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

Thanks Giblet - I am out of contract on everything so hopefully it wont be an issue. Once I get a date to be gone from property, I will get cracking on cancelling the utilities.

just cancel on the day you are moving out

Hi folks.

We're currently in the fortunate position to have had offers accepted on two properties that we like. We didn't plan for this to happen but let me explain:

We viewed a house that is in a great location and has had some work done in recent years to bring the BER to a B3. However, the bedrooms are poky and we would envisage doing a significant extension in the future if we bought this house. We put an offer well under asking price to reflect this. Heard nothing much since.

Another house came up a little further outside town. A much bigger house with a wonderful garden. Needs no extension but the kitchen is well outdated and would need replacing eventually along with some bathrooms updated and stoves fitted where open fires are now. It's a C1 BER. There was an offer at asking price on this house and we upped that a little bit. After a week or so they came back asking would we go any higher, and we said no because our offer was still the best offer at that stage. Later that day they accepted our offer. We have paid the booking deposit.

In the following days I got a letter from our broker to say we had approval in principal. I sent this to the EA. I decided I would send this to the EA for the other house as well, because he had asked for this at the time we made the offer but we didn't have it yet.

Lo and behold the second EA comes back and says that the vendor is willing to accept our offer.

Now bearing in mind this house is €100k cheaper than the house we've paid a booking deposit on. It's smaller and we would be spending that money on an extension eventually but the location is great, easy walking distance to town centre.

However we do prefer the house that's further out. With rates rising we are getting a bit cautious about taking the bigger mortgage. We could afford the mortgage at the higher rates but would obviously like to keep the costs down so we can do work like replacing the kitchen etc. sooner.

Do you think there is any point in going back to the EA now and trying to renegotiate the price? Is the agent likely to entertain the idea at all do you think? We are buying with 50% cash, 50% mortgage and will be able to close quite quickly.

Thinking of giving him a call and saying we've had an offer accepted on another property and with interest rates going the way they are we are thinking the 100k price difference is hard to look past.

Obviously not expecting to get 100k off the price of the house but would there be any wiggle room in a situation like this?

Thanks.

Well the main thing is actually the interest rate increases that are driving this thought process. The fact is we'd be happy in either house, but the "value" of the more expensive house is diminished by the rate increase.

We just need to make a decision and wondering does it ever happen that when circumstances change that an agreed price can be renegotiated? The other thing in the back of our minds is that the offer at asking price on this house was supposedly from a cash buyer. We were put under pressure a bit to bid with the EA telling us on second viewing that the vendor was looking to wrap up the process. We didn't increase on the first offer by a massive amount yet the other party supposedly dropped out when our offer came in. Sounds a bit odd. There's been no other bids and they were trying to get us to increase our offer regardless.

We're starting to feel we may be paying an inflated price anyway but with the rates increasing and now that we have a second option on the table I just want to know if renegotiation is an option.

Hi Lintdrummer.

I've had to pull out of a sale agreed after a couple of months. We bid way over the odds for the house, about 10% more than much nicer recently sold houses in the area. It then slowly transpired that there were serious issues requiring immediate attention that would cost approx 10% of the house value to remedy. As we were at the very top of our affordability and the rates were rising again, we wouldn't have had the money to fix these issues. It would have translated to the house costing us a ridiculous amount of money in the end. An amount for which we could easily purchase a far better, problem free house. We went back to the vendors and asked them to consider a revised offer with these costs deducted.

They said no...

This makes little sense to me since the issues will definitely be discovered by any underbidders too. Also, since the sale was agreed, rates have risen and there's both a windfarm and a solar farm being planned in the immediate vicinity! They'll more than likely end up selling for less than what we offered and with months more delay.

My advice would be that it's unreasonable to ask for any sort of price negotiation unless there is a serious unforseen cost such as structural, planning or waste treatment. Asking for money off because the kitchen is outdated is fanciful.

It sounds like you'd be far happier and have much better peace of mind in the cheaper house. That's something money can't buy.

Best of luck with your purchase.

Believe me, I know exactly how you feel with regards "being had" there's no transparency to the process whatsoever. We've also found there are people being allowed to bid to their hearts content without showing any proof of funds. The rate rises are 100% already feeding into lower bids and sale prices. We've seen a big increase in sales falling through.

IMO, you're right to be cautious, I'd have a similar risk tolerance, I'd rather a more modest house and less worry. I hope it works out for you soon.

Thanks Lunaloo, good to know about EIR.

Congratulations! Similarly we got the keys to our new house on Wednesday. Moving tomorrow. I also found this thread very helpful. Thanks to all the contributors who shared their experiences.

After what seems like an age, we are finally at drawdown stage. Anyone have any idea how long Haven are taking after all requested pieces are in?

Currently sale agreed. Apartment in Dublin, a lot less interest than anticipated and agreed to sell for 7k more than asking. Felt to me that people are holding their fire.

Ditto that, had to reapply for AIP in Mid-June 2022 with BOI as previous one had lapsed with them. AIP was all done in 3 days using the BOI Portal, was carrying out actions every time they replied but it was quick enough I thought. Same occurred then once we went Sale Agreed end of July/early August and entered the property details. The UX on the BOI Portal is not the best, but it is a decent enough tool I found in comparison with all the previous paperwork I remember in the past with a previous mortgage. Any "Delays" for us for on the Solicitor side(ours and theirs) taking vacation in August, but that was to be expected. People need to take the holidays. All going well should be getting keys and moving in 2/3 weeks

Yes its a gift, threshold is around 3k. I suspect the amount is a couple of multiples of that?