When do you put your house on the market?

mrsmortgage

We've been actively looking for 6+ months and no joy. We want a very specific type of house in a fairly small radius (around 1 mi).  Oddly enough half the EAs are saying to first find the house and half to put it up for sale ASAP. We rushed to buy the house we're currently living in and thus have to move after living here for only 1 year. 
We're also considering the leafleting approach. I know that because of the stamp duty holiday everybody will be pressuring to complete by October (we care more about finding our forever home than that saving). 
New builds could also work if they're big enough for our needs. 

Thoughts?

Tiddleshalifax

Many agents won’t let you view unless you are on the market - 
We have only started viewing now on the market 

moneysavinghero

In your circumstance wait until you have found somewhere. If you put it on the market now and get a buyer you are only going to mess them around while you carry on looking for another 6 months / 1 year / 2 years until the right house for you comes up.

*Unless you are willing to move into renting property inbetween selling and buying. 

mrsmortgage

I read that there's a staggered stamp duty holiday until October? either way, that saving is not relevant to us. moneysavinghero said:

In your circumstance wait until you have found somewhere. If you put it on the market now and get a buyer you are only going to mess them around while you carry on looking for another 6 months / 1 year / 2 years until the right house for you comes up.

*Unless you are willing to move into renting property inbetween selling and buying. 

Exactly my thoughts... very misleading to prospective buyers. EA say they can make it very clear, but how long is a piece of string? 

mrsmortgage

oh and no, we have a dog and we'd lose tons of £££ if we don't port our current mortgage so renting is definitely not an option. 

Weathergirl_76

If you find the house you want first, then put yours on the market, you run the risk of another buyer viewing and being proceedable and in a better position having their offer accepted before yours. 

Also, what happens if your property takes a bit longer to sell? 

I am selling my property which is taking a lot longer than first anticipated. Both houses I was very interested in, have since sold. Until I have a buyer for my house, I have stopped viewing (most agents don’t see me as a proceedable buyer and have told me it’s a waste of time). It’s very disappointing and frustrating when you find the house you want, yet yours is taking time to sell. 

The only way round it, would be to have the photos and everything ready to go with an agent, so when you view the house you want, you can put yours on the market straight away, but you still have to find a buyer quickly, to avoid losing out. 

This is my view and experience, and I’m not for one second saying yours will be hard to sell, but I thought mine would sell quickly and it hasn’t. I’m on the verge of giving up and trying again next year. 

Weathergirl_76

Ps - My agents also mentioned to me, if I was in a position that I had a buyer for mine, but couldn’t find anything suitable for myself, they would leaflet in the areas/roads I would be interested in purchasing. This is a tactic they told me they use, to avoid a sale falling through. 

Thinking about it, a new build isn’t a bad idea as you should have an idea of when you can move in/complete and can arrange your sale around that maybe...? 

Mizydoscape

There's nothing on the market around here that ticks our boxes at the moment but we are going on next week with the hope that if something comes up we can jump at the chance and offer straight away. We've missed a couple suitable houses because we weren't proceedable.

If no one lists their property for sale because they can't see options for their onward purchase then that perpetuates the lack of stock. I'm going to be cautiously optimistic we'll find something and also upfront to any prospective purchasers of our house that we will need reasonable time to find our new home.

mrsmortgage

Mizydoscape said:

There's nothing on the market around here that ticks our boxes at the moment but we are going on next week with the hope that if something comes up we can jump at the chance and offer straight away. We've missed a couple suitable houses because we weren't proceedable.

If no one lists their property for sale because they can't see options for their onward purchase then that perpetuates the lack of stock. I'm going to be cautiously optimistic we'll find something and also upfront to any prospective purchasers of our house that we will need reasonable time to find our new home.

I think in your position we'd definitely list ASAP.  Because we haven't found anything at all that we'd be interested in viewing (apart from maybe 1) is that we're wondering how long it will take.

@Weathergirl_76 all EA's say that our house is exactly what buyers are looking for (decent sized 3 bed  end of terrace ) 

Racky_Roo

Finding something first then listing really does add extra stress to the selling process. I listed mine but was very clear to the agent that if I didn't find something I wanted, I would take the property off the market. He then made sure the buyers of mine didn't start with searches or surveys until the chain was complete so they didn't lose money

UnderOffer

We were in a similar position to you. We were only vaguely looking so didn’t have our home listed, then a home in the next street appeared on Rightmove and was perfect. Luckily the owners allowed us to view as I was very upfront with Agent that we did not have our house for sale. Viewed, loved it, listed our property which took 7 days for photos and to appear on RM, told their Agent our position and how keen we were, luckily ours sold 2 weeks later (3 weeks from initial viewing) so we were able to make offer. All went well and yes it was nail biting for the 2 weekends we were waiting to sell as I was assuming viewings were taking place around the corner, in fact some viewers of ours had already viewed the property we were keen on, so it was all a bit awkward but was obviously meant to be. Good luck.