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

How long did other people wait to receive their full loan offer from Haven? I'm buying a house that needs some work, and they insisted on written quotes from workmen who'd actually visited the house, for every job.

Everything I submit, it seems like they ask for another piece of paperwork. I'm using a broker but still find it all insanely stressful, especially as the sellers are getting impatient. The house is empty and I have the full deposit amount waiting in my account, ready to go! Gaaaarghhh.

My brother in law is involved in a property chain that just completely fell apart there the other day.

Brother in law was buying and went sale agreed on a house (well call this House 1), had to sell his own house (we'll call this House 2) in order to buy House 1. He found a buyer for House 2 however the vendor of House 1 couldnt find a suitable property to buy so the sale of House 1 fell through, which meant that my brother in law cancelled the sale of his house (House 2) and the purchasers of House 2 had to sell property (albeit not a family home) in order to buy House 2 and so that may have fallen through aswell. We're not sure.

Property chains at the moment as insane! One issue and multiple sales fall through due to complete and utter lack of alternative options available for people.

There seems to be a complete dearth of options out there at the moment. Does anyone have any expectation now that we are edging out of Winter and days are getting longer that there might be a slight uptick in amount of properties on the market? Would Jan Feb after Christmas typically be slow months anyway for people thinking of selling?

Has anyone used Propertyhealthcheck.ie for a survey? Looking for a survey in Naas, Kildare.

Has anyone an idea how long AIB take to get valuation done once you have booked and paid for it?

Co Mayo so wouldn't expect a big delay! Hopefully the last thing needed before we can get insurance sorted and get our keys.

Another + for Property Health Check - it's quite high level but gives an overview of the property and highlights any key concerns.

Agree it’s depressing. Anything decent that does go on the market is snapped up after a short bidding war. I can’t see the situation improving in the short to medium term. It’s a full blown crisis. Government need to be held to account for this mess.

Hi does anyone know how long does it take to get the Homebond certificate released nowadays? It is the only thing outstanding before we go drawdown.

Thanks in advance.

I sorted out mortgage protection a few months prior to closing. The broker just checked in every month for a couple of months to see if I had a start date for the policy yet. He did not seem bothered when I told him it would be another month before I had an update. With regard to home insurance you can do that closer to the time as it only takes a few minutes online provided the home is not over 100 years old and provided it is not listed (when this is the case it can take longer than mortgage protection to sort out!)

We have been sale agreed for several months now but trading up is nearly impossible and we have not managed to find anywhere to move to. In the meantime, prices for similar houses in our area have gone up and it feels like it's going to be very hard to close the gap if this continues.

I don't want to screw over our purchasers but I just wish they would quit of their own accord so we can re-market the house as I don't think we can close the gap in trading up finances if prices continue to rise and agents won't entertain potential purchasers in a chain unless they are sale agreed on their own house but it seems to be impossible to move so everyone is caught in a ridiculous stale mate where they are sale agreed to purchase but cannot move. Will we just have to keep taking the property on and off the market just to attempt to purchase? Is anyone else in this situation?

That is definitely a better idea to not go sale agreed until you are sale agreed on a property too. We were played a bit by our agent as we were bidding on a property also with them (a bad idea) and thought if we went sale agreed on ours, they would tell their vendor to accept our offer but of course they didn't and bidding went way over asking and we had to back out. The agent really doesn't care what price you get and just wants to wrap it up fast so they get their commission.

I think quickest sale is the bottom line with agents and they don't care what price you get really. It is what it is and there is nothing we can do about it but I wouldn't get pressurised into going sale agreed with the promise of going sale agreed on purchase again and I would warn anyone to be cautious about having the same agent but there isn't really much you can do in a sellers' market. I am thinking of using Moovingo next time though as I feel I did a lot of the work myself so would prefer not to pay the commission. If anyone has any experience of them, I would be grateful for feedback.

Thanks - that is very helpful to know. I will definitely use them if I have to put the house on the market again which unfortunately I will probably have to do next year.

Here's hoping the supply increases soon and we all have better luck house hunting soon.