It seems like an absolute age since we put our house on the market with The Halifax (to be known soon after as the Crapifax). In fact, it HAS been an age. Nine months in fact!.

In this time we have had numerous offers made, accepted and rejected.

We’ve had offers from people really short of the asking price and offers from folks who, after having their offer accepted quickly found out that they couldn’t get a mortgage to pay for the house

Then we had the couple we wasted over two months of our life with. We were really confident that this really nice couple was going to come up with the booty. We had the surveys done and all was looking well until we found out a month before we were due to fly out that they couldn’t proceed due to ‘marital issues’.

Thankfully, the last couple who showed a real interest in our house who made an offer that we accepted just prior to moving out to Australia have come up with the goods.

This weekend, we exchanged contracts and finally completed the sale of our house. The relief associated with this sale is huge!!

It would have only been a matter of time before the cash we left in the UK to pay for the mortgage ran out resulting in me paying the rent and living expenses associated with a house in Australia, plus a mortgage for the house back in the UK out of the salary I’ve been earning in my new job over here.

Although manageable, I think it’s safe to say that this would have ultimately, left things a little tighter on the financial front then we would have hoped so the sale signifies the lifting of a big financial burden for us.

I think the lesson to learn here is when you get your permanent residency visa, make sure you allow an appropriate amount of time to flog the house before moving down under.

We always had this romantic view that we’d get the Visa’s in July, sell the house in August and Move out to Australia in September.

In hindsight we should have put the house on the market as soon as we knew that we had the Visa’s, Instead we waited over six months before putting our house up for sale naively thinking that it would get snapped up in a couple of weeks and then, off we’ll go!

In our defence it was the first house we had ever sold but you could still save yourself a bit of time by doing a little bit of research on the housing market in your area.

Speak to the local estate agents to see what the housing market is like in the area where you live.

Find out how much houses on your street selling for.
Are your expectations realistic?
How long are houses staying on the market for before selling?

If you have answers to half of these questions it will make the planning of the timings for your move down under a much easier exercise. In theory anyway.

As for us…More money for beer and barbies…..Happy days

Article Popularity: 2%

Yay! After returning back to our old For Sale sign for a good few weeks I’m chuffed to bits that we are now the proud owners of a sold sign again.

To make things even better, we had our house surveyed again today and everything appears to have gone well.

The survey report should be completed by the end of this week and everything will be in the hands of the solicitors after then.

We are meeting with the solicitors on Friday to arrange for my parents to become Power of attorney so that they can sign on our behalf if the house sale completes after we move out to Australia. Not really sure if it’s going to be possible to complete the sale within the next three and a bit weeks, still anythings possible…right?

Article Popularity: 7%

Well, after becoming seriously vexed with the Crapifax yesterday, I’ve finally managed to compose myself enough to take a step back and see where we are after finally getting a call back.

The buyers who had their mortgage app refused at the last minute by the Halifax when their P60 couldn’t be obtained have now completed a second mortgage application with a broker which is going to be sent off this week.

They will also be instructing a survey (once they have paid the fee’s….again) which should take place within the next couple of weeks.

Hope of all hopes that they get the mortgage this time. If they do then great, we’ve only lost a couple of weeks.

If they don’t then arse! We’ve lost months.

The house has been under offer in one way or another for the last couple of months now. If this falls through then we really need to ask the question. Is there is any real value in remaining with the Halifax?

The answer to this is a pretty big no, unless of course we can avoid paying any fees due to the astronomically poor service we’ve received so far.

Back to the waiting game…

Article Popularity: 2%

Halifax Estate Agents Service is rubbish

There, I feel slightly better now.

I am waiting for a call back that was promised for me yesterday.

The buyers should have hopefully been in contact with the morgage broker since the Halifax declined their mortgage application. Doing a quick search on the term Halifax Estate Agents Service shows me that I’m not alone.

This poor guy was on the buying end (not the selling end like us). Hopefully our buyers are getting a slightly better service from Halifax Estate agents then we are!

Article Popularity: 2%