Moving from your sold house into a rental property

ruslara

We are completing the sale of our house in 4-5 weeks and because we have not found a suitable property to buy, we are having to move into a rental one and keep looking.

How do we secure a rental house? Do we need to exchange contracts first? Will the agents even show us a property if we have not exchanged yet?

It all seems to be very complicated, as without a secured rental we can't stipulate a completion date to exchange contracts. Yet without the exchange of contracts we can't secure the accommodation. There is a shortage of rental properties in our area and they get snapped very quickly. Also, the vast majority of landlords want long-term tenants, but we are hoping to buy a house in less than a year, so we potentially need a shorter rental.

How do other sellers go about setting the dates of completion when moving into a rental property? It seems impossible for us at the moment. 

DullGreyGuy

ruslara said:

We are completing the sale of our house in 4-5 weeks and because we have not found a suitable property to buy, we are having to move into a rental one and keep looking.

How do we secure a rental house? Do we need to exchange contracts first? Will the agents even show us a property if we have not exchanged yet?

Depends on how your local rental market is, how picky you are going to be about where you live and how long you intend to leave it between exchange and completion. 

We had a new guy join us a few months ago and being new to London had to find a home to find, took about 2.5 weeks from starting to moving in but he was highly flexible to where he lived. When we moved back to London it took about 6 weeks because it took a while to find somewhere we liked in the area we wanted to be and it was being advertised whilst the tenant was still in situ so had to wait for them to leave. 

How you approach it depends on if your buyer will be happy with weeks between exchange and completion? Will you be willing to live absolutely anywhere if it's the only property that will be available before you move out?

Agents will show you properties at any point, thats assuming your rental market isnt crazy with most properties going unseen. 

youth_leader

Do you have Airbnb where you are?  As it is 'shoulder season' someone might be prepared to do you a deal?  Could you put your possessions into storage?  

eddddy

Ideally, you want to exchange contracts on your sale and sign your rental agreement at the same time - but that might be hard to achieve.

Or you could reduce the risk by having a longer time between exchange and completion - maybe 4, 6 or even 8 weeks. That gives you 4, 6 or 8 weeks to find a rental property.

And as you say, most landlords prefer long-term tenants.


TBH, these are some of the reasons why very few people agree to move into rented in order to 'break the chain'. (Sometimes people offer to do it, but then change their minds when they realise the difficulties.)


Maybe explain your situation to a few letting agents, and see if they will agree to any strategies that would reduce your risk.

LoopyLoops

We did similar in 2017. We were moving just under 2 hours away.  We did get to view houses before we exchanged, but none of the agents would consider us until we had exchanged.  It wasn’t the easiest thing we’ve ever done.  We found one we liked / that worked for us and let the agent know, asked them to let us know if anyone else showed interest.  It was close to exchange luckily. We then explained to estate agent we needed 4 weeks between exchange and completion to ensure we could manage to make it work.  The chain accepted this was needed to get it done.  It will depend on the area you are looking at as some areas are moving faster than others on the rental market.  If you don’t have narrow requirements hopefully will be ok.  Good luck! 

ruslara

youth_leader said:

Do you have Airbnb where you are?  As it is 'shoulder season' someone might be prepared to do you a deal?  Could you put your possessions into storage?  

We have been quoted an extra 3K just for putting posessions into storage. And you don't save any money by renting a smaller place whilst still paying £150 a week for storage. We have a lot of stuff, so would rather avoid storing and move into a rental place straight away. 

[Deleted User]

I looked into this a couple of weeks back and concluded it's impossible for me. There's the paucity of properties available - only five in an 8 mile radius right now, last month it was one - and then the fact it's highly unlikely any will take a dog. Then there's the process itself - reference from employer (freelance with my nearest client 3500 miles away, so don't have one), previous landlord (don't have one), accountant (don't have one), solicitor (don't have one), and so on. It may be possible to get around all this, who knows, but the fact it has to be done after contracts are signed and if nothing comes of it you're on the street, didn't put me in mind of pursuing the option. It was the same last time, when I accepted an offer on my house immediately but couldn't find anywhere to go, so had to withdraw.

gazfocus

I’ve just posted on your other thread (really should keep to one thread if you can), but I would echo what’s been said about trying to sign tenancy and exchange contracts on the same day (make sure you exchange contracts first). 

We didn’t and it bit us in the bum. We agreed to move to a rental when we were selling our house, signed the tenancy and then two weeks later the buyers pulled out, leaving us with a mortgage and rent to pay. 

We since decided to keep the house as a rental so began our landlord journey but was super stressful at the time. 

TripleH

My parents owned a holiday cottage (connected to their home). I know they did a short term let on it (for about 3 months) for someone in your position. It would cost more than a normal property rental.

When we bought, we were in a rental property but the estate agent did such a hatchet job on the contract (think they were trying a fast one which backfired on them hugely) that we were on a 1 month rolling contract from the word go.

If we don't know the area, we'll rent before buying until we get a feel for the best location for us, but that won't be for a long time. That is what we did when we moved up north from the south.

ruslara

We have spoken to our conveyancer today, and he suggested to propose a completion date as ‘on a date mutually agreed, but no later than 31 March’. That means, that if we find a property available at an earlier date, then we are happy to move out before 31 March. But we need contracts exchanged first, to get that property.

Sapindus

I made it clear to my solicitor when I was selling that I needed 3 or 4 weeks between exchange and completion. The actual date was not as important as the gap.