Reasonable time to search for house?

Zaksmummy

We sold our house privately on the 2nd May, so now we are searching for house to buy, only we're looking in a specific area and nothing decent is coming on the market. Today I hear that pressure is being put on my buyer to move things along, my question is what would you say is reasonable timescale for us to find somewhere? We have looked at 3 houses so far and 1 to see on Friday which isn't even on rightmove yet. (Btw We are 4th in chain) I feel like we're being rushed and made to feel that we're too fussy but I'm not prepared to buy any old tat just so we can complete couple of weeks earlier.

ellie27

Depends how much your buyers really want your house.

I would have given you 2-3 weeks max to find a new place.

Good luck!

Red-Squirrel_2

That's potentially a long messy chain from the sounds of it. It doesn't really matter either what you think is reasonable what matters is how long your buyer will withstand the pressure before looking elsewhere for a chain free purchase!

Any chance you could let the sale proceed and go into rented or stay with family/friends if you end up with a gap before you buy? That's what I think I'll do. I'm looking to buy a house to live in for 10-20 years, I don't want to rush it because of somebody else's timescale!

pickles13

We found a house and had the offer accepted. 3 months later, the seller still hadn't found anywhere so we pulled out. Thankfully, we have found somewhere else now and its all gone ahead but if I were ever in that position again, I would wait for a month maximum. (That seller still hasnt found anywhere more than 6 months on and has now lost three buyers!)

sophiethegiraffe

pickles13 - in that 3 months before pulling out did you go ahead with the survey etc ?

Mickygg

Just my 2p. I have made it perfectly clear to my EA I will only move when I have found the right place. I will make this clear to any buyer for mine.

OP don't be rushed into buying......and risk regretting moving!

Zaksmummy

ellie27 wrote: »

Depends how much your buyers really want your house.

I would have given you 2-3 weeks max to find a new place.

Good luck!

She struck gold with our house as she was area specific too, she is very desperate to buy our house, she also understood our preferences, according to you my timescale is up already :eek:

Zaksmummy

Mickygg wrote: »

Just my 2p. I have made it perfectly clear to my EA I will only move when I have found the right place. I will make this clear to any buyer for mine.

OP don't be rushed into buying......and risk regretting moving!

Exactly my thoughts, it's just typical that nothing has come onto market, we were in this position 12 years ago and it took us 6 weeks to find this house.

moneyistooshorttomention

ellie27 wrote: »

Depends how much your buyers really want your house.

I would have given you 2-3 weeks max to find a new place.

Good luck!

I'll admit I would be thinking along similar lines (ie not very long). I would think I'd probably give a month at most for my vendor to find somewhere. I would be expecting them to be out house-viewing constantly until they found theirs and not "waiting and hoping" for new ones to come on the market (ie because they'd already seen everything available that met their criteria and rejected them all).

A lot of that would be down to my astonishment that they hadn't found their place first before getting their buyer agreed. I would expect that someone would have found theirs first and interpret them not having done so as meaning they weren't going to be that "particular" about the next house (ie had decided on a very short list of must-haves and had enough money to hand to be able to have most of the ones they might be interested in).

I had found my next house and got a provisional offer accepted on it before my buyer turned up in the event and had turned my offer from provisional to firm within hours of agreeing my buyer and all then proceeded.

Timing is always a bit problematic in those things. I had checked out that website (cant recall the name) that gave the average length of time it takes for your style of house in your location to sell and, as my last one was in average condition (rather than immaculate or a right dump) I thought that average time should be about it. That website was absolutely spot on for me and it did take the average time to sell my last one and I was out there looking for (and agreeing) mine about a month before we got to that "average time" and my buyer (plus a rival buyer) did duly turn up then. So the timing all worked out pretty well.

I had also done my own homework and been watching "rival" houses up for sale around the time I sold mine and was noting how long they took to sell and could see for myself what the average selling time was for houses like mine.

Annie1960

How long is a piece of string? Depends on how fast- or slow-moving your area is, and what prices are doing, as well as how much your buyer wants your property.

If your buyer expected to move within a certain timescale, they should have said so when they made their offer. I would not be pressured by them, especially if you live in an area where prices are high and you can easily pay £20,000 just in SDLT. You need to be sure you get the right property of you, not be pushed in something just because it's quick.

Also, how difficult would you find it to get another buyer if this one falls through?

In my case, I had my open day a Saturday in May 2014, offer accepted by lunch time on Monday, and it took me until end October 2014 to find somewhere myself and have my offer accepted.

My vendors then messed me around, their vendors at the top of the chain were buying a new-build which caused all sorts of problems, chain broke end of January 2015, so I was back to square one. Nothing coming onto the market in my price bracket, and prices had shot up considerably since I had accepted my buyer's offer the previous May.

Finally, the property I wanted came back on the market as I was in the best position to proceed as I had already done the survey etc, and exchanged on 1 April 2015.

My buyer knew he was onto a good thing as, if I had put my property back on the market, it would have been at a much higher price (about £50,000 more).

I must say my estate agent was great at keeping my buyer on board, and this is one of the things a good EA will do for you.

LannieDuck

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

A lot of that would be down to my astonishment that they hadn't found their place first before getting their buyer agreed. I would expect that someone would have found theirs first and interpret them not having done so as meaning they weren't going to be that "particular" about the next house

It seems to work the other way around at the moment - you get a buyer for your house, and then you start to offer on properties yourself. The EA for a house we were interested wouldn't even put an offer to the vendors for us until we had a buyer for our place.