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Original poster

have you moved house a long way away? how long did it take?

24 replies

starlover · 26/02/2006 22:37

if you bought a house a couple of hundred miles away how long did it take you to find oen?

did you go down for a weekend and look at as many as possible and find one? or did it take forever?

OP posts:
DumbledoresGirl · 26/02/2006 22:39

Last time we moved (last year) we moved about 150 miles. We did do a few recces on odd weekends to choose a town we liked, but then we rented a house in the area while we sold our house and looked for another.

Flossam · 26/02/2006 22:41

SL is everything ok with your move?

We went down one weekend, saw 3/4 I think. Thought we found 'the one' before we went. Came back thinking we had found a different 'the one'. Then things didn't work out and we looked again, reconsidered two beds, arranged to see several, a couple pulled out, phoned one EA I knew we hadn't spoken to before and arranged to see the house that afternoon. It was the last one we saw before we left and I am still hoping the right one. Long and complicated but I HTH!

Original poster
starlover · 26/02/2006 22:45

yeah everything is ok i am just really impatient!

sellers are moving down to Devon and i'm trying to get a realistic idea of how long it might take!
they've been down there this weekend.. but i just get the feeling they're taking their time

OP posts:
chjlly · 26/02/2006 22:45

We moved from Southampton to Scotland. we bought a brand new house by seeing the details on the schedue and just hoped that the area would be ok - well life wouldn't be fun without taking a gamble!!
I did turn out ok luckily

Flossam · 26/02/2006 22:49

SL, please don't take this the wrong way! We viewed our house in December. Put an offer in just before xmas. We are now hoping to be in first week of April. So 4 months roughly. This is a first time buyer sale with no chain. If my experience is anything to go on there are hold ups and problems at every turn!! You said you could stay in place you are in now for however long needed, so no pressure there, you are very lucky!! Try and chill out otherwise by the time you come to actually move you'll be ready to implode!

Original poster
starlover · 26/02/2006 22:51

yeah i am expecting everything that can go wrong to go wrong! lol
i think i just want to know that they have found somewhere, even if it takes a while after that iyswim?

i wanna be in by summer!

OP posts:
Flossam · 26/02/2006 22:52

I do know what you mean! Good luck. Lets hope they have found a new home they will love already.

Original poster
starlover · 26/02/2006 22:53

am already planning all my new decor etc etc! lol

hey beg april not long for you now though! only just over a month!!!

OP posts:
Flossam · 26/02/2006 22:55

Fingers crossed. Have mortgage legal stuff and contract waiting to be signed so should be able to exchange contracts week after I'd hope?

Been wrong with everything else so far though, so lets see.

Original poster
starlover · 26/02/2006 23:02

excellent! you must be v. excited!

OP posts:
Flossam · 26/02/2006 23:05

No, not yet! Far Far too much to organise yet. Childcare, work pattern, removals, roof to sort. OMG, not good to think of this now.

Original poster
starlover · 26/02/2006 23:07

lol yeah actually i'll be the same! all very excited until i realise the true logistics of actually moving.

and we're only going down the raod! lol

OP posts:
LIZS · 27/02/2006 11:11

Suppose it depends on their reason for moving and any sense of urgency. Also if they have school aged kids they may want to time a move to start at the beginning of a term in which case Easter would be tight but summer less so.

We've had 2 lots of viewers so far who are relocating to the area , but not nearly as far away(max. an hour's drive) and neither had done any real research into schools etc, which surprised me particualrly as one couple had already spent a day viewing a couple of weeks back and still not narrowed down where they'd ideally liek to live.

Unless they have family or friends on the ground to help them gather information it could well take several visits to get organised and find a house. I don't think it is helpful to view loads of houses back to back as it is so hard to remember the ones you may like, only those very yes or very no will stick out. Perhaps you should give them an indication of how long you are prepared to wait, otherwise you run the risk of them stalling and you not looking at alternatives who may be in a better position to move more quickly for you. Would they proceed with the sale and exchange with a deferred completion date so you have more certainty ?

Original poster
starlover · 28/02/2006 14:21

thanks for replies! they are retiring down to Torbay so no need for schools or anything!
spoke to the estate agent yesterday who said they'd been down there all weekend, put an offer in that wasn't accepted and are off down again next weekend!

so that's positive I think. fingers crossed they'll find something next weekend! lol

it really is just me being impatient and wanting to move! lol

OP posts:
Fimbo · 28/02/2006 14:24

Fingers crossed Starlover. We moved from Scotland to England and rented for 6 months, rather than just pick an area and hope for the best.

FrayedKnot · 28/02/2006 14:36

Yes we moved 150 odd miles last August.

Dh started work here in March '04. We started looking pretty much straight away.

I phoned estate agents for details and trawled through the web, then made appointments to see as many places as we could in a weekend.

I think we did a couple of weekends in all. We also filled in time between the appointments checking uot teh areas - althogh had already narrowed down to some quite specific areas using ofsted reports and upmystreet.com!

We made an offer in May iirc and we moved in August, We had nothing to sell as were already in rented.

Around 4 months from offer to completion is about the average I think, but longer if chain is longer.

LadySherlockofLGJ · 28/02/2006 14:40

Starlover,

Would it be possible to ask them to also consider a rental, they would probably get an out of season let if they are looking Torbay ?

We desperately wanted this house, offered the full asking and asked for vacant possession within 6 weeks, they eeked Shock. We put in a second offer which was reduced by the rent it was going to cost us for 6 months. They bit our hand off, it still took best part of 5 months. We moved from Harrogate to Farnham in 2000. HTH

Troutpout · 28/02/2006 14:42

We spent 3 weekends looking...and filled up those weekends with lots of viewings. We actually narrowed the areas down before we looked by just driving around for most of one day to get a feel of the place...plus researching schools etc. We got the house thinking ...'well if we've made a mistake we can move in a year or so.'
We've been here 7 years

Original poster
starlover · 28/02/2006 14:50

not sure if they'd rent. they accepted our offer which was 5k less than asking price anyway,
tbh there is no desperate need for us to be in quickly... i just want to be! lol

i think the fact that they've already offered on one place is a positive because it shows they're seriously looking iyswim?
and although we're pretty flexible I think they do realise that if they take aaaaaaages then they risk losing us as buyers. the house had been on the market for some time before we viewed it and put our offer in...

OP posts:
Piffle · 28/02/2006 14:52

We moved from Hants to Lincs
WE looked at websites, selected the hosues we wanted, arranged to view all in one day (Saturday)
In hindsight would take a weekend and stay in the area, go out and get a feel for it.
WE ended up buying the 2nd hosue we saw and the one we liked best on initial website viewing.We put our house on the market before w started looking
We came up twice to measure windows and so forth.
Moving itself was a doddle
WE moved ourselves - with help from burly brothers :)

DaisyBrambleofWillowbottom · 01/03/2006 12:51

ahh piffle that's what i like to hear! lol

clerkKent · 01/03/2006 13:05

One border of London to the one on the opposite side. It took a year. Not a hundred miles away, but it sometimes took 2-3 hours to get there.

Original poster
starlover · 01/03/2006 19:12

now now... i don't want any horror stories! lol

a year?????????

OP posts:
notasheep · 01/03/2006 19:47

7 months to find a house moving from London to Wales,we found the best way was to look on the Internet,saved alot of time

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