Are you house hunting or just bought?

The property market is a mixed bag right now. One client recently had an offer accepted, all the legal work had started, and then six months later the seller decided they wanted £30,000 more for the property. The house was not worth it so my client had to pull out and start the whole process again and at their expense. Another client case was nine months in when the seller decided he did not want to buy his new house as he did not like the extension that was being built next door, and so another chain collapsed. Another one had three goes at buying a property, the first fell through as the estate agent was a complete diva, even the seller had enough of them and stopped the sale. Second property, the seller failed to disclose some very important info that only got flagged up on the survey, resulting in more expense and time wasted. We are currently at the third property and fingers crossed on this one.

The house buying process for many people, in such a competitive property market is still a very treacherous place to be right now. Essentially there is very little protection for buyers and a fair degree of risk involved, right up until exchange of contracts. Gazumping is still common place, with estate agents almost seemingly actively encouraging this practice, to help drive up purchase prices to keep their vendors happy, and to help of course boost their potential commission levels from the sale too. The practice of 'sealed bids' is also still very prevalent as well, with many estate agents using this as a preferred method of driving up the sale price for their vendors, but not accounting for the anxious wait that prospective buyers face in waiting to hear their fate after submitting their highest offer. It isn't just buyers however, that face the risk of paying upfront fees often in the thousands, only for the property transaction to then fall through just before exchange of contracts. Sellers are still, (although we are seeing this less and less), open to the practice of gazundering, whereby buyers purposefully lower their offer price at the last minute, just before exchange of contracts, to broker themselves a better deal. This leaves the seller in a desperate position, often meaning that unless they simply accept the reduced offer, their chain will collapse and they cannot buy their new intended home. There is a distinct lack of regulation in the property market, and more needs to be done to protect both buyers and sellers from being exposed to these practices that can completely scupper ordinary people's ability to both buy and sell. In terms of mortgage offers being rescinded, this does not happen very often but when it does, and the lender decides to withdraw the offer last minute, it is often too late for the broker to do anything to save it in time. The best advice to any borrower is to keep the status quo until the mortgage has gone through. Try not to have a change in your employment status, and certainly actively try to avoid applying for any new credit until the mortgage has all gone through.