House moving confusion

[Kangaroobrain]

Not really an AIBU it more of a 'who is right?'

Basically, DH and I both want to move because of issues with both our house and it's location. Because of where we live (very rural) there are only a few places here I'd consider.

DH is now constantly on Rightmove looking at properties, and even persuaded me to see a couple. However I think this is time wasting until we have an offer on ours. We own outright and won't need to seek a mortgage.

Trouble is we're not on the market yet. Partly because there are still some small(ish) improvements I think we need in order to get a good price (but we've been busy / slack and haven't done them), but also because I'm confused.

If we see a house we like now, it could be gone by the time we get a buyer for ours. But by the time we get a buyer, there might not be anything suitable around. That's what happened with the house we're currently in - we tried to make it work (been here 10 years) but ultimately it's never really been right. Neither of us would want to rent while we wait, but nor do I want to compromise again with a house / area that isn't really what we want.

Is there an obvious solution to this? Is DH right that we just have to go for it and see what happens?

A lot of agents don’t want to show you houses when you’re not in a position to proceed so you need to get yours on the market and ideally under offer before you start looking.

Nope there's no way round it, with houses everything needs to line up like the stars! The fact you wouldn't need a mortgage definitely helps but most agents will want to know you are in a proceedable position before viewing/making an offer. We ended up with two new builds because it breaks the chain a bit.

No denying it's extremely stressful but you're right that you need to have your house ready to go before you fall in love with a house.

Your DH is correct in that there is no good and risk free way of doing it

Lots of estate agents and sellers will not take you seriously and may not show your properties if you have not at put yours on the market.

In terms of what can be done -

You hope your buyer and seller both agree to the same timetable
OR
you can arrange a bridging loan if you have a property you want to buy but not sold yet. You repay it when your house is sold. Interest rates on these loans are higher than a normal mortgage.
OR
If you have a buyer but not found a new house, you sell and rent/live with family or friends for six months while you complete on a purchase.

Trouble is we're not on the market yet. Partly because there are still some small(ish) improvements I think we need in order to get a good price (but we've been busy / slack and haven't done them), but also because I'm confused.

Is it possible your DH thinks (rightly or wrongly) that the lack of progress in getting your current house on the market is down to you, and that going to see potential new houses will encourage you to get moving on this (no pun intended)?

He can look all he wants but most agents wouldn’t let you view until your current house is under offer. They definitely wouldn’t let you put an offer in. So yes you’re right, you need to get yours sold and then look yourself. Other option is to sell and then rent whilst you house hunt, as you’d be a cash buyer it would put you at an advantage

When I sold my house last year. I told the estate agents I wouldn’t let anyone come round whose house wasn’t on the market. I wasn’t tidying up moving everyone out for a non sale.

Are you in England? If so then it's one of the reasons house buying / selling is so stressful here.
Yep you need to have an offer on yours, see something you love, and hope for the best the timings all line up

I think it depends on the position of the housing market in your area at the time. We are considering moving again but, like you, have a few things we want to do to the house before we put it on the market. A couple of amazing houses came up in our area last year, but like others have said, the EAs wouldn't let us view (or even get on a waiting list to view) until ours was on the market at least. It has been different the last few months though and we have been able to see a few houses even though we still haven't got round to putting ours up for sale (we had a baby so haven't been able to do everything we wanted to in the house yet). Although we wouldn't be in a position to make an offer until we had progressed with ours, we wanted to get a feel for what is out there and you get much better idea viewing in person than looking at a listing.

It is hard to make the stars align and find the perfect house around the same time you sell yours but when we did it previously, we felt more confident making an offer on our current house soon after accepting an offer on our last one because we had already seen multiple houses before ours sold, so when we viewed our current house, we knew it ticked our boxes. Best of luck with your search!

It's a crap situation.

I really recommend (if you can afford it) - moving and renting short term - it's also not ideal but - I just couldn't make a decision on buying a house under the sort of pressure we would have if we were in a chain.

You will be in a much much stronger position as a buyer if you are chain free

If you are mortgage free, could you buy the house you like with a cash deposit and mortgage, then sell yours to repay the mortgage?

Or, sell yours now, and rent until a house comes up.

