Tell me stories of buying and selling under time pressure...

[HamAndPlaques]

DH and I have new jobs in a new area, starting 1 September.

We are in an area of London which had been booming but which is now slowing down. House has been on the market since the beginning of May with no offers, so we have just dropped the price.

We absolutely have to move by mid-August to settle DD into childcare (I am currently on mat leave and haven't left her before, except with family), and frankly I'm starting to panic a bit.

We have a plan B, which would be to let the house and rent in the new area but we'd really prefer not to do this. We will live too far away to manage the property ourselves so we'll need to appoint a managing agent. We'd be looking to buy in a year or so, and the capital gains tax on eventually selling this place once it's not our main home would be painful.

Our exclusive period with the agent has now ended, but we have to give two weeks' notice to end our rolling contract. We could get another agent ready to go in the coming days but with one eye on the timings I don't know if this is even worth trying as we'd have to complete the sale in six weeks, tops. We would consider renting for six months in the new area to avoid a chain at the other end but even this concerns me, in case prices suddenly improve nationally and our equity gets us much less.

Sorry, this has turned into a massive essay. Well done if you've made it this far! Can anyone share stories or tips for very quick sales to make me feel better...?

We moved from first viewing to first night in new house in 6 weeks. However, we were in rented so didn't have to sell, and our buyers were going into rented.

We had no reason to hang around as it would have just meant paying another month's rent. The key thing to getting things moving so quickly was DH on the phone to the mortgage people every day, asking what was going on, as they were the hold up. No problems, just a bit slow. He also did all the chasing of the vendors as necessary and we had a very good solicitor. We even got to the point of ferrying documents between the two solicitors ourselves as it saved time waiting for the post.

We went from viewing to "in" in 10 days. However, we'd sold, and arranged a rental contract for the first month until the mortgage was sorted.

don't think you will have cgt if you sell within 3 years ?

so you could rent it out short term no prob.

check cgt.

Following. Although I can add that viewings and interest slowed as our contract period came to a close. We decided to take a break from marketing and then after a few weeks switch agents.
So we gave notice and suddenly had a flurry of viewings and two asking price offers a week after we came off the market. I got the impression it made the EA up their game. I had previously felt they were allowing the property to generate its own interest via the online listings.

Thanks c'estlavie, that tip about CGT is reassuring.

Well, we have resigned ourselves to the fact that we won't be able to sell and buy before September which does simplify things somewhat, as at least we can find a rental property to move into relatively quickly. It might also save us from an expensive mistake as we get to know the new area, and we think that we could rent for slightly less than our current mortgage repayments so we could save a bit.

I'm just hoping for a sale now. This is idealistic, sentimental and probably a bit patronising, but when we first put the house up I really hoped we'd sell a couple like us a few years ago, buying their first home and thinking about a family. Now I just want a BTL landlord with their ducks in a row who wants a super-quick sale to get tenants in for September...

OK, so a further question. As we won't be buying ourselves just yet, is there any merit in finding out a buyers' solicitor and using the same one? Would this speed things up, do you think? Anyone tried this?