How long is reasonable to wait until everyone in a chain is ready to proceed?

[chicaguapa]

I last bought a house 9 years ago and we didn't have this position that there seems to be now that everyone waits until they've sold their house before they start looking for another.

We're at the beginning of a chain as we're not selling the house we own. Our seller (2nd in the chain) has found a house to move to but we're now waiting for her seller (3rd in the chain) to find somewhere. They've been to see loads of houses but haven't found one they like yet. Then presumably their seller (4th in the chain) will be in the same position and on it will go until the end of the chain.

The EA and Mortgage adviser says to hold off applying for the mortgage/ searches until everyone in the chain is ready to proceed.

I was wondering how long is reasonable to wait? Our seller said she wanted to be in her new house by Christmas, which is a bit soon for us anyway and completely unrealistic. We really like the house but we feel that we're not really benefitting from not having a chain below us. I'm also concerned about interest rates and the effect on the deals we can access when we're ready to proceed.

Any advice please? Thanks.

no-one is moving for Christmas under those circumstances.

interest rates won't change for months, if not years.

the only way out of this is for no 3 to go into rental. In my experience only one person has ever actually done that - me. And I got pissed about by someone two below our buyers.

what can you do? Not a lot except say how long you will wait.

Chains are a complete nightmare, they can take months to just get ready to start the process. My friends are in the process of selling and have lost 2 buyers while waiting for the chain to get in place. Not much you can do apart from say what your timescales are, and how long you're prepared to wait.

If you want to move in January I'd be firing off warning shots and checking out alternatives now - and to be honest I wouldn't have made an offer without it being conditional on the onward chain being complete by a certain date.

Thanks all.

I don't want to pull out as it's unfair and it's not our sellers who are biding their time. But I want to inject a rocket into the process and/or encourage someone (no 3?) to move into rented. It's been a month so far with no end in sight.

What do you think would be a reasonable timescale to ask for?

With regards mortgaged deals/interest rates we bought a house at the start of the year. We applied for our mortgage shortly after making the offer. The mortgage offer was then fixed at that rate/those terms for several months (between 4 and 6 I think, from memory).

One house we looked at but didn't offer on fell through because the vendor couldn't find anywhere. 3 months later it was back on the market at 5% more and it sold. The cynic in me says they realised the market was moving well and that prices were going up and they wanted to get more. That is another issue with long drawn out chains, as far as sellers go.

IMO 6-8 weeks is a reasonable amount of time to exchange.