Selling our house when there aren't any houses we want on the market

[MediumOrchid]

Bit complicated:

So we want to buy a house in our town, a 4 bed house in an area of ex-army housing. Because they are of concrete construction, don't look particularly attractive from the outside and don't have driveways they go for a lot less than the market value for 4 beds in this area. Based on what they have sold for recently, we could sell our 2 bed house and buy one of these 4 beds for really not much more money. And we'd have literally twice as much space.

So one came on the market which we wanted, so we put our house on the market. The sellers then pulled out the day before their Open House. We took our house off the market as we didn't know when another of these houses would become available.

As it was, another went on the market only about 2 weeks later. We put ours back on the market, and put an offer in on the house, but we hadn't sold ours in this time and so they went for someone who had and didn't have a chain.

So know I don't know whether it's best to keep ours on the market, and hopefully get some offers, even though it could be months before another house we want becomes available, or to take it off the market and risk the same thing happening next time, that we won't sell in time.

Are people ever happy to wait a while for the sellers of the house they want to find a house? How long could we expect people to wait?

There really aren't any other houses in this area that we could afford - the next cheapest 4 bed is 100k more!

Any advice greatly appreciated!

Could you try leafleting every house on the estate you want to buy? I think I'd do that if I was THAT particular about the area I wanted.

Shove notes through every door (handwritten, but photocopied) saying you are looking to buy a house on that estate and are they thinking of selling? Maybe add that you could cut out the estate agents and they'd save that expense.

Worth a try. And yes, keep your place on the market for now, I think.

We put our house on the market last April. For various reasons we couldn't move until august but we put it on early as we just didn't know how long it would take. When our buyer put their offer on, we told them our lengthy timescale and he agreed. In the end his solicitors were so useless, it did actually take that long to get the sale through but I guess the point is if you find the right buyer, it's ok to ask them to wait.

I'd keep your place on the market, but ask the EA to be clear with any potential buyers that you will only sell when you find a place to buy.

Deffo keep house on market! You never know what's about to come up.

Thanks - think we will definitely keep it on, and just hope that the timing works out and a house we want comes up soon!

I was going to suggest leafleting your preferred area too.