How long did it take you to find your first home?

[MarillionFan]

Bought 1st property in London in 1995 (2 bed garden flat) for about £55K - I sold that for a massive profit a few years ago, by then I had paid it off, tax free profit on primary residence.
Bought a further 4 flats as BTLs (deposit only), by sinking every penny of my contracting earnings, in the boom time of the 90s/early 00s. Sold those for large capital gains albeit the taxman took his chunk.
I shudder to look at the housing market now, I was lucky enough to live and profit from the easiest housing market ever, due to good luck in timing.

Can the owner of this bot please check it. It seems stuck and just keeps posting the same post over and over again.

[d000hg]

Is that house crooked?

I think we looked at only a few before finding one we really liked for about £65k in 2005 - I was a permie code monkey and she was a supply teacher so that was all we could afford. Sadly we ended up not liking it but that was neighbours rather than the house.

[TheFaQQer]

First place - two days looking. Saw it on the first day, looked again second day. Offer accepted the following day. Moved in six weeks later.

Second place - one week looking. Saw the place on day four and fell in love with it. Second viewing two days later. Haggled the price there and then. Took longer to move because of the idiot buying our place messing around.

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

Is a silly market at the moment, my sister has just sold a 3 bed in Springfield, Chelmsford: 2 viewings before it went on the market, 3 viewings the day after it appeared on Right Move & sold for £5k more than asking price, £10k over was offered by couple B but sister felt they were risky & so settled on the £5k uplift from couple A.

You didn't say what it was on for but if it was in our price range there's every chance we may have seen it! Springfield is where we are looking in particular.

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

So my current thinking is if I still love the place after seeing it, to just go straight in with a best and final offer of asking price. With the amount if competition I can't see it going for less so no point in messing around.

[sasguru]

So my current thinking is if I still love the place after seeing it, to just go straight in with a best and final offer of asking price. With the amount if competition I can't see it going for less so no point in messing around.

Aye. 10K above asking is probably the minimum in this stupid market - and even that is probably an underestimate.
Glad I'm out of this game nowadays.

[vetran]

Can the owner of this bot please check it. It seems stuck and just keeps posting the same post over and over again.

I think I preferred it when it was stuck in the Cretins loop, the 'I'm considerably richer than Yow' loop is annoying.

[kevpuk]

We viewed 6 properties first time around, and the one we bought we viewed first on 21st July, 2nd time on 23rd July and moved in on one of the first few days of October......
This time around, I think we have viewed 12 or 13.....all in late March, and are now awaiting the full mortgage offer and hopefully heading towards exchange. We had an AIP of almost 50% more than the sort of value property we were after, but found a very nice 5-bed detached that we offered on after 1st viewing!
As for our current place, went on the market on a Tuesday, 4 viewings on the Wednesday and 2 offers at full asking the same day....crazy!

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

Aye. 10K above asking is probably the minimum in this stupid market - and even that is probably an underestimate.
Glad I'm out of this game nowadays.

I'm hoping the stamp duty threshold will prevent that in this case but its certainly no guarantee in the current market, as you say. Most people will hopefully be in our position and not be able to afford the extra stamp duty but it only takes one cash buyer with the extra cash-flow or somebody with a massive deposit who isn't right on a LTV threshold for their mortgage offer.

I'm considering viewing this one right round the corner too:
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-pri...ountry=england

Its interesting as it was sold on 24 Jan for £194k and then went back on the market on 11 Feb for £290k. It was reduced to £275k beginning of April. It looks like an investor has bought it and done it up (from what I can tell: loft conversion, new kitchen/bathroom, new floors and magnolia throughout) and maybe got a bit greedy. As an estimate they've probably spent between £30-40k on it so very unlikely to drop to £250k but you never know...they might be desperate to get out and get their money back. They'd still make a small profit. No harm in looking.

[lilelvis2000]

I feel so lucky that the missus had here own place already. I just unpacked.

Though we are now feeling the squeeze with me working at home, using the spare bedroom and the kid needing more space. sigh.