How long to wait for a vendor to find a property to move to?

SeanG79

babyblade41 said:

Skiddaw1 said:

We had a shortlist and I arranged viewings as soon as we'd accepted the offer on our house, but we were relocating 300 miles away so we had to book accommodation and fit the viewings over a two day period which delayed things a bit. I think it would be lucky to get an offer accepted within 4 weeks in the current market.

I'm not sure why you think it takes 4 weeks ... normally vendors may want to mull things over if the offer is below what they need , 

If I want to offer then it goes to the agent and I usually give 48-72 hours to think about it, if they don't come back I leave the offer on the table and move on .

I am just about to embark on house move number 17 (I think) I have properties on my right move account for the past 8 months and haven't gone to market yet .  I should be ready in about 4 weeks so will go back over that list and whittle it down when an offer comes in.

By the time I view I have more or less decided on which one is going to be the one.


I check the land registry portal first, I have the floor plans and check up the area on line ... I have had 2 long distance moves of 180 miles and only made one trip both times and done in a day 

You clearly don't live where I am (Greater London), in 4 weeks time none of the properties you have shortlisted will still be available unless it is significantly over-priced. We have recently agreed a purchase after offering on 6 properties in the previous weeks. If a new property was listed today, it would be fully booked within a couple of hours for viewings on launch next Saturday (circa 40 viewings booked), it would then be under multiple offers come the Monday after viewings, almost always over asking price...

gingercordial

I was willing to be fairly patient when buying at the start of 2020, as a FTB in rented.  But we had an offer accepted in January 2020 and then had two months of "they're away, sorry" and "they're looking but are quite particular".  They absolutely would not consider going into rented.  It was starting to grate by mid-March.

Then the pandemic hit and of course we all had to stay put for a bit.  Once things started to open up but it looked like the market might crash, suddenly they were keen to go into rented to lock us in...  But we'd also rethought our priorities in a world of WFH so pulled out.  If only they'd got a move on in the first place, we might have been more committed.  Their house went back on the market in January 2021, at a higher price than we'd offered, and is still unsold now despite being a very nice house.  (This is north London, so as people said the right houses fly out the door, but plenty are ambitiously priced and just sit there.  Something else we viewed is now reduced by £100k since January 2020 and still hasn't sold.)

We also saw a wonderful house in June 2020 - we were outbid for it - but at the viewing the owner said she was "only going to move for something perfect".  It went SSTC on Rightmove by July 2020 but is still not showing as sold at the Land Registry.  As it was a Purple Bricks listing with no EA to encourage the deal along, I assume the owners are still looking for their perfect home.

The house we ended up buying had vendors who, for all their issues, found somewhere within a month.

My feeling is that 4-6 weeks is good, 6-8 weeks is still reasonable, beyond 2 months is too long.