The other problem - sold but nowhere to go!

tyllwyd

You sound a lot like the viewers that we've had looking at our house - only a very general idea of the area where they wanted to live, and looking at loads of properties. I've seen it happen to a couple of people I know - proceedable, but ending up looking at so many properties trying to find the right one that they lose the ability to make a decision, somehow.

Certainly, in this area there are far fewer houses for sale in total compared to say five or six years ago, so waiting for the 'right' one to come along I guess is going to take longer. I'd be surprised if there were any hidden properties that you haven't come across - you need to make a decision, how important is it to you to move, and how important is it to buy straightaway rather than renting etc.

Doozergirl

You'll find Worcestershire very much to the West of areas like Stratford and Warwick. And Solihull and to the North West before you hit Birmingham. Both nice places.

What is your main criteria for the finished house? Let's get it written down.

How many bedrooms?
What type of property - terraced/semi/detached
period/modern? cottage?
open plan/traditional
how many downstairs rooms?
rural/town location?
proximity to amenities? Which type.
Size of garden?
Off road parking?
Anything else that is on your list of must haves? It might be something totally random like space for an Aga or the random dining table you own...


How many houses have you viewed?
Where are you commuting to? What's the maximum commute you're looking for?
Have you used the 'draw a search' feature on rightmove.
The simple fact is that the property is out there, or your expectations aren't matched by the budget. It's certainly not a cheap area that you're looking at and rightmove holds pretty much everything. Even the auction houses use rightmove and you can narrow down your search on auction properties as well.
You can try tepilo, Sarah Beeny's free site for owners wanting to sell, but IME, those houses are on rightmove as well or hideously overpriced.

CloudCuckooLand

Don't be so down on renting. It can be useful, allowing you to "road-test" a location, in addition to the usual cash-in-the-bank benefit.

Try out some different properties, as well as locations, and you might find it a helpful learning process if you are being vague at the moment.

mlz1413

Decide if you want to actually sell. If the answer to this is yes then decide why.

If you know why then you know what you are looking for in your next home (should help you decide or at least prioritise)

If you can't - really can't - decide on what to buy then let your buyers know so that they don't spend anymore money chasing a house you are not going to move out of.

IMO Nov to Feb is plenty of time to find a place to move to so if you really cannot find a place in that time span I'd say you are not ready to move.

Matt1977

I think going into rented is your best bet. Don't think I could face the pressure in trying to find the perfect home in such a tight timeframe after receiving an offer on a property. It might even take a year to find that perfect home, and I would be too afraid of losing my buyers in that situation.

LittleMissAspie

This is why I think the process is the wrong way round. You're supposed to have a buyer before you start looking for somewhere else, but it surely takes less time to find a buyer than to find a new house. We spent 7 months looking for our first house and next time I'm going to be more picky because it will be a forever home. I wouldn't be surprised if it takes us several years to find the right house. I wouldn't want to go back into rented so our only option is to buy the second house before we sell the first.

tyllwyd

LittleMissAspie wrote: »

.... I wouldn't want to go back into rented so our only option is to buy the second house before we sell the first.

I've seen a few people on the boards who have done that recently - but you need to be able to raise the deposit and mortgage on the new house without having access to the capital from your old one, so it isn't an option for everyone. And - especially at the moment - you are gambling that your original house will sell easily and at the price you want. It might work out, or it might be a very expensive mistake.

mlz1413

Problem with finding your perfect house and then putting your current home up for sale is someone else is likely to more proceedable, ie has a buyer.

I have seen 2 people recently jumping through hoops because they have found their perfect next home, have a buyer and then the buyer pulls out / chain collaspes, these people so desperate to buy thier perfect home they are trying to get bridging loans, have even considered paying costs for their buyer to keep things moving. How stressful is that!

sonastin

LittleMissAspie wrote: »

it surely takes less time to find a buyer than to find a new house.

Depends on the state of the market when you're trying to sell, how specific you are in your requirements and how prevalent your ideal house is in the area you want to live.

On a rising market, buyers are easy to find. In this day and age, more like the proverbial hens teeth.

If you're looking for a 17th century stone cottage in the heart of Milton Keynes (selected purely for its reputation as a new town -no offence intended to MK-ers!) your buyers could be waiting a heck of a long time while you look for one of them to come up for sale but on the other hand if your dream home is a 1970's semi on a quiet cul-de-sac I am guessing that would be much easier to find.

In the current climate, if you have specific requirements I think you either need to be able to afford to buy without having to sell or you need to be prepared to move into rented while you wait for the right property to come along. Vendors won't take you seriously if you haven't sold as it could take you months or even years to find a buyer but it equally isn't fair to your buyers to make them wait years while you look for the perfect place.

As for the OP, something has to give - either the mortgage rate and the refusal to rent, the buyers patience or the specification for the new house. Unless your buyers have the patience of saints or you get lucky with the right house coming on the market before they give up, you'll have to make some sort of compromise somewhere.

kiddy_guy

So many replies - thanks to everyone for their input.

Do we want the moon on the stick? Maybe perhaps we do, but ultimately we live in a part of the country where I would think we should be able to achieve what we're looking for. There are 1000's of houses on rightmove, but having stripped out the ones with less than 3 beds, no newbuilds, a decent garden, a nice area, in a not awful street, within our budget and with a bit of character, the list becomes a very very very short one.

I should probably caveat that we have a few requirements:

Min 3 beds, pref 4.
Decent sized garden
2 receptions
Parking
Not stepping from front door straight onto road
Not a busy road (We have Cats)
No newbuilds
Reasonable area.

Even then I don't see why we cannot achieve what we're looking for. I would think that fundamentally everyone has some "needs" when buying a house.

Location is not a massive issue in terms of town as long as it isn't the places I've previously discounted. We like the countryside, and no desire to live in a major town or city. That isn't being picky - my area covers almost 20 miles wide by 20 miles high - we couldn't be less picky in this respect.

Price can range from £0-£325k, so again we have flexibility.

We have seriously thought about going further south and further west (Solihull is nice but pricey!) but our jobs prohibit this in terms of commuting distance. We both unfortunately go in opposite directions so moving too far means the commute for the other becomes very painful indeed. Mine is 1.25 hours and hers is 40 minutes , both each way, but because of the little one, I am not going to make hers worse, but mine would then become potentially 4 hours in the car.:eek:

We rented for 3 years together, but fundamentally the additional costs, plus my mortgage deal, plus the little one and bump means that renting really is the point of last resort. We know the area very well, so no real need to road test the area, as we know where within our "zone" is what we want, and what we don't. Driving isn't an issue - we both drive, we both use motorways daily and so location can be rural or more towny - though central leam would be out immediately - purely because the requirements we have wouldn't be available within our budget.

Do we want to leave our current house? In all honesty - having committed so much to it, no probably not. But at the same time, we must move. I like my current house, but I am certainly not emotional when it comes to finding another house. We've got a decent deal on ours and it's a business transaction to me. The issue about finding another house isn't one of not emotionally connecting with another property - it's simply that my requirements haven't been met.

It's simply madness that we've sold ours, and cannot find anywhere to go. Having read these boards for years, I know that moaning about it is a position a lot of people would love to be in, so I am happy in that respect.

Sonastin - Ironically I'm originally from a location not far from MK. MK used to be a small village before the Tree, The Cow etc...:rotfl:So you might well be able to find that 17th century cottage reasonably easily, certainly in the surrounding villages!

Anyway guys - thanks again for your thoughts. BTW has anyone got any ideas on other websites, or places to look for houses, which I haven't already covered?