Impatient - house sales and purchases feel like they take so long!

[ThePerfect1IThinkNot]

We have accepted an offer from purchasers who are in rented. They had an in principle mortgage offer before making an offer.

We are buying a vacant property which is chain free.

Aiming for completion on both in April, but it feels like everything moves so slowly!

We have bought and sold lots of times previously, but it always feels like you have to wait such a long time for everything to go through... Or is it just me?

Nope. Not just you.

We're FTB, no mortgage, buying an empty (probate) property.

We had the offer accepted in mid-November. Hopefully we'll be exchanging within the next couple of weeks.

I really thought I'd own a house by now

I had offer in October and exchanged last Friday and we all thought it would be simple as those at front of small chain were almost ready.

Now there is problems up the chain so I haven't exchanged on my purchase yet so as of 26th not sure where I will be living.

If I was advising my vendors I'd be telling them to exchange quick as I am now house buyer with no mortgage and free to do as I please with my cash.

The whole process has been very painful

It always seems to take ages and I used to think it was because the lawyers were on an hourly rate!

However, in fairness it is a massive commitment so best everything is done properly.

We're finally getting the keys to our house on Friday. We are first time buyers and had our offer accepted at the beginning of August.... It has been a very long wait!

I never want to be in a chain again!

We were in exactly the same place in a chain. Sale agreed 11th Dec. Moved 30th Jan. Was amazed by how quickly it happened. Folks in rented were v keen to move before end of the month although we thought it'd be Feb rather than Jan!

It does vary so much.....

We were in a chain of four - our vendor (who had already bought and moved into their new house), us, our buyer and theirs (a BTL investor) - and it took from offer on 7th Oct to completion 16th Dec, so pretty quick. There was an awful lot of hassling on the part of ourselves and our buyers to get things sewn up before Christmas, but tbh when we put our house on the market 1st Sept I really wasn't expecting to be moved by the end of 2014!