:40am

Was looking at the property price register and was surprised to see a house in the area that was asking 390, sold last week for 391. Obviously not everything going way over asking. And it's a nice house, not undesirable in any way.

Dodge · 02-07-2021 9:47am

tscul32 wrote: »

Was looking at the property price register and was surprised to see a house in the area that was asking 390, sold last week for 391. Obviously not everything going way over asking. And it's a nice house, not undesirable in any way.

People only tend to complain/talk about abnormal stuff

We know there’s a limited supply at the moment and some believe mortgages are unobtainable for them but thousands of people are approved for mortgages and the vast majority of them find a house they can live in. We’re looking at the moment and there’s a few houses for sale within our budget in our area and some of them have been on the market with no bids for a little while

I’m not trying to belittle anyone’s individual problems but this forum, and the wider media, isn’t representative of the whole situation (in my experience)

klose · 02-07-2021 10:00am

Bidding on a house at the moment, seller wants it done by lunch today, the usual plus a thousand bids going in from the other side. Price is obviously a bit over the asking so we are thinking of just paying more than the 10% deposit to "offset" this as we've plenty of savings and the house is essentially turn key. Do people think this is a good idea? I assume the bank would have no issue with us paying more than the 10% deposit (ftb obviously)

brianc27 · 02-07-2021 10:37am

klose wrote: »

Bidding on a house at the moment, seller wants it done by lunch today, the usual plus a thousand bids going in from the other side. Price is obviously a bit over the asking so we are thinking of just paying more than the 10% deposit to "offset" this as we've plenty of savings and the house is essentially turn key. Do people think this is a good idea? I assume the bank would have no issue with us paying more than the 10% deposit (ftb obviously)

the more you can pay yourself the better

ELM327 · 02-07-2021 10:39am

So, back from a viewing yesterday of a brilliant house on just over 3 acres. On the market a few months with no offers so we couldnt understand why.

On arrival we were greeted by the owner, and all became clear. The owner was an oddball to say the least! I found his twitter online afterwards (using publicly available methods, all his PII was available by google) and he is a holocaust denier!The auctioneer was trying to hide us from him as he followed us around the house. Apparently he wanted a non refundable booking deposit.

We loved the house so we made a bid under asking but on the proviso of a fully refundable booking deposit. Is this a thing now, non refundable deposits?

brianc27 · 02-07-2021 10:49am

never heard of non refundable booking deposit, i would get it in writing that it will be 100% refundable before paying anything, its usually 2 or 3 % of the house price, so its a fair bit of money

C14N · 02-07-2021 10:49am

Dodge wrote: »

People only tend to complain/talk about abnormal stuff

I don't think the bidding going over asking is in any way abnormal right now, I would say it is the norm. However, what I would also say is that there will of course be anomanlies and exceptions like the previous poster. I've seen a few myself on the PPR of houses going for surprisingly reasonable prices. For whatever reason, things can just end up getting lost and overlooked, but I think it's a good indication that it's worth trying to find those ones that are like that.

klose wrote: »

Bidding on a house at the moment, seller wants it done by lunch today, the usual plus a thousand bids going in from the other side. Price is obviously a bit over the asking so we are thinking of just paying more than the 10% deposit to "offset" this as we've plenty of savings and the house is essentially turn key. Do people think this is a good idea? I assume the bank would have no issue with us paying more than the 10% deposit (ftb obviously)

We're doing the same. Mortgage doesn't really cover up to what we want, but we have extra money ourselves. Not ideal, as it would be nice to hold on to the savings, but we've made our peace with it. The deal with the bank (for first time buyer's) is that the 10% deposit is the minimum. If you want to put in more of your own money I don't think there's a bank in the world who would turn you down.

ELM327 · 02-07-2021 10:56am

brianc27 wrote: »

never heard of non refundable booking deposit, i would get it in writing that it will be 100% refundable before paying anything, its usually 2 or 3 % of the house price, so its a fair bit of money

Yes absolutely. Generally (or when I bought the current place) it was a 5k booking deposit. Absolutely not handing that over without the refundable element being defined. It goes to the estate agent not him directly so we'd be following up with the estate agent in the event of problems.

