Do I sell or do I stay now????

nell53

...good...[about the tea/not about the circles]...now ask yourselves how you would feel if 12 months down the line you are still in your current house, the value has dropped and you've not moved on...?

paulsad

I sympathise! We've just put ours on the market - similar to you; we're not desperate to move and have mixed feelings - we have an idea of what we'd like to move to but there is no point in seriously looking for a new place until we find a genuine buyer so its a catch 22. I can see us being in a similar predicament to you. We only moved here 2.5 years ago and have spent a lot on it. All I can say is as has been pointed out - buyers are a rarity at the moment, having said that you really have to be sure you want to move.
I've never had experience of renting and am a bit scared of (stupid I know) being caught in limbo if prices were to rise whilst doing so.
I'd forego the tea and go for a drink instead!!! (Any excuse)

pennychoices

Lol would do but i'm pregnant so have to stick to the tea for now!

Very lost on what to do still. Just hoping the right answer will make itself known to me by 9am tomorrow...although doubtful i know.
Its clear that if we were adamant about moving then selling end of chain wouldn't be a problem. I'm just not sure i'm convinced about spending out all that money on moving when i've no dream house to go to. Maybe we should just stay but i don't want to regret that a few months down the line because then its far too late.

Thanks for all the advice.

Grimbal

I can sympathise, being in a similar (house, not personal) situation myself. We have chain free buyers that are near to exchange, and we've yet to establish a complete onward chain ourselves. We too went round and round in circles worrying about what to do as we hadn't found a house that was proceedable. The worry is that you're moving from a known quantity to an unknown one.

We tried to remove our emotions & worries from the decision making process, asking ourselves what we were most scared of? 1. losing the buyer or 2. renting ? We knew we didn't want to be where we are in a couple of years, so the only sensible move would be to keep our buyers and rent if nowhere came up. It's a scary prospect, I haven't rented since I was a student, but I'm seeing it as a means to an end. A stepping stone to our forever home. A few months of inconvenience and "wasted" money equates to hopefully a happier long term future

Meatballs

From a buyers POV, who will be shelling out lots of money on mortgage fees, conveyancing and survey, making plans to move out of current place, I'd be pretty hacked off if the vendor decided they never really wanted to sell anyway.

At the end of the day you have to make the right decision for your circumstances, but maybe make these decisions before putting things on the market.

pennychoices

Actually didn't put the property on the market! Estate agent valued but we said we weren't decided on whether to put the property on the market yet, they asked us to have a one-off viewing on a buyer looking in our area & we said yes. Then offered etc, all happened very quickly. Also if you'd have read my original post it states the valuation hasn't yet been done or ordered to be done as we asked them not to because we hadn't yet found. Obviously would feel extremely guilty if we decided not to sell. Done everything we can to find a property & i'm sure you can understand why we have to make the ultimate decision based on our family's best interests. We never set out to ultimately not sell our property & being a buyer & a seller i can see both sides. I'm sure one day you will be able to as well.

For everyone who has posted helpful comments thank you so much for your time. I'll let you know what we decide. Probably going to be another sleepless night.

London_Town

I have to agree with Meatballs. When I view a property the first question I ask is about their forward chain. One I viewed last week, the couple didn't have a house to go to, but were prepared to move in with relatives. Another one I viewed, the vendor said he wouldn't be prepared to rent if he got a buyer and couldn't find the right house. I find this attitude very off putting and any offer I made would be dependant upon a finite completion date. It's one thing being flexible to allow your seller a little more time to find a house, but it's completely different if they decide to stay put and change their mind because they can't find anything.

I have recently sold and was always prepared to go into rented accomodation. I made this clear to every viewer so they knew where they stood. In my opinion, I had put my flat on the market because I wanted to "move on" in my life towards new goals and buy a house. I always saw selling and buying as individual parts of a strategic plan. I saw so many houses I would have offered on slip through my fingers before I had a buyer for my place. I knew the only thing was to sell, rent and wait for the right house to come along.

To the OP, as someone has already suggested, consider how you will feel still being in your current home in another 12 months or 2 to 3 years. If the answer is "ok", then maybe you shouldn't be selling right now. But as someone who has, it gives you total freedom to find the right home. While no one can predict house prices, I don't believe they'll be going up for a good while yet, so I'll wait as long as it takes to find the right new home. As for renting being "wasted money", well yes, I used to believe this too. I bought in March 2007 and have just sold, losing £6000 on the price. That means that my mortgage payments were also partially "wasted money", or at least eroded by the housing slump.

pennychoices

I completely understand what your saying. We actually thought we found our house, offered, had it accepted (all within the last week) then the sellers said they weren't moving out until the end of march. I was furious that they didn't inform us of this at the beginning but obviously wouldn't expect our buyers to wait that long so the chain fell apart. Its the main reason we feel so utterly lost on what to do now. We have seen another that we like but not head over heels with either of them now. Also not sure if you read this already but our mortgage porting means we've got a time limit. I'm actually not worried about the cost of renting as interest on mortgages is the same thing, just worried about finding in time as we have to keep our mortgage deal.

London_Town

Hi Pennychoices, I take your point about the mortgage porting. Can a broker not find anything that you could afford in the current market? I've got 6 months to port my mortgage or I lose it. However, I've got a 20% deposit so my broker has shown me deals I can afford to live with. I apreciate you're probably not in this position with the way the mortgage market is right now.

Best of luck with whatever you decide.

pennychoices

Hi thank you to everyone. Actually made the decision to move! Decided ultimately we want to do it at some point & before this baby arrives would be the wisest choice. Feeling good about the decision and all your comments have definitely helped alot.

Hi London Town; we're fortunate enough to be on 2.5% rate & the best deal we can get anywhere with 90& LTV is about 5% (if not higher) so too significant an amount to change it over. Good advice though. Just gotta hope we find something before our time is up.