Some basic buying and selling questions.

[CanIHaveAPetGiraffePlease]

We're looking to move and as we're in our first house it will be the first time we've done both together.

Another poster has mentioned finding a house first but am I right to assume you usually put your house on market first, get mortgage approval and wait for an offer before offering elsewhere?

How does a again work? Does the above just go on until someone can move?how long does it all take?

We could move in with dad in between if it would help and not affect anything else.

Would it be silly to put ours on the market now?

Offers. Suppose our was valued at 180 and we like one at 250 do we accept 175 and offer 245 ? It would make it much easier for me if everything was face value.

I'm just trying to get my head around it all. It's. So much money!

I meant to say I've seen a house on right move I like. Do I go view it or accept I've probably missed the boat as ours won't be on the market for a couple of weeks.

Do you tell the agent you haven't sold yet? I'd like to go look at this house but ours needs a bit of paint before I put it on.

Does this all rely on everyone seeing the house they like in the same month?

I'd go and look . Your house will be on the market soon , and you need to get a good idea of what is available
Re offer
As an example , we put our house on the market for £235k, hoping for £210k , and accepted an offer from a cash buyer of £208k

Makes sense though. Speculative viewings and try not to get hopes up. Does it all move quick once people are in place?

Wow. So the ones on at 249 might accept less. I know our neighbours went for 180 and others nearby are on at offers over 170 so we were hoping for something in between. So hard to trust the estate agents too!

Earlier. I meant to ask how a chain works (not an again)!

Will our agent take advantage of me as I'm obviously a bit clueless? What do I need to know?

Is Dec a silly time to sell?

Come on here if you feel clueless...loads of experience to help you out!
The market tends to die down a bit in Dec so you could find no=one is looking that much. On the other hand it could mean yours has less competition as other people are waiting til January. No harm speaking to a couple of Estate agents now to get their views.

Also worth checking now your current mortgage situation. If you are on a good rate which is better than what you could find on the mortgage market now, you may find you want to "port" your mortgage to your new home, in which case you may be restricted in what timescale/gaps are allowed.

To be clearer with our situation, we were on a v low rate (we had come off a fixed rate a few years before and so were on .5 above base rate...so 2% below the cheapest deals now available.) We were told we could keep this rate as long as there were less than 30 days between selling the old and buying the new. Any additional money we needed was put on a "top up" mortgage at a higher rate. So eg keep 150k at the old ,low rate of 1.5% and the extra 50k we needed is on 3.5% By keeping the old mortgage rate on the lower rate I worked out it would save us about 30K. We were going to go into rented once we sold, but found this out and it focuses the mind. We were then lucky our dream house came on the market 3 days after we had an offer.

It can be pants the whole process but you have to to think of your end goal. and MN has a wealth of help and advice!

Wow! Sounds risky but makes a huge difference. We're on. A good rate at the moment so need to ask mortgage guy. Thanks.

It also depends on your area, here houses are not moving and the prices are still dropping, so its perfect for buying and crap for selling.

I'm lucky in that respect as we've had letters through the door. Ours is a first time buyers family house so in demand!

Oh good, I'd be noseyinglooking immediately !

Just need to replace our front door and tidy up some paint... Wondering if we can get away wtih just painting the affected walls and not all of them. Husband has replaced missing bathroom handle, painted the loft hatch, put down some missing carpet tracking stuff.

Still to do - painting, front door, reseal bathroom (going black around bath but otherwise bathroom in good nick) and possibly work out how to rewax the kitchen sideboards.

Oh and presumably declutter a bit more. Most of thats done and weve started to have a cleaner to get on top of things in preparation!