So fed up of it all

[Bakingnovice]

We've been looking for a family house for years. Every time we find the right house we lose our buyer, or the vendor changes his mind on selling, or a higher offer appears, or a cash buyer jumps in. Today we saw two lovely houses. The first went on the market Monday and has two cash offers already. The second has been on 8 months, just reduced from 460 to 435. We put in a good offer of 415. Rejected because the seller already has an offer of 433 but the person who wants made the offer can't buy until he sells his house. We are no longer dependant on our house selling, so chain free. Our vendor wants offers over 430k. Stamp duty is another 13k. And the agents have explained to the seller that the other offer of 433 may not materialise if the other guy can't sell his house. Seller won't budge.

So fed up of it all. Who said its a buyers market?? Pffffttt. Not round here it isn't! Has anyone been in our position and then found their dream house?

Sympathise with you. We've had loads of viewings on our house, a few low offers which we've rejected. In the end we accepted an offer lower than we wanted as I thought we could be going on for months waiting for someone to offer over our absolute minimum.
Every house that meets our criteria is sold straight away.

Good luck and hope you find something soon.

Thank you piggle. Any house with 4 plus beds in this area sells in days. It's upsetting because we are trying to move BACK into the catchment area for our preferred secondary. We were in the catchment but this year they decided to change the boundaries. We live in a city with v v poor secondaries and our preferred one isn't brilliant, but our sons primary is a feeder school for it and its doing well. I could honestly cry today. We just can't compete with cash offers and difficult vendors any more.

Every time we have offered on a house it has gone tits up.

I've just re-read your 1st post. If you haven't sold your property how can you offer on another? Perhaps the seller hasn't thought it through and could change his mind.
We're moving from a 3 bed to 4 bed but cannot afford the area we live now so looking closer to the town centre. We've put an offer in on a house but I'm still looking (our sale and purchase could fall through) and I'm '1st reserve' on estate agents lists for properties that are currently under offer.

We are not dependant on the sale of our property (although it is on the market and selling it would really help). Instead we are taking a mortgage and using savings, and help from parents to buy. We only want to move a mile or two down the road so we have a bit more space and land back in the catchment area.

Im hoping the seller realises that the offer they currently have may not materialise for some time. Incidentally, we had a call from the agents of a property we viewed a year ago. We had offered 10k below asking price but were turned down by the vendor who wanted asking price. The vendor is now willing to 'talk' offers, and today the property has been reduced by 50k. We are not interested anymore though.

Can't you rent in the catchment and rent yours out? Sorts it out short term.

We could but its a long winded way of sorting things as we do actually need to m

Move for a bigger house. Also would feel a bit of a cheat doing that. I know it's perfectly legal and I know people who have done it, but I'd like to try and buy first if we can. It seems that no one wants to sell to us though!!