How long and how many houses before you made an offer on a place?

bluedrop

1 yr - looked at 30+ houses. It meant, we were out viewing nearly every weekend. We dont drive so, even more time consuming as we were looking in a 4 mile radius. Add the background research work (area, crime, schools, access to public transport etc) to that. It took nearly all the free time!

It took long mainly becasue we had a LOT of "must haves" and we were adamant. Luckily, we found a house that ticked all boxes for us. It was just by chance - I wouldnt recommend this approach though.

You must have a list of MUST have and NICE TO have things. you should know where you can compromise.

More importantly, you need to be aware of what your money can get you. We spent the first 6 months looking for our dream home with 50k less on budget. When we stretched a bit more, we started to see the kind of houses we wanted. In the end, its a long term home for us, so we didnt mind stretching.

AlexMac

2011; 2 months, 6 views and 2 unsuccessful offers (but then we drove past 'the one' by accident as it was outside our search area)
2002; 3 months and 6 (then we gave up, told agents to stop alerts, but bought 'the one' that an agent sent unsolicited despite the cancel instruction)
1997; 0 and 1 (an auction of the house next door but one which came up by chance when I wasn't even looking)..

So as far as I'm concerned it's not views, but kharma!

cattie

Approx 30 property viewings each time I've moved, but with my most recent move I only viewed 2 properties & knew I'd be going for one of them. It certainly made life a lot easier.

WLITC

Thanks everyone all for sharing, keep them coming, makes for interesting reading!

I'm still saving the deposit, but planned to be ready to buy next Sept/Oct and naively assumed I'd probably find something right away, but sounds as if realistically it could be 3-4 months to find the right property and factoring in possible failed offers, etc.

115K

I was going to move out to a flat in South East London in 2000 but then changed my mind and we must have looked at about seven flats back then.

Later in 2003 we were looking for a house and between the two of us we looked at about ten houses and I only saw three of them. We went for the cheapest one of the three in the end.:p It's quite scary what little thought I put into buying a home as a first time buyer actually.:eek:

Jaybo10

Over a period of 6 months we viewed in excess of 20 and offered on 8 (I think).
First couple of viewings were to get a feel of how EA photos translate into real life, but we very quickly figure out what sort of thing we wanted and where.

yorkshire_terrier_owner

My most recent house move:

Accepted offer on the Monday on my house and had to find somewhere quick. Fortunately I had spent many hours thinking carefully about what I wanted and looking on Rightmove. I had 3 properties I booked to view on the following day, and bought the first one. I went entirely on gut instinct, and nearly a year later, it was the right choice.

kwmlondon

We looked at 6 properties, made two offers. We knew what kind of property we wanted, we knew where we were looking and had a specific price range so it was a bit of a no-brainer. The choice wasn't so it was just a matter of whittling the options down to a single property.