AIBU to start panicking about house sale falling through

[DoristheNovice]

Please bear with me, I'm frickin clueless when it comes to house buying/selling.

Right, we are nearly at the exchange point of buying a vacant house. The people buying ours were chugging along nicely until their buyer pulled out at the weekend unexpectedly. Those people are in rented accommodation so they are at the bottom of our short chain. Anyway, the estate agent has just called to ask us not to panic and can we hold fire for a week before doing anything, because our buyers (who are still desperate to buy our house) are in a great house which should sell quickly and has in fact already had a viewing from someone who lost out on it the first time and have booked a second viewing.

My question is, is that the way things are done? Hold tight and hope our buyers get a quick offer so our chain remains intact? Everyone's so quick to tell me not to trust estate agents but thats what they've recommended we do for the time being.

It was all going so well, I'm feeling massively out of my depth here

yes I'd hold tight. We pulled out of the house we were buying (vendor was a messer) and we asked our buyers to hold on and we went out and found another house that weekend. I think in the end we were in the middle of a chain of 7 and it all went through OK.

Buying a house is very stressful but you are in a very short chain OP - so hopefully that should help

I'd be careful of doing this.

Suppose your vendors want to go back on the market now the chain below you is incomplete? Your limiting your options of getting another buyer.

Yes hold tight. Our buyers lost their bottom of the chain buyers but got another buyer v quickly and we held it all together.

Find out why they pulled out, unfortunately though it is going to be delay, either with their new buyer or you finding a new buyer. Personally id hold fire for second viewing, but tell them they have a week before it goes back on market.
K

How long did it take to sell your house? Did you have a lot of viewings and offers?

I would be tempted to give them say a week, or two weeks to find another buyer and if not your house is going back on the market - unless your house took a long time to sell in which case hold fire.

If you had other offers I would get the estate agent to phone them to see if they're still interested, just in case.

If you are that close to exchange i would give them a fortnight, no sign then back on the market.

We had this problem in January. Our buyers buyer had mortgage problems and had to pull out . We held tight and our buyers got another offer a week later. It's still all going through now so I hope no one else drops out. It's a stressful business.

Thanks for the replies so far.

My gut instinct is to hold tight for a week or two and hope they get an offer. Their house is in a great location and had several offers very quickly the first time, as did ours, we accepted the asking price offer after 3 days on the market. We're not in a major rush to move, but obviously we don't want it dragging on for months on end. It's all so ridiculously stressful!