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

After getting the property survey back we have the wind taken out of our sails a bit, everything else trucking along nicely - got the loan offer yesterday too but we were too bummed out about the survey to celebrate! Finding the survey report a bit difficult to interpret, on first read seems all seems atrocious, second read less so etc.. language open to interpretation and probably a bit of arse covering going on.

One question I have is, where the surveyor has suggested further inspection is required, on two specific issues he had said it should be arranged by the vendor. Would that be the norm? Do we ask the EA to sort that or go through solicitor? The main issue seems to be placement of a velux window in an attic conversion which may need to be removed if can't get exception.

Other main issue is kitchen extension roof 'needs to be replaced' but no indication of how urgently. We intend to knock and extend anyway in a few years so not sure if we're ok to last til then.

Anyone else struggled with survey reports and the ensuing disillusionment??

Survey done - No major issues - One Drain blocked with soil - He recommended a camera survey of the drains and when I asked about getting a utilities survey, he recommended maybe getting the plumbing surveyed, but I'm not sure I will be arsed. There is a new boiler in etc, so I imagine they must have looked at that themselves

Mine was with propertyhealthcheck.ie completed this morning. The guy rang me after it to give me the low-down in advance of the report.

I had expected to hear a fairly arse-covering non-committal account which would leave me a bit worried and having to parse out whether there was anything substantial, but his first sentence was "Good news, no major issues" - which caught me by surprise.

I don't mean to sound gloating or anything here, that's not the purpose of my response, but rather to indicate that if the surveyor does indicate some major issues - it might need to be taken seriously. Hope it all works out for you anyway, I was quite nervous about our survey, it is tough to come that far, especially in the current climate and receive a set back, but hopefully all is resolvable for you without too much hassle.

Just Google snagging but usually better if you can get one recommended, same as a surveyor. Prices will vary but cheapest isn't always best. If you can't get a recommendation be sure to at least check their reviews online, and if possible ask for a sample report.

Thanks, yep, call scheduled for tomorrow. I hope he can put it in plain English so we can better assess the risks.

The report sets out what it means by immediate, short term, medium term etc at the start and then only uses the word immediate once in the report and no other time frames referred to.

A roof needing to be replaced would scare me too if we didn't already intend to knock it and extend in 3-4 years. Again, no indication on time frame or urgency on that issue. Anyway, will see how the phone call goes tomorrow and what will be will be!

I was expecting to be deflated but not to this degree! Im disappointed in the report in the same way a parent is disappointed in by bad LC result!! I'm not angry at you I'm just disappointed 😂

If there is one thing I learned about buying a house, it's get recommendations on who you deal with. Our surveyor was referenced by a friend as "expensive but good". He's been brilliant. Our broker was referred by a former work colleague, again, couldn't ask for better from my broker. Picked the solicitor down the road because, he was down the road and thought it'd be handy. The man makes glaciers look fast. Really wish I had gone with someone's reference for that.

Moral of the story, ask about and see who people recommend for surveyors, especially if you know anyone who'd have engaged one recently

There will be no property crash.

you can always try to sell and make up a story (vendor has a job offer from Australia etc.). If the alternative is buying a house, might as well do it. If it’s renting, stay where you are.

I am with you on the rate hikes, lost count of how many there has been since Dec, and i think ill miss one or two more too before this saga ends🙈 here is a quick timeline of my events so far.. I think I lost 6-7 weeks between Dec/Jan (solicitor pressure for prior Xmas closings and hols), I think contact was only made with council mid Jan, council did say (verbally) that folio was not updated when house was purchased from them (just an oversight), it took from late Feb/early Mar until 2 weeks ago for them to instruct their solicitor to resolve! My solicitor wont do anything until she sees written confirmation that vendors actually have title to sell, which is the right way. Have long ago given up thinking anything is going to be quick about this.. the wait goes on! If its the house for you, don't give up just yet, you'd never know - my story might just be the worst out there 😫🤣

It’s unusual but not unheard of. Some sellers will only want to sell to cash buyers. We had multiple house where we were bidding for ages against a cash buyer. We ended the highest bidder but the cash buyer still got the house and we were just used to extract the most money from them. We never had a chance.

Your scenario actually seems more decent and less greedy. They got the price they wanted from the people they wanted. They didn’t waste your sisters time and get her hopes up unnecessarily for a house she was never going to get.

Probably because they just wanted the cash buyer.

I did the same when selling my old house, the bidding was dragging and in the end there were 2 bidders left, one cash buyer and one mortgage. I just took the cash buyer

You think the apartment was worth 500,000. That's your opinion. I'm not sure one more small bedroom in an apartment would be worth nearly 100,000 to everyone!

The sellers took 470,000 cash. Sounds fair enough.

Bold statement to make because no one knows what will happen. To the OP, go to a EA, see what the valuation is and go from there.

Exact same apartment in the block was listed by a different EA this month at 475k and sold for 525k. This apartment was listed at 400k and sold for 470k. Just doesn't add up. Shall wait and see whether the EA communicated my sister's bid to the vendor or was the vendor told that the cash bid of 470k was the only bid left.

The cash buyer could have easily hand the EA a brown envelope with 5k cash to sweeten the deal and say hey the other bidder stopped bidding... Meaning your sister.

The EA need a big wake up call, they act like they personally own all housing stock in Ireland. The process of bidding is not transparent at all, and relies on one person EA.

Ya the EA should have communicated the higher cash bid, but after that - nothing really to see here once the seller was happy with such a cash bid.

Poor form for the EA to be wasting your sisters time as all it would have taken is a 2/3 min phone call.