Making an offer on a property before I have an offer on mine?

[RandomCatGenerator]

Hello

Can anyone advise on whether it is unwise to do this, or whether there would be any consequences should I subsequently fail to sell my property?

My property is on the market, in a very nice area of London. Not as much interest as I would have hoped but it’s only been a few weeks.

New property is bigger but cheaper, outside London. I LOVE it and want to make an offer.

Advice please?

Usually an offer would only be considered if you are 'ready, willing and able' to proceed.

You are not ready to proceed until you have sold, so the estate agent may advise the seller to keep marketing the property.

We did this BUT we knew we could have both houses if the old one was rented out.
In the end we sold days before we moved out. It was a very expensive 4 months having both houses, an unable to rent the old one. Our purchasers did the same - except they didn't sell, and are now renting it out.

If you need to sell your current house to fund the new one (and frankly I'd guess this is much more normal than our weird situation!) then you are not an attractive buyer. I wouldn't have accepted an offer from someone who was unproceedable.

I don’t think it will be considered as you have not sold. Waste of time really.

You can offer, to show your interest, but it is not really worth the paper it's written on . They are not likely to take it off the market for you. Just a bit of a waste of everyone's time really.

I think it is fine to make an offer, but the most you are likely to get is “great, thanks, come back to us when your property is under offer”

Making the offer binds you to nothing, even if they did take it off the market (they won’t) and you progressed with survey etc.

Nothing to stop you offering, but they’re unlikely to accept until you have an offer on yours.

Thanks everyone.

When you read these replies you would think that no buyer is ever in a chain.

If your house if on the market you can always offer and if the seller is not in a hurry to move and/or has not found anywhere to buy or hasn't had many offers they might go for your offer.

It is unrealistic of sellers to always think that there is an endless supply of chain-free, cash buyers who can't wait to offer on their property...

I agree - the market has changed now.

I'm selling at the moment, and I would be happy to accept an offer from someone who is on the market, if it was a good offer (e.g. not 20% under asking!)