Made an Offer, What Next?

Mitten30

Hello all,



Very new to the house buying process so I’d appreciate any advice that you can provide.



We have just put in an offer on a house, one other bidder so likely to be out bid but want to be prepared anyway. We are in a chain, will put our property on the market as soon as we have an offer accepted. We own a 2 bed apartment so have been advised likely to be sold quickly.

We are currently applying for mortgage approval, have been approved in principal. Some of the 10% deposit we require to going to be tied up in equity from our sale.

I am thinking if we get offer accepted, we put down a deposit for €5-6k, is this fully refundable if anything changes e.g. we don’t get mortgage approval etc?

When do we need to pay stamp duty, solicitor fees, estate agent fees, from our sale?

Is there anything else I need to think of or should be doing differently?



Thanks!

ThisRegard

Do I understand you correctly when you say you've put a bid in on a property but haven't yet put yours on the market?

If that's the case, and you're using the sale of your current property to fund the purchase of the new one, your bid will most likely not be entertained.

The vendor, and estate agent, will want you to be at least at sale agreed on your own property before accepting any of your bids.

Mitten30

Really? I thought the 2 could happen in tandem? Surely other people do that?
We don't want to put our property on the market and go sale agreed and have no where to live then......

D0NNELLY

When we put an offer in our house, the agent wouldn't forward it to the vendors till we sent him proof of funds, which in our case were the deposit amount and mortgage approval letter

ThisRegard

The vendor normally will want to sell as quick as possible, they don't want to have to rely on you selling your property for the right price and getting mortgage approval.

The seller usually has the upper hand here, even if they're also in a chain. You wouldn't want to go sale agree with someone on your property who still hasn't the funds in place to buy it, leaving you waiting to buy your new property, potentially missing out on the one you want.

Mitten30

Ok - I guess I will contact the estate agent and see how best to proceed from here.

heebusjeebus

Mitten, I'm facing the same situation as you this year.
At the moment I'm in the process of getting a valuation done on my apartment.
My plan, in the following order is below. With a "chain" nothing is certain though:

-Get valuation to show equity to be released from sale of current property
-Use valuation & current savings for mortgage approval
-Put apartment up for sale
-Hopefully get sale agreed on property
-Start putting in offers for new property
-Get sale agreed on new property
-Talk to seller & buyer to organize a realistic transfer date.
-Get keys and transfer furniture to new property
-Handover keys to buyers
-And relax!

I'm anticipating a lot of stress and heartache but hopefully we get the sales we want.

SteM

Mitten30 wrote: »

...I thought the 2 could happen in tandem? Surely other people do that?....

Other people do it but they don't like doing it. If the seller has a choice between 2 bids they will choose either someone that is not in a chain or if the 2 are in a chain they'll choose the one that is further along the sales process.

You mentioned in your OP that your 2 bed is likely to be sold quickly. It could go sale agreed quickly but get into complications with the sale causing it to drag. Anything can happen really and the seller will want to avoid getting caught up in as much of that as possible.

Bandana boy

Talk to your bank and get the mortgage approval in principle for a range of prices before you put in a bid would be the norm.

Mitten30

We have mortgage in principal and know our range based on conversations with the bank. We are getting our documentation together to apply for full approval.
Sounds like a lot of stress and heartache ahead - sigh!