Selling property and renting and buying

Hamiltonc

Hello,

Currently live in a flat and we are wanting a house in the next 1-2 year's 

From what I read, buying and selling can be very stressful when doing it together but the advantage is of course no rental in between 

Another option is selling only followed by a rental followed by a buying process at some point in the rental contract - this has disadvantages but advantages here is that you'd be chain free yourself & it's only one process to go through 

What are people's thoughts?  Ideally we'd stay where we are for as long as required to get the mortgage down etc but then doing the selling and buying could take a long time / stressful 

Is it worth considering that option there of renting in between?

Thank you 

BonaDea

Everything's worth considering.  A possible disadvantage of selling, renting, then buying, is that in the gap between selling and buying while you are in a rental, the market moves against you so house prices are higher than you'd expected once you're ready to buy.  You could mitigate this by getting your offer accepted on your onward property before you complete the sale of your home so as to have a very short gap between selling and buying, and then stay in short-term temporary accommodation (family, AirBnB etc).  And you'd need to store your furniture etc, and have 2 x removals.  But there's no way of removing the hassle and stress entirely, you are just replacing one lot of potential problems with another lot.  

Albermarle

From what I read, buying and selling can be very stressful when doing it together but the advantage is of course no rental in between 
However it is still the usual way of doing it.
If the chain is short there is a good chance it will go OK, but not always for sure.

Sapindus

I'm currently waiting for exchange of contracts on my house and will then go into rental while I look for the new one.  The advantages as I saw them included that I am moving across the country and I would rather be closer to the area where I am looking for house viewing trips.  Also the sort of house I am looking for doesn't come up that often and I didn't want to be making compromises for the sake of having to find somewhere in a hurry once I'd accepted an offer on this place.  And there's a bit of me wants to make sure I really do enjoy living in the part of the country I'm moving to.

The downside is of course that one still has to find the rental in a hurry from a distance and hope that one's buyer is prepared to allow some time between exchange and completion to get it sorted.  Also, renting is going to be much more expensive than my mortgage was, in mitigation I will have the money from the house sale gathering interest but letting agents don't seem to take that into account.

On balance I'm glad I'm doing it this way because now there's a hold up in my chain and if I was buying somewhere I'd be even more stressed out in case I lost it.  

Cairnpapple

We went into rented on our last sale. It worked for us because we were wanted to try out the new location and the commute, and we particularly wanted a type of house where there wasn't much supply. However,  I'd say the double move was surprisingly bad, it felt like the stress of the move was just drawn out over months. 

Sapindus

Yes, we did the double move when we first came here as well.  We had two small children and a cat.  We had to pile boxes along the landing so the baby wouldn't fall through the bannisters, the cat fell out of a window, the garage where we'd piled loads of stuff because there wasn't room in the house leaked... so it can be a bit of a nightmare.  But the second move was much less stress because we were in the same village and had an overlap, so we hired a van and just made lots of trips.

bunnygo

make enquiries about renting first. Check on availability in the area you want, plus prices - and under current law landlords are unlikely to want you short term. If you have pets, forget it.

saajan_12

There's pros and cons.. you're chain free and don't have to align processes, but then you have 2x moves, risk of prices rising, etc. The pros of renting in between may not really be significant if the chain goes smoothly.

So personally I'd suggest not making the decision now to rent in between. Instead start on the processes, and then if there's an issue with the chain, then be willing to break the chain then.