We have been trying to buy a house for nine months now with no luck. Basically, we have had three chains collapse sue to vendors pulling out. One was for a good reason but the other two were just trying their luck and decided they had changed their mind. We've lost loads in fees and surveys now. We're living in a fairly unsuitable rental with a baby due in November and it's all feeling a bit hopeless.
We've had a (fourth!) offer accepted on a house, but the vendors have not found anything yet and have just gone on holiday for three weeks. We really like the house and the location. Everyone I've spoken to has said we should keep looking, put in other offers and just go with whichever house has a complete chain first.
In my mind, this is a bit unethical, I just wondered if this is standard behaviour in house buying? On the other hand, I suppose nobody has to spend any money until the chain is set up. I don't want to be a twat just because other people have done it to us, but on the other hand, we need to find something fast as prices are rising and we are already looking at having to extend our mortgage by £20,000 and spend more of our savings to get a house than when we first started looking. In our experience, having a complete chain means nothing anyway, as they can always collapse, so I don't want to risk alienating estate agents etc.
DH is now saying we should put in an offer on another house we looked at last week, even though we still have the offer accepted on the first house, but I'm not sure we should get into this. WWYD?