would you sell and hope you find something?

[inmyshoos]

We have been thunking of moving for a few years now. We live in a lovely area with great schools and have a house we love. It will be hard to match but we'd like to move closer to family.

We have looked and there is little in the areas we like that we can afford. We are in quite a remote area at the moment so have the beautiful setting/big garden/good schools to find similar in the areas we are looking at would cost much more. There has maybe been one/two in past 2 yrs looking that were affordable and we liked.

Should we just sell up and hope we find something. That way at least we'd be able to move quickly. Probably be a renovation project and so empty. Two we have liked were both old houses that had owners pass away.

Hard to think about leaving here not knowing where we'd be going. But if we wait until we find a house we would have to then sell ours and timings would be out.

We did it that way but mostly because we didn't have a choice due to dh job.

I found dit pretty stressful being in a rental, constantly looking for properties (if I look at rightmove again it will be too soon).

Having said that, if you can put up with it, it's a huge advantage when you buy. You can put it a lower offer as a cash buyer and things will move really quickly. You might before likely to have your offer accepted, especially if you go in to local agents and get them to call you as soon as anything comes in. Also, they may leaflet drop for you if there's a few particular locations you are interested in. We had 3 viewings based entirely on leaflet drops.

Thanks for replying cinnamon. We moved here for dh's job but he now works elsewhere. We sold before buying in this area but because dc were not in school then it didn't seem so scary. This time I am so nervous! But I am also fed up 'talking' about moving. We either need to forget it and stay here or just bite the bullet and sell up.

We didn't, twice. We kept an eye on right move for months and then had a look at a few properties every now and then. Twice we saw a property that we fell in love with and then did everything backwards - made an offer, put our house on the market, sold our house quickly.

Naturalbaby - were you livinv in an area where property generally sells quickly?

Where we are it is hard to tell. Some houses sell within the week others have been on for a year or more. Hopefully ours would sell easily. It is a lovely spot and a great house. Infact I wish I could pick it up and take it with me!

Yes, it was a very desirable area in the catchment for outstanding schools. It took me a long time to get my head round moving, I was very attached to both homes. I've never really come across anyone else who did it our way, it's very much frowned upon but I only wanted to move for something special so wasn't prepared to go through the process and settle for second best.

I'm doing this right now. I've been told by my friend and EA that it is the only way to do it in the market at the moment. Wait until SSTC then look madly. Feeling quite cool about it but then no offer yet!

If the worst comes to the worst and you don't find anything, you could always rent for a while. A pain, but then you'd be cash buyers.

We did it the same way as NaturalBaby. It took us two years of looking to find the right house. We then put ours on the market and it sold to the first viewer. I personally would not have wanted to be under pressure to buy just any old house - we knew the village we wanted, dh was adamant it had to be the right period house, and I wanted a large garden. We were not prepared to compromise on any of those things. Renting would have been too unsettling/difficult with a baby, toddler and two cats.

That said, we were then living in London in a box-ticker of a house with big kerb appeal, so we knew that it would sell quickly. If the market is slower where you are, that makes it more difficult.

We live in the South East and estate agents wouldn't even let us view a property until we had sold our house because there are simply not enough houses to go around at the moment!

We sold our house very quickly but made it clear to our buyers that they would need to wait for us to find a house (but that we would do everything we could to find a house as soon as possible). In the end it was their willingness to be patient that meant we picked their offer over others.

We were very lucky and found our lovely new house just one week later BUT it took our sellers two months to find their new house!

We are hoping to exchange and complete by the end of May

We were advised by our estate agent against doing this. If you sell today and don't find a place for 6 months prices can (and are predicted to) rise considerably pricing you out of the sort of property you're hoping for. I think you have to do both at the same time. It's was a little stressful but worked for us. Our buyers only had two weeks before we found our new property.

I also had very young children and 3 cats, there was no way I was going to risk ending up in a rented house and having to move twice. I'm the type of person who unpacks everything within hours and exhausts myself.

We had spoken to several estate agents and were very confident of what we were doing. The estate agents also understood if we didn't get the property we wanted we would pull our house off the market. We were also lucky to end up with very short chains and vendors that were honest and kept us updated with their progress so we could bypass the estate agent's stories about what he thought we wanted to hear.

we did this the year before last. we sold - v quickly - within a week! and then put everything into storage and moved in with family. it was stressful.

i was also worried we would be pushed into buying something less than perfect because we were under pressure. It took us about 4 months to find something and a further 8 weeks to complete. We did compromise on house but not area and we are slowly doing out house up the way we want it.

if you are serious about moving then i would sell now so you are ready. nothing worse than the house of your dreams slipping through your fingers because yours wasnt even on the market.

Could you ask for an extended completion from your buyer - so exchange as normal but not complete for several months down the line?

This confirms the sale and puts you in the same position as a cash buyer for your next house, but buys you some breathing space.

If at the end of the period you still haven't found anywhere, move into rented. I've even heard of people renting their house back from the people they sold to, because it's cheaper than a short let.