TDLR:
- a foreigner trying to buy a house but fail
- house price increase
- looking for words of wisdom and comfort and idea
- please be gentle on a stressed out person
- wish I knew how complicated the process was - the chain
The idea of relocation has been hatching for a long time, and the original plan was to move in Summer 2020. Unfortunately covid hit and we decided to hold back the plan and moved in Spring 2021.
The idea is to buy a house/home within a year so we could minimise our expense and work towards our FI goal, and I need security in my home, never rented.
As my previous thread (
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/uk-tax-discussion/house-that-didn't-sell()-touch-or-no-touch/) mentioned, we saw house 1 right after we landed but I am a bit uncertain to commit, as I want more time to explore the area, dear husband want to buy right away.
House 1 is a long/narrow terrace victorian, turn key, chain-free and vacant property. Initially I thought it was not in catchment area of secondary schools but I was wrong. We saw this right after we landed and then it was sold. One day after my offer is accepted for house 2, house 1 is back to market. I passed this given I don't like the long proportion of the house, and I just got my offer accepted.
In hindsight, it should be the easiest and stress free buying that I should have plunged into?House 2 is a perfect match, in a cul del sac location, convenient to tube/school/park/town, 100% to get into the secondary school. I like the 1930 semi layout, driveway, side access. We will need a loft extension. I was a bit worried about getting into a chain. EA-B said every house is in a chain. I was sold the idea that the vendor wanted to move to a daugther who is ill. We had our offer accepted and with the memo of sale in hand, we are happily waiting for the chain to complete and imagining we would move in. Every time I walked past I was painting a future of my family in it.
House 3 is an Edwardian, requires some refresh/updates on decor/kitchen/bathroom and owner is moving to a new built. House 3 came up on week 5 after our acceptance on House 2. It matches most of our criteria except not in walking distance of primary school but closer to town/tube. I was thinking about of making an offer but with news about house 2 owner actively looking and making offer (not accepted though) for their onward purchase, I felt bad (unethical) about pulling out of an offer, I decided to wait for house 2, and
here my agony begins.
After the news on week 5 that the owner is actively looking and have offers/several viewings booked, they have then gone radio silence. In the meantime, house 1 and 3 went under offer and sold quickly, all went under asking price (I knew as they are completed and the EA-K told me the prices).
With the summer coming to an end, so does the supply of houses. EA-B has been radio silence and I kept pressing over email and just got one - my vendor still looking.
Fast forward to Jan 2022, 3 new chain-free houses came on the market. They, in my opinion, are not as good as the previous 3 and the asking price are much higher than before. They are all sold above asking significantly. I was interested in 1 but put in offer in all 3 to gather some intelligence. I believe that the competition is coming from my fellow Hongkonger who also, like us, relocated very recently to the area.
After losing the
triplets , ah, sorry, the 3 houses that came on Jan in the market. I have gone a bit crazy and decided to offer on a house that I would not offer on before, as it does not have a driveway but a on street very full parking. We were told the owner relocating up north to live closer to family and has a temp place to move into. Now after the survey is done, the EA told me the owner is buying a chain free probate property so I suddenly end up in a chain, albeit hopefully a moving complete chain. House 4 is a Terrace Edwardian property and the only one 'left'. It was slightly above our original budget but given the owner has rewired, replastered, loft extension around 10 years back, and repaint very recently(for the sale???), we believe we could move in without any other major work required.
I have 'doubt' about whether this house would work for us, but on the other hand, I am in constant fear of being priced out further.In the 0.5 miles radius that I am searching, there's no other suitable house available at the moment, so no houses for me to jump from one fire to the other.
I felt I ruined my FI goals given my 'perfect' house search and lack of comprehension of need to move fast when prices are rising, and getting into a chain. I am from a country where offer is legally bindings and even I know here it isn't legally binding until exchange, I have a hard time understanding the risks involved. The original idea was the buy would be a long term, like 10+ years plan, as we understand selling a house here is very difficult as well (not in this market though).
Where we came from, it would be so easy to sell if we didn't like the house and incur quite minimal costs, the biggest would be stamp duty.
On the other hand, looking back it is a very aggressive goal to buy within a year here, and we should have made chain free/complete chain as a criteria in house search, but as in house 4, this seems to be quite elusive even after we added the criteria.
The news of other fellow hker immigrants moving into their new homes, did make me felt like a failure.
The saying here goes, it isn't meant to be.
Thank you for reading,
Again, looking forward to hear the MMM words of wisdom, encouragement and hope.J