Have to Sell before Buying Now?!

somethingcorporate

I am glad the process has changed (I am not convinced it has, when we bought our house 8+ years ago it certainly was the way it is now).

It makes no sense TO ANYONE to actively avoid trying to complete chains. Hence everyone in the chain wants a proceedable buyer otherwise chains would never get completed, they would be built on total fantasy.

Sorry OP, I think you are mistaken in your understanding and the "old days" you would like are total nonsense and just wouldn't make commercial sense for EAs, buyers and sellers.

fluffymuffy

somethingcorporate wrote: »

Sorry OP, I think you are mistaken in your understanding and the "old days" you would like are total nonsense and just wouldn't make commercial sense for EAs, buyers and sellers.

Absolutely.

A quick chat with my mother, who has moved house seventeen times, thats 17 times since 1958, confirms that there have always been time wasters who thought they could offer to buy a house without the means to pay. They were always filtered out by my parents who would not have any viewers who were not in a position to buy. I don't know how common this was as we never met any of them. In my (vast) experience of moving house we have never viewed a house without being in a position to proceed.

Mocha61

Most estste agents wont book a viewing unless you have mortgage in place and you have an offer on your property. If you do go to view a property with yours still to sale the offer probably wont even be considered.

Car1980

Mocha61 wrote: »

Most estste agents wont book a viewing unless you have mortgage in place and you have an offer on your property. If you do go to view a property with yours still to sale the offer probably wont even be considered.

The problem is that nobody can ever have a mortgage in place!

A Decision in Principle is not worth the paper it's printed on. It's a piece of paper which just says "In theory, hypothetically we might possible decide to lend X amount. On a good day".

Never dance to the estate agent's tune. By all means tell them your house is under offer but don't give them a DIP until you've made an offer yourself.

And don't apply for a DIP until you've received an offer on your own property and you're sure your buyer has been approved for a mortgage.

jbainbridge

Sorry, but if you think someone is going to accept an offer in the 'hope' that you sell your house ... you're dreaming.

I felt like a time waster viewing a couple of houses while we were on the market. Most irritating are those that view houses without even having their's on the market.

ognum

user5000 wrote: »

I have bought 2 properties and sold one in my life. In the past buying a house meant placing an offer, negotiating that offer and then everyone waits until both parties sell/buy their respective properties.
It seems this is no longer the case and no one actually seems to be being transparent about the whole process.
Our property is currently for sale. We have made 2 offers on other houses only to be discouraged from the start by the agents selling and then rejected - not on the basis of the offer itself, but on the fact that we ourselves are not under offer. We have been vetted by every agent prior to viewing a house as to what our situation is and warned to only consider the property once ours is off the market.
It also appears that our own house is only being viewed by first-time buyers,cash buyers or those who have sold their own properties and are in limbo.
What is going on? It's like we have reached a dead-lock where no one can sell or buy. There are SIXTY 3 bedroom semi-detached houses for sale between £190,000 and 220,000 at the moment in our town. None of them are selling with any speed. So competition for viewings and offers is high. Meanwhile the media tells us there is a shortage of affordable houses. And also that the housing market is booming. It certainly isn't in at least two of the counties surrounding ours, or in our county. It seems more to me like the buying and selling process has become far more complicated - made so by the agents, who are more than a little cagey & defensive when you ask them when it became regular practice to sell before buying!?
No one seems to be discussing this ridiculous change in the process. I could understand if this was something particular to London, but we are not selling or buying in London (or any city) and it now appears to be the situation nationally.
Isn't it time this new way of buying and selling became more transparent?!

OP, this is an interesting post and I have reflected long and hard on it but actually I think your original premis is wrong.

My personal circumstances have been

1981 Had to have offer on house in before offer accepted on another (different parts of the country)
1999 Same, moved in came town.
2007 Same

So my experience is that for the past 34 years I have had to sell ( sale agreed) before being part of a chain and getting my offer accepted.

Your area may be different from this of course.

phoebe1989seb

It's definitely been like that for as long as I can remember and we've bought seven properties over the past 20 ish years.....

Only exception was when we had an offer accepted before we were on the market ourselves in 1997 when we were buying privately from the father of a friend. He lived overseas and the house in question was let to several tenants so it suited him to have a sale agreed whilst he waited for them to depart and we found a buyer. As it turned out we had completed on our sale before his tenants had left (two had to be evicted) and there was a six week gap before we completed on the purchase.

When we bought our current house we did find the house we wanted to buy before ours was on the market. We viewed and made a tentative offer, which was of course rejected on the basis we were not proceedable. Once our house was marketed and SSTC we went back with another offer which the vendor accepted immediately

Edited to add: on neither occasion was any borrowing involved on our part.....

In_For_A_Penny_2

Car1980 wrote: »

And don't apply for a DIP until you've received an offer on your own property and you're sure your buyer has been approved for a mortgage.

May I ask why not? Doesn't a DIP speed up the whole process when you actually want to proceed with the mortgage application?

Mocha61

In this area the EA ask if you are in a proceedable position when you book a viewing on a property and ask if you have finances in place. When we had offer accepted last month they asked for mortgage in principal which tells them what your lender is prepared to offer you. This is what we have found so perhaps its a regional thing.

Mocha61

In_For_A_Penny wrote: »

May I ask why not? Doesn't a DIP speed up the whole process when you actually want to proceed with the mortgage application?

I agree with you, how do you know what you can afford to offer if you dont get MIP first, having offer accepted it was first thing the EA asked to see, then when you get back to lender the details are already there.