Around April we started looking at houses. We weren't in a rush to find a house but I really got into the process of looking at properties, always worrying that if I do not go see an available house we might miss THE one. Although it was hard work looking, organising viewings and driving around all the time, I enjoyed seeing so many houses. In less than two months we saw 49 properties. Quite a few of which we quickly walked out of again, some which we considered, but none we felt absolutely sure about.
I was starting to think that we won't find the perfect house and shouldn't expect to find the perfect one, until over the bank holiday weekend in May we did. From the moment we walked into the house we both just looked at each other and smiled and knew. This was it.
We viewed the house for the first time on the Saturday morning. The owners told us outright that they had already refused a lower offer and that there is another couple very interested in the house. We had a few more to see that Saturday morning, but when we got home we phoned the agents and asked if we could come by again for a second viewing. The owners agreed to let us see the house again on the Sunday morning. We were still sure that this was the one for us.
With that Monday being a bank holiday we had to wait an extra day to put our offer in. I called the agents first thing Tuesday morning. They later called back to say the other couple has also put an offer in. We were very nervous waiting to hear back from them. I really didn't want to have to go back to searching again, knowing how long it took us to find what we liked.
About an hour later we got the call to say the sellers accepted our offer!
We kept it quiet all this time as the sellers can still change their minds about selling at any time. Only once the contracts were exchanged did we really allow ourselves to celebrate.
The whole process from offer being accepted to exchange of contracts took 9 weeks. With a lot of hassling the bank and the agents to make sure things got done. Our solicitors, Barnetts, were amazing. They got everything done right away as it needed to be done. Great communication with us, letting us know what's going on. We never had to contact them to make sure things are getting done. We'll definitely be using them again if we need to. Which hopefully won't be any time soon though. The only hold up we had was with the bank who seemed to take a month long vacation at one stage. It took a lot of phoning and in the end speaking to bank managers to get them to wake up and send the relevant documents to the solicitors.
Then we were lucky that the sellers were happy to move out within a week of exchanging contracts and we moved in right away.
More about the move in the next post.
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