How long did it take you to find your home to buy?

jenni_fer

It hugely depends on criteria and a little bit of luck.

First time round, we'd walked down a street and said we quite liked the idea of living there, decided to start looking and there was a house on that street with a ready-made chain waiting for us.

Second time, again I had a house style in mind, there were a couple on the market at the point we put ours up and we chose one of them (we did view all sorts of other things too but knew what we wanted)

This time, however, I've been looking semi seriously for nearly 3 years and in that time found 3 properties that were worth considering rushing ours on the market for. We'll list ours at some point next year and hope for the best but our criteria this time is pretty detailed and the supply of such properties is low.

TimSynths

One day, knew the area I wanted, went into the local estate agent told them my requirements, she drove me around looking at them, went back for a second visit later in the day to my favourite and bought it. Moved in 17 years ago. Easy being a man.

Davesnave

TimSynths said:

 Easy being a man.

Does that mean 50% of people find choosing a house hard because they have greater discriminatory powers, or what?

NinjaTune

Months of looking on Rightmove and savings properties that I was interested in but not in a position to actually buy (house not yet on the market).  Once we marketed and accepted an offer  I viewed 4 properties in a week and had an offer accepted on one of them.

annetheman

GingerLs said:

How long did it take you to find a property to buy? How many houses did you view? Is it normal to take so long? 😣 

I looked for about one month (started in Jan) and found the place I loved by the end of March. It was the third place I viewed and the one in my list of four that I thought I wouldn't want. Viewing is believing!
I'm a FTB so can't say if that is normal, I'm afraid. I did think about continuing the search and waiting but knew it would be snapped up very quickly so I made the move. I wouldn't have done so if I didn't really love it.

Good luck with your search but don't make a decision you might regret just because you have itchy feet. Do your research and make sure you love it!

LudaMusser

We were looking to move until a few days ago and will now stay put until daughter is three years old. We viewed 11-12 houses whilst we were seriously looking and only one was suitable but that then sold 

We’ve been in our current (and first) house approaching ten years, I think we viewed around 4-5 houses back then. This time though we were trying to move to a much more affluent area with not the biggest budget in the world so it was always going to be harder to find something suitable 

Tippytoes

The last property I purchased took me over a year to find!.  I knew exactly what I wanted and really didn't want to compromise on anything.  Finally, I was due to view three properties on the same day and had already made my mind up that if none met the criteria, I was going to give up and stay put.  The first two were no good; one more to go.  Third and final was perfect - exactly what I had been waiting for.  It was so perfect that I kind of convinced myself that something was bound to go pear shaped during the process but it didn't.  Everything went like clockwork, happy to say.

Alarae

Our first house we were only looking on a whim. Then a house came up in a different area, 10k more than the area we were looking at but had a third bedroom and a double driveway. It was the only house we viewed and we offered as soon as we got home from the viewing. Never went back to the house (or the area which was only 10 minutes from where we were renting) until we completed, when we realised we had purchased a house only five minutes from the town precinct! Bonus.

Moving the second time was also on a whim, but more motivated as I wanted to move before having a baby due to affordability. We actually viewed three houses on one day, and loved one of them to the point we put our house on the market for it. We sold in 4 days and offered, however it was rejected and we refused to go higher as didn't feel it was worth it. It was also a sale on divorce (she wanted to accept, he was holding out for higher) so probably a good thing.

It took us four more weeks and 13 more houses until we found our current house. We wanted to stay in the area and it was Spring 2018 so housing stock was scarce. I saw it when it first went live on Rightmove but didn't book a viewing as it was just outside budget. It sold, but came back to the market as the purchaser couldn't get a mortgage. We ended up viewing it after upping our budget by 25k.

I never loved our first house, it was very much a rational purchase due to being good value. This one I loved the instant I set foot in it and knew down to my bones this was my home. My husband loved this house even more because of that, because he knew my detached feelings for our first house.

We offered on that house the instant we left. It meant borrowing a bit of money from family to make the purchase price, but it was worth every penny. My daughter is sound asleep in the nursery and I genuinely couldn't imagine being anywhere else. 

Caroby

One week to the day from when we sold. Our house went on the market Thursday afternoon, one view Friday (wasn't in a position to make an offer), two views Saturday morning and both wanted it. We'd had three estate agents value it and went with the middle one as the highest was clearly unrealistic.
We drove 250 miles to stay in the area we were looking at on Monday morning, the potential buyers made their offers above asking price that morning too. We viewed about six properties during the week, none really suitable.
On Thursday we viewed one that didn't have everything we thought we wanted. It was also nearby in an area we hadn't initially considered, but was about £20,000 less than the others.
We liked the house and area and could see the improvements we could make with the extra cash we'd have so had a second view on Friday and put in an offer on Saturday which was accepted.
Prior to putting our house on the market, though, months of reading/looking online and a few trips to different parts of the country.

youth_leader

Five months for me, I sold in May. I wanted a fresh start as I am widowed, I have viewed about 20 properties in total.  I live in Northumberland and travelled down to Margate/Broadstairs/Ramsgate, then Exmouth in Devon.  Out of the two I had hoped to move to Devon, but my budget is too small and I didn't want to live in a terrace or a flat.  I have decided to stay in Northumberland and brave it out, I'm hopefully purchasing a bungalow in my popular tourist village here,  and will have some money left over.  Fingers crossed the seller continues with the sale, she said she'd miss it a lot about three times during the viewing.