We’re currently buying a house that we offered on before our house was on the market. However, we’d already spoken to an agent and we’re about a week away from doing so, and it was the same agent as the house we’re buying so he could vouch for the fact that we were serious and the house would be on the market imminently. We also managed to do a deal with the sellers that made us more attractive - without that we’d have been at the back of the queue, as there were several offers and lots of interest.

You need to get your house on the market at least before you view others

in busier times you need an offer on your house to view others, in this slow market there might be flexibility on this

Market your own property before viewing.

Some EAs (and owners) won't even permit viewings unless the buyer has an offer on their own.

If you find a buyer then they'll just have to wait until you find something.

Last time I was trying to avoid rented due to costs and avoiding unsettling our kids twice.

We had house on the market but even there some wouldn't let us view till we were under offer - and when we got an offer it was very time pressed and we could only really look at houses DH had previously looked round and immediately offer having got mortgage ready to go as we could. We lost a lot that we liked before we got an offer.

Our sellers were separated and going into rented but our buyers had buyers near to backing out due to birth date coming up but our sellers couldn't meet the deadline so we had to decouple - to give our seller extra two weeks they said it would take.

2 months later with storage and family patience wearing thin we had to seriously think about walking away and renting anyway before we finally got movement.

I'd focus on getting yours market ready but keep looking at what's out there and then start doing viewings if they let you when you have it for sale.

These are jobs that I've been nagging suggesting we get done for a while, but I think he'd prefer to just put it on the market now without bothering with them. Maybe he's right and they won't make that much difference to our selling price.

My main reluctance is the fear of not finding anything suitable when ours is sold, as the chances of the right house in the right place seems so slim here! Maybe temporarily renting would be the answer, but I'd dread the upheaval of moving twice.

Moving from rented is not easy as most contracts are fixed term with many being at least a year. You may be able to get out of your contract earlier if a new tenant can be found but are still liable for the whole term if not. If onward purchase is hard to find you are under even more pressure to compromise to complete close to the end of the fixed term contract or else you have to take out another fixed term contract.

My exchange and completion was delayed and so the month where I thought I would have completed but still have the rental property disappeared and the completion date was a couple of days after the fixed term ended. Very stressful, served section 21 notice and agents threatening that the new tenants removal vans would be arriving on the day the fixed term ended. We were perfect tenants for 8 years.

Yes, it's a dilemma and hard unless you are in a very sought after spot. We had the same - sold our house in Scotland, quickly found a house in England, it was all going through then sellers changed their minds. Rather than lose our own sale (they offered a lot over asking price) we put everything in storage and moved to a rental. Took a year to find another suitable house and just now moved in. It's horrible, stressful and a huge additional expense but you'll have to at least have yours on the market first.

So you say that you want to move, but:

• you are reluctant to sell your current place before having bought another (for fear of not finding anywhere else)
• you don't want to view a new place before selling your current place

and also:

• you are reluctant to sell your current place without first doing some pieces of work to it
• you say "I've been nagging suggesting we get [the jobs] done for a while" which implies that it won't be you who's either doing them or arranging for a professional to do them

It sounds like there is a couple of different areas where where you don't want to do either of the options necessary to move forward.

I know you say that both you and your DH want to move, but is the root cause here that deep down you don't actually want to move? If you do actually want to move, then for each of the pair of things above you need to change one of the bullet points!

you say "I've been nagging suggesting we get [the jobs] done for a while" which implies that it won't be you who's either doing them or arranging for a professional to do them

DH will take on / help with decorating and basic DIY stuff if I organise it or get it started (he has a lot of great qualities but being a handyman isn't one of them). Unfortunately I have less free time than he does, so jobs are taking longer to get done these days, and I'm feeling the mental load of the organisation a lot more.

I do want to move but I guess I'm afraid of the stress and the uncertainty of all the things that could go wrong - and there's a lot, judging from some of the posts on here. I'm mid fifties so really wanting our next house to be right this time. But sooner or later I guess I'll pull my big girl pants on, and we'll bite the bullet.

I'd prioritise fixing the house then getting it on the market. Even if you find a buyer for yours but haven't found anything else you'll be in a good position as you don't need an onward mortgage.