house buying - in the future

vjm63

Advice appreciated - I am a longtime lurker, reading many many of the threads for information, but finally have plucked up courage to stick my head above the parapet!

We are planning to move in perhaps a year's time (family reasons) and have started putting together a wish list of sorts. Some things are essential (eg detached place, min 2 beds, garden) others desirable to a greater or lesser degree (age, style, greenhouse, shed...) and we are fairly flexible on location within an area of maybe an hour's drive from our current place - so quite a large area.

My questions are, how soon should we start browsing estate agents windows/ rightmove? Should we let several know (and let them know we are asking around several) and see what they suggest? - or would that get up their noses?! How do we keep our preferences in the forfront of their minds, without spending a lot of our and their time ringing them up? How much of a wish list should we give? - too little and we'll get wasted ideas, too much and we might miss something so nearly ideal. We are hoping it would be a mainly cash purchase - how significant would that be? - should we again let the EAs know that?

Anything else we should consider? ..

Sorry if I am asking lots of dumb questions - we have not moved for many many years, and it is very new to me!

seabright

If you really aren't going to move for a year, don't contact the agents yet, they'll think you're a time waster. Stick to Rightmove and get a feel for prices/areas/etc.

If/when you do make an offer, don't describe yourself as a Cash Buyer unless you really are. If you have the whole purchase price in the bank available without notice and you're going to use that money to buy, you're a Cash Buyer. If you're getting a mortgage (however small) or your money's in a 6-month notice account, you're not a cash buyer IMHO and to represent yourself as such will only wind everyone up when they discover the truth (which they always do).

Be honest, be upfront and don't waste anyone's time - you'll be a perfect buyer!

CloudCuckooLand

I'm afraid that even if you did ring them constantly to remind them of your wish list, most EAs would be incapable of adhering to such specifics.

So don't waste your time trying.

You'll have to do the sifting of specifics yourself.

Keep an eye on the market, in case something special turns up, but otherwise keep your powder dry until you are ready to move.

vjm63

Thanks for those comments - much appreciated.

verytricky69

It might be worth setting up some alerts on right move/findaproperty. You can put in your price range and location and you will receive an email everytime one comes up that fits your criteria. You can then save any properties that seem to fit the bill.

The great thing about looking online is you can check for all the criteria yourselves really easily and then decide if its worth going to see.

I was looking at houses a year before we were ready- I enjoyed it and it gave me a good idea of what was out there. When we were ready to purchase (after we had an offer on our place) we rang up estate agents only if they had a property we wanted to view- they then put us on their lists and emailed us any properties that were in our price range/desired area. (which were on the net usually anyway)

We didnt look in the EAs shop window once- its not really the done thing these days

sunshinetours

verytricky69 wrote: »

It might be worth setting up some alerts on right move/findaproperty. You can put in your price range and location and you will receive an email everytime one comes up that fits your criteria. You can then save any properties that seem to fit the bill.

The great thing about looking online is you can check for all the criteria yourselves really easily and then decide if its worth going to see.

I was looking at houses a year before we were ready- I enjoyed it and it gave me a good idea of what was out there. When we were ready to purchase (after we had an offer on our place) we rang up estate agents only if they had a property we wanted to view- they then put us on their lists and emailed us any properties that were in our price range/desired area. (which were on the net usually anyway)

We didnt look in the EAs shop window once- its not really the done thing these days

Some good points above especially about the alerts which are useful if you have a wide search area

When you actually are in a position to start buying be careful about dismissing "borderline" properties if they almost meet your criteria without actualluy going to see them. The net is gerat these days for general sifting of property but you can never actually beat going in the flesh as such where you get a true feel for the street/house/aspect of the garden etc etc

I would only contact teh agents

CLAPTON

you don't say where you live but within a hour could be an absolutely huge area.
you would do well to spend your time limiting your geographical spread and indentify specific areas you like and can afford.

vjm63

Thanks for even more comments - it is giving me a good amount of information/ideas. I did not know about setting up alerts on rightmove - worth me tracking that down - thanks.

We currently live in South Wales, and would want to move into somewhere that is more rural - had enough of semi-detached with one single small car space available! When I tried searching 'within 20 miles' on one website I was getting Weston etc - so that is something else I need to figure out how to eliminate.

Any more ideas or views, please do keep them coming - this is useful to us.