It was news to me to that someone would ask for that but it explained to me why there were no offers!

tigger123 · 02-07-2021 11:08am

ELM327 wrote: »

Yes absolutely. Generally (or when I bought the current place) it was a 5k booking deposit. Absolutely not handing that over without the refundable element being defined. It goes to the estate agent not him directly so we'd be following up with the estate agent in the event of problems.

It was news to me to that someone would ask for that but it explained to me why there were no offers!

A 'non-refundable booking deposit' would be a serious cause of concern for me, as it is very much not the norm. It would make me wonder why the vendor wants it. I'd be getting a very thorough survey done if I were you.

Dodge · 02-07-2021 11:46am

C14N wrote: »

I don't think the bidding going over asking is in any way abnormal right now, I would say it is the norm. However, what I would also say is that there will of course be anomanlies and exceptions like the previous poster. I've seen a few myself on the PPR of houses going for surprisingly reasonable prices. For whatever reason, things can just end up getting lost and overlooked, but I think it's a good indication that it's worth trying to find those ones that are like that.

Of course, I myself generalised. I meant it more to say that some are being ridiculously OTT in their comments here and elsewhere. Some one posted the other day that there’s ‘no houses in Dublin for less than 400k’ when a simple search on daft shows over 800

Obviously anyone with an interest is doing their own research but just using that as an illustration of how extreme the comments in here can be

optogirl · 02-07-2021 12:23pm

Dodge wrote: »

Of course, I myself generalised. I meant it more to say that some are being ridiculously OTT in their comments here and elsewhere. Some one posted the other day that there’s ‘no houses in Dublin for less than 400k’ when a simple search on daft shows over 800

Obviously anyone with an interest is doing their own research but just using that as an illustration of how extreme the comments in here can be

We were looking for 9 months with a budget of 320. Outbid by tens of thousands on every house we bid on. One went 90k over asking - a 2 bed ex-council house with a tiny kitchen and in need of renovation, another 60k over. We've given up.

C14N · 02-07-2021 2:23pm

Dodge wrote: »

Of course, I myself generalised. I meant it more to say that some are being ridiculously OTT in their comments here and elsewhere. Some one posted the other day that there’s ‘no houses in Dublin for less than 400k’ when a simple search on daft shows over 800

Obviously anyone with an interest is doing their own research but just using that as an illustration of how extreme the comments in here can be

I'd say it's hard, but not impossible if you're willing to look either pretty far out from the city, look in some areas considered "less reputable", or include smaller dwellings.

That said, I would also say a substantial portion of those houses listed will already be close to 400k and it won't take much to bid them up past that, because there's a pretty huge demand in this kind of price bracket. Some will still stay lower, but if someone told me that was their budget and they want a house in Dublin I would be cautioning them to keep the expectations low.

Our own journey is still humming along. We've made 6 offers so far this week. Different levels of interest for each.

Two of them we offered at or close to asking, and the agent confirmed but hasn't given us anything else on, even though they were made on Tuesday and Wednesday.

We're in a bidding war with one other party for a house we saw Monday and it's getting a bit high for what we'd like to pay for it. Agent called to tell us this morning so we'll have to decide today though.

Another one we saw Wednesday and put an offer in is also in a bit of a bidding war, but we don't want to go too high as we want to keep some savings to do work on it if we get it.

The most competitive one is one we saw Wednesday evening. Currently at 65k over asking, 4 parties still involved, including ourselves. Very nice house though so could see going longer with it.

The favourite though is one we saw yesterday. Immediately put an asking price offer in. Agent got back to us first thing in the morning to say we were second to offer that and we had to go higher, so we've been bidding against one other party all day. Their last offer was only €2k higher than ours, and we still have some petrol in the tank to go higher so we're hoping they're near the end of their tether. Still wary of a third party swooping in with huge money though, which happened before on one we did bidding on against just one other party.

Went to one at lunch time today, and it's amazing what a difference an agent can make to how you view the house. I quite liked the place as it was, but it was such a lousy viewing experience that I feel reluctant now to put in an offer. Huge numbers of people at the same time viewing it together. Most of them I've seen give people time slots and if there are multiple people together they try to shuffle us around so you have one party upstairs, one downstairs, and maybe one in the garden at any time. This agent just waved everyone in, barely paying attention, so we were walking over the others checking the place out. Seemed only half-interested in the questions we had. Didn't get a good impression at all. I'll probably still make an offer because it's not really something you should decide a house on but was surprised how much of a sour taste it leaves.

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

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