Anyone sold & moved into rented?

[WillowB]

We sold our house a month ago but the chain is about to collapse as our sellers have pulled out.
Our buyers aren't prepared to wait for us to find something else so our options are move into rented or take the house off the market until spring (I can't be bothered with going through the whole selling process again right now).
The problem is that houses in the area we want to buy in rarely come up so renting would put us in a strong position timing wise. On the other hand I have two young children and the thought of moving before Xmas then moving again fills me with dread. Any one done this & survived?!

Yes. We moved 4 times with two small children in just over 12 months! We sold and went into rented because our purchase fell through. Found and purchased our house (because we were able to move quickly) and moved in. Moved out after 6 months into short term rental to have work down and moved back in 6 weeks later.

Tips: do not aim to unpack everything. Either put most of your stuff in storage or fill one room with it. This room became known as The Room of Requirement.

Try to label up the boxes with what's in them. Because no matter how much you try to plan in advance, you will still have to search through boxes to find that particular thing.

Our small children were a bit uncertain to start with but actually saw it as a big adventure in the end.

Do not get a rental property with a garden as all your spare weekends will be taken up with looking for houses/new furniture etc... and you won't want to be tending your landlords roses.

Good luck - it will be fine!

Thank you! Glad it all worked out for you. I'm on the verge of throwing in the towel & staying put as nothing seems have gone right with this move. Want to make sure I'm not just adding another layer of stress by moving to rented.

I think if you make a decision about going into rented, it may take the pressure off about finding something else to move into?

We were moving area and wanted to rent in new area, so put house up for sale (had 2.5 year old twins at the time), it sold very quickly (too quickly really as we weren't ready to move areas!) so rented in old area for 6 months, then moved to rented in new area & rented for 18 months (had baby number 3 whilst we were in that house!), then bought current house. So moved 3 times in the space of about 2 years.

Actually, it worked really well for us. Both rental houses had been renovated / newly decorated before we moved in so lovely properties. There was no DIY / house maintenance to do so seemed to have more family time (which was useful with a new baby), meant we could take our time finding the "right" property and when it did come up, we were in a really good position (chain free etc) to get it - it went to sealed bids so the fact we were in rented and could move as quickly as the sellers wanted was ideal.

Agree with a few things - in each house, the DC bedrooms have always been set up in the same way - bed / table / drawers etc so it feels familiar, never truly unpacked everything!

Yes - and it puts you in a really strong negotiating position when you do find somewhere to buy as there is no chain behind you.

We did it, and I'm really glad we did because that was why our (lower) offer was accepted against a significantly higher one.

We had to put a fair bit of stuff into storage, but that made the final move really easy.

Yes, NigelMolesworth has excellent tips!

As said previously, it means that when you do find the house you want, you're in an excellent position.

Thanks for taking the time to reply, good to hear positive stories. Making me feel a bit better. We've put the offer to our buyers & they're thinking it over tonight so should hear back tomorrow.

Yes, kind of with 3 children under the age of 12. It was school holidays so we spent 3 weeks in France and 6 weeks in the local Premier Inn. It worked out cheaper than renting. No bills and we got to eat out a lot!

We didn't want to loose our buyers and the people selling the house we wanted couldn't find a house they liked. We put the furniture in storage in lived out of a suitcase. I wouldn't recommend it but would do it again if we had to.

We did once. It was fine! To make moving easier, we put all our non essentials in storage and rented a much smaller house it was only temporary.

We found our home 4 months later. We also had the benefit that the market collapsed just after we sold so we got a bigger house for less money but that was pure luck!

We did it pre-kids. We were looking for a doer-upper, so we knew we were going to be up against developers so wanted to get ourselves into the best possible position. We offered on our house a few days before moving into rented, and left after six months (with a few weeks overlap to make it habitable-ish).

I very much agree with not unpacking everything. Even better than labelling boxes with their contents is to labrl them with numbers, then make a text file of what stuff is in what box. That text file is searchable, and you can store the boxes in a logical order so you can easily find the one you want once you know it's number.

Love the idea about numbering the boxes, thanks!

Did it. More hassle but paid off as now in the dream house!

Budget for storage and protect your lump sum. When I did it you could get real interest on savings but Carney hass destroyed that. With inflation already over 2%, don't hang around too long.

Yep we've done it twice. Once when 8m pregnant, and once with 3 small DCS. We've owned 3 properties but have never bought and sold simultaneously. Tbh it's much less stressful as you can have an overlap between move out/in. So much easier to clean an empty house. We have moved loads though - 7 properties in 7 yrs, but in our forever home now thank goodness.

Yup, done it twice with kids of various ages. A faff but being a chain breaker puts you in a very strong position. Would do it as first choice if moving again now I'm child free.

When you number the boxes, be sure to number them on all sides, not just the top. Boxes will be stacked on boxes & you don't know which way round they will face....

Your sale proceeds lodge in a bank or building society are covered by the FSCS for up to £1 million for up to 6 months (it counts as a temporary high balance).