Length of house chain

[Cloudhopping]

We've been lucky since putting our house on the market in April to have received a good offer pretty quickly. We then got an offer accepted on a lovely house in our chosen location. However, we have now learnt we're in a chain of 10 (with us being the 5th). Surprisingly, everything is progressing quite smoothly so far, but wondered whether anyone had been in a long/longer chain? Our EA said that although the risk of something going wrong is obviously increased, some chains this long can go through very smoothly, and shorter chains with cash buyers etc can be a nightmare!

Needless to say, we're taking it day by day and not getting too excited.

Just wondering about others' experiences of long chains.

That is really long!

All you can do is hope really. The trouble is that with so many people there is so much more of a risk of something going wrong like redundancy or mortgage problems.

Sometimes the chain breaks if part of it is all ready and someone can move in with parents etc for a while rather than letting it fall apart.

Good luck!

We had a chain of three houses, so not long, and it took 14 weeks from acceptance of our offer to completion. We could have completed two weeks earlier but our vendors flatly refused to exchange until after Easter - everyone else wanted to complete before the Easter weekend. I think they were wavering so we took a step back. The only issue we had was the ftbs at the start of the chain throwing their toys out the pram over not moving before the Easter weekend and demanding their rent was paid. They got told no as they weren't losing out on anything. In the end our vendors out their stuff into storage and left half of it in the house. Grrr.

We're 4th in a chain of 5 (we're buying a new build) and the bottom of the chain has already collapsed once! Exchange is now imminent, but until it actually happens, I won't stop being twitchy about the whole thing. I've known long chains, similar to yours, sale through effortlessly and I've been extremely envious!

Best of luck 🙂

It's complete luck whether it all goes smoothly or not. My cousin was in a chain of 7 last year and her chain sailed through with not one glitch. Whereas we're buying an empty house with first times buyers buying ours and it's fallen apart twice! We're hoping its third time lucky.

Good luck, I hope it all goes well for you.

I guess there is a greater chance of problems simply because there's more people involved, however without a doubt, no chain is 'safe'! We were a chain of three, cash buyer, us then empty house that had been inherited. It actually was very stressy in the end with the cash buyer wishing to call all the shots throughout. It didn't fall apart but I did think it would at times. Good luck!