How long did it take you to find 'the house'?

Anatidaephobia

A couple of months. The house we bought was the third that we attempted to buy.

I would recommending visiting as many houses as possible. We initially dismissed several houses on rightmove. Later, after we lost the first two houses, we started viewing some of these houses and found that some of them were really nice and their listings did them no justice at all. The house we bought was one that we hadn't particularly noticed on rightmove at first.

Slimgimli

Hi! We are in the same position as you Sedge123! Lots of properties we liked before we went on the market, after selling in 5 days to a buyer who has sold and also living with parents!
Now all the ones we liked have sold and there is nothing coming up remotely in our budget or that we like !
We've been told our buyer is happy to wait for 2/3 weeks, but after that not sure but as one poster said, we are not going to be rushed and if need be I think we could get more for ours if we needed to re advertise it so not panicking just yet ......
Last night a house came back on RM that we both loved and I immediately rand the EA to find it was a mistake!!! Although she did say that there was a possibility that it might be coming back on......Odd? It's now not even showing as SSTC which it had been? Any ideas......have said we are VERY interested and to ring me if it comes back on the market!
I'm getting addicted to RM!! Will end up needing counciling at this rate as even keep waking up to see if anything new as been added in the night:eek:

Sedge123

Hi slimginli. How weird, exactly the same thing happened to us today, previously sold house can back on market for three hours- phoned agents only to be told that the buyer had pulled their finger out and all now on track again to complete at end of May. For three hours today I was very excited!

It's all very frustrating. We've viewed another house tonight which has just confirmed our thoughts that we know what type of house we are looking for and we will just have to be prepared to wait.

vansboy

She looked most evenings, for several months, then one long bank holiday weekend, I saw THE house, (barn conversion) had just been reduced by £20k, made offer, then !!!!!! happend, too much to tell here, but lost more than the dream home, actually lost the dream.

That was just two years ago,so time to look again

VB

phoebe1989seb

Most recently (during 2014), we were planning to sell the major project we'd been working on for three years so during the early part of the year I was keeping an eye on RM for suitable houses as we wanted something very specific.

Unfortunately when I found something perfect it was SSTC but as our project wasn't finished anyway I pushed it to the back of my mind.

A few months passed and I was talking to DH about the house I'd seen, decided to find it on RM thinking I'd see how much it had sold for......but it had been remarketed as the sale had fallen through. At that point we both got quite excited - although somewhat annoyingly our project was still not complete.

We took a gamble and decided to view anyway - it was 150-odd miles away and we wanted to confirm the location (as well as the house) was right for us - and fell in love immediately.

Long story short, within less than five months we'd sold ours, bought the new house and moved in

Slimgimli

Sedge123! I actually went into the EA yesterday to try and find out more face to face! Apparrantly it was to do with the chain breaking down but.......its been resolved now wonder if it is a ploy to scare the buyer.....odd it happened to your ideal house as well?
Still got a bungalow that needs lots of work doing to it to make it what we want, has been on since last year and is affordable, just can't decide whether it's what I want..... Location is good , price is good, can afford the work needed.......but don't 'love' it atm! Is this due to the state it is in now and when it's done I will fall in love...argggggggg this house buying thing is driving insane :eek:

AdrianC

Sedge123 wrote: »

Thanks. Have done and have been viewing a few houses but none are in the roads that we particularly like- have even tried leafleting with the only response being a chap who wanted to rent.

Worried that we will end up settling and compromising and then the perfect house may appear after!

Exactly how small a pool of potential properties are you looking in?

It may well be that your best bet is to break the chain by taking that offer of rental until something comes up - who knows, the landlord might even think about selling before long.

laughingcow81

Took us about 3-4 weeks to find our house but it was solid looking, about 5 houses a time! The house we offered on had been on the market for about 5 months by the time we looked at it, and we'd initially dismissed it because the asking price was much higher than what we could afford. However once we'd jiggled the figures a bit we realised we could offer something close if we liked it and as it turned out, we did! The vendors accepted an offer £15k below asking and a mere 6 months (!) later we'll be completing next week.

So my recommendation is to look at houses above your price range too - if it has been on a while the vendors could take a lower offer, you never know.

Sedge123

Thanks for the advice. We are looking for a non estate 50's/60's semi in our town so I don't think we are unrealistic. Keeping fingers crossed.

steve2005

We started casually looking in April last year, on and off, in different areas.
Found a house we wanted to make an offer on 3 weeks ago, so really it took us a year.

Offer has been accepted and we're doing the solicitor bits now.