Rockgurl

My house in London has only been on the market for 3 days and I've had 2 offers already. Holy cow! I take it this means the market is nice and brisk then! Going back to the UK in 2 weeks to sort things out, but I am expecting to make an obscene amount of money taking into consideration equity and exchange rate. My ticket to Connecticut is all but bought. I'm looking forward to stuffing my face on curry and M&S ready meals. I even miss the tube. I wonder how many packets of Walkers crisps I can fit in my suitcase without it being considered smuggling?

Lion in Winter

Good for you. I especially like the part about the obscene amount of money. I've been trying to get someone to adopt me lately, I don't suppose you care to take me on?

Rockgurl

LOL...how old are you and are you tidy?

Lion in Winter

Well perhaps I'm not the ideal candidate after all. I'm sure I'm too old, I have a husband, and I have a 4-year-old - these last two make being tidy a thing of the past. On the other hand, I have friends who live in Hackney who could repeatedly send you photos so you don't get homesick.

Franklin

WAY to go.

crazi_daizi

Wow, well done! Hows the job going? No luck here on that front yet, grrrr!

Rockgurl

LOL....kind of you to offer, but those images are ingrained on my brain, never to be forgotten!

whatever

Hey Rockgurl CONGRATS... how fab! Loadsa wonga @ 1.87/88/89! We put our's on the Market on a Thur in January and sold it on the Sunday! We put it down to the market in our area being a bit short on properties like ours but it looks like it extends to your way too!
Now sitting here going slowly out of my mind waiting to Exchange. HURRY UP! As much as we've love our house and will miss it - it's a rope around our neck - we need to get on with it!It's nearly as hellish as waiting for our GC's!
If it all goes through - we could be (and are banking on) being out of here by end of March... but if it falls through... DON'T! I can't even think that way........ Hope you get to exchange smoothly and a.s.a.p.

Scorchio

I'm glad you're having success with your sales!

Can't help being a little jealous, though. We put our house near Teesside on the market in Oct 2002, and it didn't sell until Oct 2003. In the meantime, we were waiting to buy a house in or around Cheltenham and watching the prices rise and rise and rise, while gradually dropping the price on ours.

It was last June/July when the last straw came in the form of the house next door to where we were renting going up for sale. For this 600ish square foot 2 bed new build terraced house (ie. closets pretending to be rooms), they were wanting as much as we were selling our 3 bed detached bungalow. After much discussion, I went along to my HR manager at work and asked "What are the chances of a transfer to the Texas office?"

The rest, as they say, is history...

So I guess there was silver lining!

whatever

Gotta love those silver linings! How cool! How are you liking Texas? Don't know if you have caught any of my other posts but we think it's 99% certain that we will be moving to Texas too. Not Austin though - Dallas. There seems to be a growing amount of brits ending up in that state.
So now that you are living there, what is the best thing and the worst thing about Texas?

Rockgurl

Thanks whatever. It's all happening rather quickly and I feel a bit overwhelmed, but I am very conscious of the fact that the sooner I can sell my house the quicker I will be able to get my life back and actually move in with my wife! I'll actually be making a cool £100,000 profit after just 5 years, so I suppose you could say that is a result! Once transferred into US$ that makes for a nice house in CT! I totally understand what you mean about the rope around your neck. I loved my house but I am very aware that this is the optimum time to sell. Property is still desirable while interest rates are low, and it's a good time to transfer to US$, and the interest rates in the US are pretty decent too. It's difficult when your heart says one thing and your head another, but we've come this far, we have to move forward with our lives. How long did it take you to exchange? I've never sold a house before and have no idea how long this will all take. Mine's a no chain. Wish you lots of luck and a speedy exchange!

Scorchio, I can't believe it took a year to sell your house! That must have been awful! At least you had the silver lining and it wasn't dependant on your move. My problem was that I couldn't rent it out and it just got too expensive to maintain, and 3 months of working 80+ hours a week to pay for it is beginning to take its toll. It's a tough decision to make but I am sure it will end up being the most sensible one. I am in a similar situation, in that 3 other houses in a row next to mine all went on sale at the same time, but all were sold immediately. I've had another offer today, and I think I will probably accept it.

Enjoy Texas you two!

207lonsdale

To some extent, the answer to that question will depend on just how keen your buyer is.

When I sold my house last year there was no chain involved, however, my buyer delayed exhange of contracts for about 6 weeks because he was waiting on additional finance to be approved (in other words he did not have the money to cover the deposit!). He had paid out for a full survey, so I did not think he was a time waster, but I did get to the point where I was tempted to just put the property back on the market.

Sometimes the buyer's solicitor can delay exchange of contracts and this can be even more annoying! I sold a house a few years ago and my buyer very nearly lost out because her solicitor was demanding that I produce a document that did not and could not exist (long story!). In the end I contacted the buyer's solicitor myself, explained that he was demanding something that never existed, could never have existed and therefore could never be produced, and that if he did not reconsider I would have no option but to put the property back on the market. I gave him until noon the following day ..... contracts were exchanged the following morning!

In general, once you accept an offer it should only take about 4 weeks to get to exchange of contracts ........ fingers crossed you don't hit any complications!

Pimpbot

I sold my property, with no chains by either party in 7 weeks back in may/june of last year.

Mine was on the market friday and sold by monday afternoon.

Scorchio

Woo, that's a tricky one.. I've only been here about two and a half weeks now, so it's still all quite new! The apartment we're renting at the moment is like a palace compared to the house we were renting in Cheltenham, and just 2/3rds the cost. The weather is great.. at the end of my first week, it snowed, then two days later I was wearing a t-shirt while walking the dog. It's been more like a UK June than a February! Not sure if I'll appreciate the US June quite as much, but they do have this wonderful thing called air conditioning. And huge fridges with ice machines.

The roads are scary, though.. everyone seems to drive bumper to bumper and no-one lets anyone in. My wife is a USC, originally from Dallas, so she's been doing most of the driving so far. I'll have another go just as soon I get a bit more confident about being on the wrong side of the road!

Scorchio

It was a nightmare.. paying mortgage + rent + two sets of bills was just crippling, then we got the Purchasers From Hell. They dragged the whole process on for about three or four months, quibbling over every little detail, before finally pulling out right at the last minute. By amazing coincidence, the people who did finally buy the house used to live next door to the PFH, and they told us the PFH had done the same thing about six times. I think this is where i developed my nervous twitch...