Putting houses up for sale before you've found a house yourself

veryintrigued

Scenario as follows:

Keen to move to a more rural setting.
Have viewed a handful of properties.
And made an offer on one.
No mortgage involved in current house.
Would need to finance new home with proceeds of house sale and savings (again no mortgage).
Close current neighbours, in same house design, have recently sold STC house within weeks.
Solicitor fully engaged ready for move.
Estate agent engaged with listing and brochure ready to go BUT not yet listed (although they're keen for us to list)

So only want to move for a home that fits needs. 

Hence don't want to fully list (and get offers, waste potential buyers time and put ourselves under pressure of choosing a wrong house) until the almost perfect house comes along.

But because not seen as serious buyers estate agents aren't keen for viewing houses and the one the offer was put in for was lost as a day later someone who'd listed made an offer.

Prepared to move very, very quickly for the right house and have also made sellers aware that a six figure sum is available as soon as to show seriousness.

So it feels like a chicken and egg scenario. Understanding EA pressuring into listing as it helps their roles but seems daft at this point until the right home is found.

Thoughts please!

NinjaTune

Without your property at least being on sale then nobody is going to accept an offer from you - why would they?  You've already lost a property you liked because you aren't even close to being proceedable.  I'm surprised you even got a viewing in the current climate.

Unless you can afford to purchase without needing to sell you current home then you need to get marketing it ASAP.  At the moment you are, effectively, just a tyre kicker and nobody will take your offers seriously.  Just because a neighbouring property sold fast it doesn't mean that you will.

eddddy

Realistically, it's very unlikely that any seller will accept an offer from you because you're not proceedable (i.e. your current house isn't under offer).

(EAs often come across people who say "my house will sell really quickly when I put it on the market" - but then it doesn't.)

If you were to make an offer in your current circumstances, I think the kind of response you would get from a seller is: "Thanks for the offer, let's leave it on the table until your house is under offer. In the meantime, we'll keep marketing the property, and if a proceedable buyer comes along first, we'll sell to them instead."

I can see that situation isn't ideal for you, but obviously sellers will go with the approach that suits them best - and accepting an offer from a proceedable buyer would suit them best. 

veryintrigued

Appreciate the reply.

We are fully committed to moving. But only to the right house.

I hear what you're saying about the neighbouring property but, as you rightly identify, houses are flying at the moment. Especially within this area.

Probably (certainly) just EA flattery but the three that visited to value etc said it would sell in weeks.

I read too many posts on here where people find themselves scrabbling around for a second best property to buy that's more than a compromise due to their current one selling and then being pressurised into moving almost anywhere so they don't lose the sale.

All this is of course is in the EA interest.

NinjaTune

What's the worst that can happen?

You get an offer on your property, you can't find somewhere suitable so your sale falls through.  If it's as desirable as you/the EAs think then it shouldn't be difficult to find another buyer.

Long story short, it's only a desperate vendor who would accept an offer from someone who is not even on the market let alone under offer themselves.  If/when you find your dream home you are going to lose it anyway unless you are proceedable.

veryintrigued

This is the thing.

It seems acceptable to allow 'a sale to fall through' if we don't find a house.

Guess letting people down is just more and more acceptable today and why so many are falling through.

Sign of the times probably.

[Deleted User]

Wow, i'd be livid if i encountered a buyer with this blase approach.
I think it highly unacceptable to go into it with that in mind, letting people down in this business deal is abhorrent and sellers will be extremely choosy with their buyers if this mindset is present.

It's always been that once a party is proceedable then the transaction can move forward.
When i bought this place i only accepted proceedable buyers and no-one else - so if you had loved my property you wouldn't have been permitted to even look at the place - this method weeds out the time-wasters.

babyblade41

It's something I would never do.

I have favourites saved on RM already and not even going to market until after xmas .

When I get an offer on mine then I will whittle down what's left and view all of them ASAP 

I don't entertain viewings from people who aren't under offer , too much hassle getting a house ready and that person isn't able to move especially in the current climate 

veryintrigued

Catsacor said:

Wow, i'd be livid if i encountered a buyer with this blase approach.
I think it highly unacceptable to go into it with that in mind, letting people down in this business deal is abhorrent and sellers will be extremely choosy with their buyers if this mindset is present.

You need to reread the thread.

It's not us that has the blase attitude to letting people down (beit buyers or sellers!).

It seems most others have though.

Hence one of the reasons we haven't listed.

veryintrigued

Sounds like the solution given so far is:

Continue to search for house.
Put house up for sale and hope for sale.
If we don't find a suitable house, but current house has sold, then let potential buyer down.

And repeat.

Not ideal for the people in the chain.

Maybe we personally need to be more accepting of this and just go for it.

Definitely need to see what penalties are involved.

Bad_Accountant

If getting the right house is overwhelmingly important, would you consider selling first, and moving into rented while you look?