Moving into rental for 6 months to break chain...are we mad?

[sianyb83]

So we finally got a good offer, 2% under asking price, the catch is they want us out by the end of the month (our buyers buyer mortgage expires on 31st Aug)
We intentionally didn't view anything until our had sold, as we've missed out before - so have nothing we'd like to offer on.
We have a rental house we can use (that belongs to family friend) but still not ideal situation.
We hope this will mean we are in a great position, and can negotiate better price on our purchase, plus things go very quickly in our village.
Another factor is so many predictions house prices will drop...so we are hoping this could go in our favour.

Are we crazy?

Has anyone else done this?

[gonewiththerain]

Yes it can work really well and puts you in a good position to buy

[Puppylucky]

Yes I have done it before and are hopefully about to do it again. It's more expensive in terms of moving costs as you are obviously moving twice plus rent is going to come as a nasty shock vs our relatively low mortgage payments. The biggest watch out though is that I have found it's dangerously easy to get too comfy in rented - particularly if it's a house you couldn't afford to buy, meaning that you stay longer than is wise. The last time we did it we fell in love with our rental and had to be prised out after a year, by which time the property market had shot up and a lot of properties were out of our reach - but that hopefully won't be the case with you!

[milienhaus]

It sounds like a sensible move in general but I’m a bit concerned that you need to be out by the end of August or it will fall through - quite ambitious even in non-Covid times!

[Burnthurst187]

We have considered something similar. It will also make you v attractive to a seller Vs somebody in a chain

[Jen435]

We have put our place on the market and are not yet looking to buy - luckily we have my parents we can go to in the interim (although ideally don't want to be there more than a few months). Hoping it puts us in a stronger position to buy!

[TheFaerieQueene]

I would do it, but only if you really want to sell.
Also think about starting a new mortgage application in a few months and will your situation (employment) be stable to get the mortgage you will need.

[eurochick]

I can't see a sale happening in three weeks tbh.

[fluffedup]

We did it too OP, 8 years ago, because our purchase fell through. We didn't want to lose our buyers and we needed to move by a certain date to get eldest DD into a school.
It's good because you can now take your time choosing your new house. You can wait for your ideal house to come up rather than feel pressured
The problems are obviously you have the pain and expense of moving twice. You have to pay rent for 6 months (most rentals are minimum 6 months) which is dead money.
Also if your employment is unstable, you may become ineligible for a mortgage and be stuck in rented.
But I'd do it again, assuming employment is reasonably stable.

[blossomsarepretty]

We did this but we relocated to another city and wanted to get to know the area before buying. It put us in a favourable position when we found a property to buy, and the seller chose us over another buyer who offered slightly more than we did as they still had to sell their property.

[ThatDirection]

There are good points as others have said. We did it 10 years ago, out of necessity, as we moved across the country for a job and thought this would be easier.

The bad points:-
We were trying to buy during a recession and there ended up being so few properties on the market, we rented far longer than we'd planned. The longer we looked, the more fussy we became about houses as we viewed almost everything which came on the market and became convinced one would come along that ticked all the boxes.

Because properties were scarce, cwhen we found 'the one' we had to offer asking price as the 1st people to see it, to get it taken off the market - as we knew someone else likely would.

It wasn't great for us to be paying rent for 14 months and not paying off our mortgage.

[Puppylucky]

That's exactly what happened with us That Direction! Nothing was good enough until we ran out of options and had to just buy something. It also meant that we now have a relatively large mortgage still as we missed out on nearly 2 years of paying something down

[JulesCobb]

I would.

When i sold my
First house i lived in with my now dh. So a relatively stress free move and i wasnt even living in my house on completion day.

When me and Now dh sold his home, we moved in with my parents to break the chain. Then moved into our home when it was cleaned, decorated and furnished. Again, removing some stress.

Id definitely do the same again.

[InescapableDeath]

If it doesn't go through in three weeks and you are committed to the rental, you wont' be in a good place. I'd go to rental to break a choice and have my pick of properties - not to meet a three week deadline.

[Viviennemary]

It's a risk. But your position will be strong to snap up a good house. I'd go for it. And I can't see houses going up in price this year at least.

[Valleydad99]

Not mad - I did it when I moved out of London. Got a lovely rental house on the coast too and let me relax and find a new job without having to worry about decoration etc. Was great in the end and well worth it.

[yoikes]

We did it...only for 4 months on the end.
Worked our really well for us

[bluejelly]

We rented for a year and got to test out the new area we were keen to live in. Worked really well for us

[JulesCobb]

I want to add, we had a house we were moving in to but it was taking longer to go through than our sale as they had renters in it. We were only not in our own house for two months.

I wpuld say do it, but dont stop looking. You dont want to be renting for long.

[unicornparty]

I doubt you'd be moved out by 31st August. We had an offer accepted 3 weeks ago. We're nowhere near ready to move.

[pigcon1]

We did this, took us 3 years to find the right house but no regrets.

[muckandnettles]

We've done that twice now and it's a complete pain, but worked out well both times. If you usually have a mortgage then rent doesn't seem too bad, though we had to pay over the odds the second time as we had a dog!

[MissClementine]

Yes I would do this and it seems a sensible option and one I am considering when we eventually sell so we are not forced to buy anything available.

[notheragain4]

We are moving into rented for 3 months to break the chain, it's a rolling contract so we can move flexibly, it felt too mean to ask our buyer to wait 3 months (it's taken 3 months already to get to this point) plus we didn't want to risk losing him. It takes the pressure of moving as we can overlap with each move.

No idea how to handle changing our address, that's what I'm most stressed about, and form filling for the next 3 years!!

[DespairingHomeowner]

I would - puts you in a strong position to buy

Rent = dead money holds me back, but a lovely family member is offering me a place for what she pays the mortgage on ... it’s a win for them too as Landlords will have more trouble evicting during the pandemic

I hope it works out well for you

[Mildura]

Well done on 'finally' getting an offer so close to the asking price, after less than 3 weeks on the market, that's great news.

Even including tomorrow, there are 16 working days between now and the end of the month. It is highly, highly unlikely that your buyer will be ready to complete in this time frame.

As you mention they have a mortgage offer, this suggests they were buying another property and just need to get the address changed over with the lender, rather than go through the whole application process again. ALthough likely a valuation of some sort will still be required.

Even so, the average sale takes around 8 - 10 weeks, not 3.