Sold home our cannot find a new home

Luke1066

Hello,
We sold our house about 4 weeks ago after two weeks on the market. :beer:

However where we are looking to move to is a choice of two villages about 20 miles north of our current home but we cant find anything to purchase.
We have been looking for a few months and obviously increased searching since our sale but we cannot find a house we like or isn't over budget. starting to get worried that a buyer is going to get frustrated.
We genuinely are trying really hard to find somewhere but the market is so quite in that particular area.

Has anyone been in this postilion, how did you handle it?

Thanks,
Luke

ACG

Make some cheeky offers?
Speak to the agents in that area, tell them your budget and see if they can drum up anyone looking to sell their home.

Aside from that, without knowing a lot more, are you sure your budget is enough? It might also be worth speaking to your buyer and just letting them know.

kazwookie

Get it sold and move into rent accommodation / with family for a while, and keep looking, pester the EA's daily as you will be a cash buyer.......

Luke1066

Thanks for the reply ACG

So far we have registered our interest with the three agents that operate in this area, we check Rightmove daily, we have even resorted to posting on the local community Facebook page to see if anyone is interested in moving.

The area is on the East Sussex/Kent border and our budget is around £450,000 which should be able to get us a 3 bedroom with parking.

We've not heard anything from our agent recently so I'm assuming all is OK, just getting worried she may start running out of patience.

agrinnall

kazwookie wrote: »

...as you will be a cash buyer.......

There's nothing in the OP to indicate that's the case, they may still need a mortgage on the new property.

JoJo1978

Yes, we got an offer last year, so made an offer but were gazumped and lost it. Were also worried our buyer would get frustrated so we:

1. Made sure our EA conveyed the message we were looking hard
2. Made a back up plan to push through with the sale anyway and relocate into rented
3. Doorstepped every EA in our new area and started viewing houses already under offer where the vendors were agreeable of course.

As it turned out our buyer was so slow he held up the whole chain above him anyway, we were ready weeks before him lol (wasn't funny at the time, am over it now!) We ended up in one of the said Under Offer houses when the existing transaction fell through.

Good luck and give yourself options

PasturesNew

The trouble with moving house is always that you have an idea in mind about what you can buy with your next budget. But once the money's on the table nothing seems to fit, match, or be "good enough".

While the value of your house has probably increased, the gap between yours and what you want has probably increased proportionately.... and you didn't entirely take that on board while selling.

The truth is, most people move for "something better", but "something better" is always a few quid more than you've got.

Since you first decided to sell, I bet, too, that you've added more and more minutae to your "wish list", further distancing you from the reality that "no house, no matter how much money we've got, will EVER be perfect". Take a look again at why you're dismissing what's available and see if you're just being a bit harsh/unrealistic. Also, go to view those you've dismissed to see if you're right or not... seeing them in the flesh is different to photos online.

If you are sure you want to move and if there's just the two of you, you could take a chance on shoving 90% of your stuff into self storage and plan to rent something SMALL through AirBNB/similar for 2-3 months while you continue looking, or, if you've found something by then, to plug the time gap.

I'm about to sell mine and I'll be taking the attitude that there probably won't be something I like when I sell this, but banking the sale is more important to me than knowing my next address and I'll be "roughing it" in an AirBNB sourced annexe/cottage for 2-3 months. The thing with these rentals is "bills are included", so no utilities to change over twice - and you've not got ridiculous agent hurdles to jump and massive deposits to lay down.

enjoyyourshoes

could you rent?

Could you phone all EA in are and get them to phone you before it goes on the market (often 2 weeks to finalise details and get photos)

could you widen your criteria (have less must haves?)

look at below budget that may be renovation?

paddyandstumpy

Expand your search slightly perhaps? If you're looking Kent side of the border (I.e. Tunbridge Wells) then £450k May get you what you want.

If you look E.S side of the border, like Crowborough; it's circa 8miles south and £450k will easily get what you want.

Or are you looking further east than that?

I agree to proceed the sale and move to rented, it means you don't jepordize your sale and you'll be buying chain free which is also a benefit.

Luke1066

Hi PasturesNew

We are moving because my wife has a new job 50 miles away from our current home, so we need to move closer to that.
Although the properties we are looking at are more than our current one it isn't because we are looking are bigger better houses its just because there area is more expensive, in fact all of the houses we have looked at are smaller than our current one.

Renting could be an option but it would have to be a different area as the two villages don't really have a rental market. Like you said maybe a good thing to do would be to speak to people in the local area and see if anyone has an annex to rent short term.

Luke1066

paddyandstumpy

Thanks for the reply, our search area is Hawkhurst and Ticehurst but we have extended that to Wadhurst and Hurst green.