Buying a house - not done it for 20 yrs!!

thestens

My husband and I are retired and would like to move to a smaller house with a bigger garden, but we are not desperate to go, only for the right place! Today we went to enquire about a bungalow which needed a total refit, but was in a great position with a big garden - ideal for us - and for lots of other people, according to the estate agent! It had 3 offers on it and 6 viewings set up for tomorrow! The agent said there was little point in considering it unless we were "ready to proceed", which we obviousy aren't.
So my query is, how could we become ready, if we see another house like this in the future? We have a house to sell worth about £275 000. The bungalow was £249 000 - but would people be offering above that? Would the agent tell us what the top offer was - do they do that? We could raise about £60 000 in cash now and probably could afford to pay a mortgage for a limited time until we sold ours. We would be able to raise about another £100 000 in time, to pay for refitting. How could we best become ready to proceed before our house sold, in our financial situation??

martinsurrey

Is the bungalow on rightmove?

If so post a link and we can see how long its been up (using other sites and tools).

Its amazing how many properties have had 3-4-5 offeres as soon as you get interested, but have been on the market for 4-5-6 months.

Better_Days

With regard to the bungalow - Hard to say without seeing the RM link - but don't forget the SDLT threshold at 250k, so buyers unlikely to offer more than that unless the value is well over.

We are also looking for a smaller bungalow but with a bigger garden but are struggling. Good luck with your search.

thestens

Apparently its been on 2 weeks. By the summery look of the photos that is probably correct. What I'm interested in is how I would proceed in future - I don't think we will bother with this one, as we have too much on at the moment to organise ourselves. BUT - it looks like that kind of home will need fast movement - so how could we be "ready to proceed" in the future, bearing in mind our financial and property owning situation listed above. By the way we have no mortgage on our present house.

greatgimpo

Sell, bank the money (instantish access) then move into rented on 6 month assured tenancy, but obviously two lots of removals.

cajef

thestens wrote: »

.. What I'm interested in is how I would proceed in future.

Unless you have enough capital to buy without the need to sell yours first, you need to put your house on the market and when you have a sale arranged look for a property, when you find one you will then be in a position to proceed.

thestens

This is the link http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-34842550.html.

Lavendyr

It came onto Rightmove on 10 July so as you say, only been on a couple of weeks.