Moving - do you need an offer on your house before you make an offer, or

[poocatcherchampion]

Do you just wing it, offer on a property and hope yours sells soon? How far Can you proceed if there is no offer on your property?

[lalalonglegs]

You can try winging it but most agents are going to want to know your "position" before passing on an offer and some of them won't even show houses unless you are a cash buyer or yours is under offer.

It does no harm to express interest and some buyers might say that they will wait, say, a month for you to get an offer but an awful lot won't.

[CanIHaveAPetGiraffePlease]

You can offer but they're unlikelm to take it off the market as you aren't in a position to proceed. We're selling and can't imagine going ahead until someone is ready!

[sammydavis]

But it's unrealistic to imagine that all potential buyers 'could' be immediately proceedable.

We started looking late last year and thought we'd best put our place on the market before 'bothering' vendors.

Put ours up for sale and sold STC on the same day - then couldn't find anything to buy and ended up withdrawing from the sale a few weeks later.
We hadn't made any offers on anything - because - we thought nobody will consider serious offers from non-proceedable buyers.

Now - I'll only market ours (which can be done in a couple of days) when I'm 100% certain to want to buy something.

Realistically, only first time buyers or investors can be 'cash' buyers. The market would grind to a halt if people didn't accept offers from non-immediately-proceedable buyers.

If your house isn't on the market, you probably can't really make an offer.

Once it's on the market, you can make an offer but be prepared to be 'kept on hold'

Once your house is sold - then you can kick the vendor's and the estate agent's ass! And get revenge for all the disdainful and condescending bollocks they'll have put you through until you sold - you may even feel like going and buying a different house!

[sammydavis]

But a mortgage agreement in principle means nothing unless it's an agreement on your house - otherwise you still have the survey and the renegotiation to get through which is when you find you r 'mortgage in principle' buyer actually wants to agree a new, lower price.

What your suggesting, I think, is that you always want to be the end of chain vendor and that's just not realistic.

By the laws of physics, someone will always have to join the chain at another point to complete someone elses transaction.

As a vendor, I would always want a cash, or mortgage agreed buyer. Living in the real world, I accept they may not exist or want to buy my house so I will choose the best offer from the offers I receive.
And that may well be from someone who is just putting their house on the market.

Every buyer and seller has a list of requirements which are weighted with different priority.

I disagree and know from experience that if you haven't sold your house and you make an offer on another, the vendor would expect you to arrange a survey and/or begin conveyancing - they wouldn't BECAUSE they would only accept your offer in principle and wouldn't remove their property from the market.

People talk, they negotiate - they may only get one offer, they may get a hundred and need to choose the most suitable to their unique circumstances.

Yes, there are types of buyers who are genrally preferred but they bring their own big issues.

Cash buyers always want a bargain.

And do they really have the cash?

Mortgage in principle means nothing until it is tied via a survey to the house being bought and the post-survey price finally agreed.

[sammydavis]

Exactly - I think we are probably in agreement but you might have a 'tougher' approach than me - or I may be a bit more cynical about the supposedly 'ideal' buyers.

I wouldn't take my house off the market for someone who wasn't also 'under offer' but... I've also been messed around by so-called FTBs with 'cash' who disappeared after a few weeks or did sweet FA when they should have been getting surveys.

I'm just saying that if I was making an offer and wasn't under offer myself, I wouldn't expect the vendor to take their house off the market for me but... I would expect them to keep my offer in mind and to come back to me if they got another offer.

In other words - my offer would be a serious and sincere expression of my desire to buy their house - I wouldn't be peeing about.

If they got a better deal from a more ready buyer, I would totally understand them taking it instead of mine.

I would do the same with a buyer who hadn't yet sold making an offer on my house. I would tell them straight up that I would keep my house on the market but I believe in acting honourably and I would keep them in the picture until any other buyer had completed a survey, dealt with any renegotiation and fully engaged a solicitor.

Fundamentally, I wouldn't be dismissive of an offer simply because somebody hasn't sold their house yet because... they might have sold it a week later - much faster that the FTB gets their mortgage and then I'd be eating humble pie if I'd been a bit off about considering offers from people who hadn't sold.

[poocatcherchampion]

Really helpful thanks!! So first priorities are to look around the area and tart up for the valuation. Busy few weeks when really I want to lie on the sofa with morning sickness

[hellohellohihi]

Small hijack here... I'm a ftb (thus chain free) and about to offer on a house where the vendors have only just started looking and aren't prepared to go into rented... Where does that leave me with bargaining power (if it provides any at all)?

