Sell now or wait til Spring?

Quiet_penguin

Got some really good advice on another section of the Forum lately, so I thought I'd pick the collective wisdom about another situation :-)

We have live in a property that is very much a first time buyer type house - worth approx 390-400k.  We tried to sell earlier this year at 415k but were over optimistic and took it off because, unfortunately, we discovered a hidden leak in our kitchen for which we had to claim on our insurance for replacing of floors and drying out etc. We are finally nearly there and expect to have everything sorted by the first week in Sept.    

We are lucky enough to be able to consider buying a house with a budget of around 750k because of some changes in personal circumstances. There's not much on in our area at the moment and we're looking to stay pretty local because of schools.  We've seen pretty much everything on the market in our budget and nothing leaps out.  So, my question is really, should we go for it and put our house on the market in Sept, or sit tight for a bit - probably til Spring in the hope the market and mortgage rates stabilize a little and first time buyers get a bit more breathing space? 

I know this is a bit of a 'how the hell can we know' type question...but any instincts in where we're heading? 

Richard1212

First, congratulations on your increase in available cash---and your chance to really move up the housing ladder. All the very best.

The last sentence of your post does indeed sum up the position but ............my instinct ????: I'd go for waiting till early Spring for the reasons you mentioned. It'll also give you time to get put onto Estate Agents lists/internet notifications etc to give you some ideas, as well as seeing what the trend is over the winter regarding successful sale prices for local houses like your present home. 

And I'm sure ,in the meantime, you'll be able to squeeze every bit of interest out of the extra cash that you have available ----and add to your overall wealth. Best wishes. 

MeteredOut

Quiet_penguin said:

We have live in a property that is very much a first time buyer type house - worth approx 390-400k.  

It's incredible that that sentence makes sense for some parts of the country. In others, that's a detached house in a nice village for a family of 4.

You say you've 750K to spend and have looked at all houses in the area. Have you looked up around £800K too? In this market, you just have to find someone desperate to sell and you could get yourself what might turn out to be a bargain.

Personally, unless you find your forever home, I'd be tempted to wait till the spring to see where the market goes, but accept the risk that it might not go in your favour.

daivid

Unless you are prepared to rent or stay with family or friends marketing now will do you no favours if there is nothing for you to buy.

Quiet_penguin

I agree - MeteredOut - it's kind of shocking that's what required to get on the property ladder in our neck of the woods (commuter belt to London essentially).  I feel very lucky to be in the position we are, definitely a privilege I don't take for granted. Anyway, yes, from my close watching of the market this year, it seems that everything is quite stagnant and properties like ours are taking a while to sell especially.  I suspect we'll have to take less for ours than we would have done a year of so ago - but then we'll likely buy for less too and  I guess % that's likely to be a bigger saving.  Definitely looking up around the 800k mark too - yes, I guess it's the kind of market for a bold offer if we were to find somewhere we really liked...

Thanks so much both of you for the replies. 

jimbog

I would definitively wait until spring. The last thing you would want is to have a stale listing especially as there is nothing that you want on the market at the moment

Mstty

Wait 6 months to sell and buy. Why the market generally moves together prices fall and rise together unless moving to a less desirable area.

Not good advice above it is quiet due to kids holiday season right now but generally picks up again September.

RelievedSheff

I personally wouldn't be buying or selling right now. The market is in a bit of a stale mate currently. I would sit tight in your current home until there are more signs of life again.

Bigphil1474

We're looking to put ours up for sale in the next couple of weeks having been working on the house for the last year. We have also been fortunate enough to come into some extra money to put towards a new house. We're still going to go for it though, as the types of houses we are looking to move up to are available and have come down in price more than ours has.

Our house is a good FTB property - 3 bed mid terrace valued around £165k, and we're looking at a 3 or 4 bed Semi or detached in the region of £300k (West Yorkshire). I've been tracking one property, a 4 bed detached in reasonable condition,  that has been on the market a while which has come down from about £340k to £285k over the last 7 or 8 months. If there wasn't anything I was interested in, I'd probably leave it for now though.

I I reckon ours would have been worth about £185k last year (needs a bit of work but generally okay), so I reckon by selling and buying now, I'm potentially making bigger savings on the purchase than I'm losing on the sale.

jonnydeppiwish!

Any reason you actually have to move? Only asking as we did what you want to do but ended back in a starter type home (same budget as yours).

Main reasons being that the although the houses are small and ugly, location is perfect, plus we don’t have the mortgage considerations you have when you jump to the next rung.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love a house on the road adjacent to us, but for the extra money (an extra £400k - £2m more 😳), we’re actually enjoying life, seeing the world and occasionally helping out the kids (not that much though, as they need to be able to look after themselves!). Not worrying about money is a massive help (although money doesn’t buy happiness, it does but good holidays!). We don’t have new cars, we save and cut our cloth accordingly. 

Is there anything you can do to your current home to make it bigger/more usable? Even if you if you do work and don’t get the money back on the value of the house, I bet it’ll still less than any interest you’d pay on a mortgage.

Obviously just my opinion, and possibly abasing what a few in here would say, but it’s a lot less stressful!