Offer put on hold WWYD

[Hooletthedogsout]

We’ve put our house on the market over the weekend and are looking to move over the next couple of months. We’ve viewed one house that we really liked and put an offer. The vendor is also looking for a house and has put our offer on hold until we can find a buyer which I completely understand. There is a risk whereby we could find a potential buyer but the house we offered could be off the market or the vendor might still not have a house to buy. There aren’t many new properties ticking our boxes in the new area so I’m wondering:
Can we withdraw our house from the market should we not find anything in the next month as the market will be worse in Christmas? We don’t want to be rushed as this is likely to be our long term home .
I’ve been flexible with the wider area but as we have 2 DCs we have to consider primary and secondary catchments which narrows down our options considerably.
I’m also worried about not finding a buyer for our house as it appears demand might have slowed down? We’re based in SE London for context.
I’ll be grateful if if you could share your experiences?

[JoJoSM2]

If you’ve only just put your property on the market, you need to give it a bit of time. Not sure if there will be the usual slow down this year as there’s the stamp duty holiday till the end of March so people want to get a move on to save the 15k.

It’s only fair your offer is on hold if you aren’t proceedable. You can always hope that you sell quickly and things work out. However, if it doesn’t work out, another house might come up. Alternatively, you could consider selling and renting for a bit. It would be a lot of hassle but would put you in a strong position when sth does come up.

[KoalaRabbit]

I'm in zone 5 and the market has slowed with less sellers and less buyers but deals are being done. A 3 bed house with a mid/large garden in good condition would sell pretty quickly - in under a month. Houses with some compromises like a smaller garden / work to be done are taking more like 3 months to sell and a few have been on the market for ages. Pricing at a lower valuation speeds things up but may not get you the maximum price if you are in the latter category - we did that after trying 3-4 weeks at higher price from EA and then sold after a week and a half with lower price.

EA contacts will vary - ours was a 6 weeks minimum period then 7 days notice though I would imagine if you really didn't want to sell you could come off. I wouldn't have taken an offer seriously until buyer was proceedable but you may get lucky and sell quickly.