Do we put a time limit on it? Do we wait til they've found had an offer accepted on somewhere before surveying? Do we wait til they've surveyed their offered-on house so that we know they are committed?

[jaynebxl]

You never can tell. We made a cheeky offer on a house we really liked and we hadn't even had our house valued. We got turned down so decided we better put our house on the market in the next month or so. Before it came to that the vendors contacted us because their sale had fallen through and said they would provisionally accept our offer and give us a couple of weeks to sell . We sold in 5 days so it all paid off.

[sammydavis]

hellohellohihi - I would be very wary in that situation.

We've looked at a place which had been on the market for more than 6 weeks but when we spoke to the vendor she said - I haven't even stared looking yet!

As a FTB you will be the first link of the chain most likely. Your vendor has to find a place - probably from someone who also has to find a place/or is in a chain.
Unless your vendor is desperate to sell(doesn't sound it if won't consider renting) you probably don't have any 'enhanced' bargaining power.

Be aware - vendors who haven't found new places - sometimes change their minds and don't sell.

Whatever you do - do NOT have a survey or commit to any legal expense until they are committed to their next purchase.

And do keep looking at other houses - you might just find somthing better.

I don't think you can put a time limit on your offer, just tell them you're interested and would like to buy and ask them to come back when they're genuinely in a position to sell.

Because at the moment, they are not in a position to sell - doesn't matter whether you turn up with suitcases of used fivers - they won't move until they have found a new place so cannot honourably/genuinely accept your offer.

[jaynebxl]

I would expect a vendor not to have found anywhere yet, given that the general advice is to sell / get close to selling before you offer on another house.

[sammydavis]

I hear where you're coming from jaynebxl but have to disagree simply because if you had to wait for everyone to be at that position before you offered there would be no housing market except one which was entirely dependent on FTBs or cash buyers and that's not a fair protrait of the UK housing market.

When I view a house the magic words from the vendor are either I'm end of chain, going to rent or I've found a house and just need to sell this to move - that means they're ready to sell.

If they haven't found a few properties they are ready to move to and I'm ready to make them an offer - what are the chances they will find a place to suit my timescale? Pretty slim.

I think the 'general advice' is the 'ideal world' advice rather than real world and I would defintely expect a vendor to be Ready to Go or else don't market your house.

It's totally a cart and horse situation - which comes first - but it has to be give and take.

Vendors can control when they choose to market their house but you can't dictate when a buyer will appear and want to move.

[hellohellohihi]

Thanks Sammy. Agent said they'd advised vendor to get their house sold and then start looking . They are under time constraints to an extent as they are moving purposely to get their children into a different school catchment and need to do so by August and have said they'll rent come July if they've not found anything.

[matblack72]

This is an interesting thread for me

This is our situation; we were approached privately by someone interested in buying our house, they live just up the road and want to trade up, we're in the process of doing all the paperwork with the solicitors and they are very keen.

We have started looking (we were going to put the house on the market soon anyway) but have been told that until OUR buyers have sold that the estate agent wont consider.

My thoughts on this are that if the market is now conducted in this way the time taken for a 4/5 step chain to complete would be stupidly long. At the moment the property we want is vacant, we just need a first time buyer to place an offer on our buyers home and then we we're a self contained chain of three from FTB to a vacant purchase.

This can't be the way the market works can it, everyone dependant on a first time buyer placing an an offer the next step goes house hunting and then the next then the next? That way it could take a year to complete WITHOUT someone dropping out!

[missnevermind]

Our house is up for sale. We have a house ready to move into, so no chain our end.

We accepted an offer the first week ours was up and I was ready to take it off the market, but the estate agents asked us to let people view for another week 'Just in case'
We were lucky they did as the original buyers pulled out as their buyer had pulled out on them. Estate Agent had not told us they were waiting to sell, so I was very upset and disappointed.
We have now accepted an offer from one of the people that viewed after the first offer was made, but they are cash buyers and have no chain.

[Turnipinatutu]

That is how it works though. But in reality the chain stops at both ends with either, ftb, or a vacant property etc.

[Turnipinatutu]

We've just lost our buyer, as they weren't prepared to wait for us to find something. But we now feel its pointless looking until we've sold again, as nobody will take us seriously without a buyer.
It is indeed a chicken and egg situation and very stressful!

[Peartreepeartree]

Yes, if you want to buy our house!

[LARAKINS12]

can someone help us , we accepted an offer on our property 6 weeks ago , and still haven't found anything , property prices are increasing every day , so at what point wpould we get our property re evaluated?