How many houses did you view before you made an offer on one (and how long did you keep your buyers waiting)?

[mumtheforgetfulone]

When we have been house hunting in the past we have always managed to find somewhere quite quickly (within 2/3 viewings).

This time we are finding it more difficult. There seems to be very little on the market within our budget and this time we are having to find an area which meets primary and secondary school requirements.

We don't want to rush into buying the wrong house or loose our very patient buyers. Neither do we want to go into a rented property in case we get priced out of the market.

So.....just wondering how long people generally spend hunting down the house they want to spend the next 20+ years in!

What position are your buyers in?

What position are your buyers in?

When I was a first time buyer, we agreed a monthly rolling notice period on our rental place. If your buyer might have to renew their rental contract for six months or whatever, that might prove a problem.

Is the market really rising that quickly where you are? The value of your own house is now fixed, so you are "falling behind" every month on price as well, though you may be paying off mortgage of course. As a chain free buyer in rented, you should be in a better position to negotiate price on your next house too.

Do you still need to sort out school places for your kids?

We viewed 4 and then bought the first one!
Don't move to somewhere you don't like you'll regret it.

We needed to move as I had become disabled very quickly and our rented house wasn't suitable any more.

We weren't selling (had been lucky enough to rent out our old house when we relocated).

So I got out of hospital on Monday.
We viewed one house, on Tuesday.
Offered on Wednesday morning, accepted Wednesday afternoon.

Fastest ever house purchase?

Viewed 5. Ruled a lot of others we were potentially interested in by driving by before arranging a viewing.

All viewings done before getting an offer on our house, then went back to do a second viewing on the house we liked best a few days after getting an offer on ours. Offered on that (and had t accepted ) within a week of the offer on ours.

We needed to move and we knew that our buyers needed us to do so quickly so we couldn't hang about.

We only viewed this one. The viewing felt like a formality to be honest, as I'd already fallen in love with the house on the internet!

A while after our offer was accepted a similar house came on the market so we viewed it just to make sure we weren't doing anything stupid. We weren't, our offer progressed eventually, and we still love the house now :)

We viewed a lot over a long period.
I saw our current house on rightmove on the Friday night - new listing - and we viewed in Saturday.
Offered in the Monday and it was accepted!
We bought off a building company - the previous owners had part ex on one of their new builds - so I think we got it for a lot less than we would have.
The houses either side (exactly the same house) have both sold since we have been here - and for a lot more than we got ours for!

We've seen loads - probably 25 or so since November.

Offered on one and still viewing others in case it falls through, which it might.

I hope this is Ok. Sounds like we have seen way more than most people.

Our vendor is keeping us waiting a bit with the leasehold/freehold thing though, it's very frustrating.

Four. But we didnt have kids so didn't think about schools.

There would have been a fifth but it was taken off the market. Owned by an elderly lady who had been taken into hospital; the family decided that she wouldnt be going home again and put her house on the market. She recovered, found out and told them she wasn't selling!

We viewed 6.
We viewed them all in one weekend (the weekend after accepting an offer). We were not sure how long it would take to sell our house so we had created a list of properties that we liked the look of from the internet and regularly updated the list so that when we got an offer we could just go and view the ones that we thought we had a good chance of liking.
Prior to putting our house on the market we had already decided on the area that we wanted to move to and on the price bracket we could afford.

I wouldn't want to keep buyers waiting too long so I think it's important to at least have an idea of where you want to move to, what you can afford and what sort of house you can get in that area before putting your current house on the market.
What will happen if you can't find anything that you like within your price bracket?

4 others before the one we're buying.

60 that we can remember over 6 months with a 4 month gap: had my first child so we stayed in our rented flat until I felt ready to go house hunting again. We were lucky as the market crashed just when DC was born. Saw the property, me and baby first, then DH, made an offer, accepted 2 days later.

I swear I must have seen about 100 and I am not exaggerating. I we wanted something very specific and I knew as soon as I saw our new place that it was the one. It took a lot of patience. We were in a rental though and the sellers were also chain-free so once we found it, it all moved very quickly.

Thanks everyone - that's really helpful. We've been under offer for 3 weeks and in that time have looked at 4 houses - so it's early days. We have a buyer who is willing to wait, but obviously not forever!

There have been some nice houses out there which we just haven't viewed because they just aren't in a catchment area for a good school.

5 but we only viewed the fourth and fifth to confirm our gut feel that the 3rd one was ideal. Love it and can't wait to move in. It needs 6 months work done on it first.