How long is reasonable for seller to find a new house?

[Bol87]

As the title really - how long is reasonable to give the people we are buying off to find themselves a new house? I’m not too concerned at the mo but our buyers have decided to proceed with the purchase as cash buyers as they are very keen to move as quickly as is reasonable (relocating). And I think in a couple weeks they are going to start pushing for us to have a more solid chain.

What’s the protocol in this kinda potential situation? Do we keep looking just in case? Do we contact their agent & explain the new situation? I do not want to lose our buyers, we’ve got a cracking over ask out of them & they are now chain free. But we’ve got a young baby & 3 year old and pets. Renting just doesn’t seem like a viable option 🙈

I don't know but I'm feeling the pressure, we accepted an offer on our house 3.5wks ago and having zero luck so far with buying a house. Making me really quite anxious, we dont want to lose our buyer but there are no houses that suit at the moment.
How long has it been for you?

Same position.

Our buyers are due a baby in winter and there is nothing for us to buy. Can’t view until sold so catch-22.

Exactly the same for us. Accepted an offer on our house about 8 weeks ago now, chain is progressing and we still have not found a house we like enough for us to buy. The market is dead where we are at present.

Can’t get a short term rental so seriously worried now about our options

It's rotten isnt it. Our buyer is a FTB currently with family, so hopefully content for now, and we made it clear to viewers we were serious about moving but would need time to find the right house so hopefully they won't get cold feet but I really wish we could find somewhere now. We missed out on a perfect house last week and I'm still gutted. Nothing new has come on the market in the right area for about 10 days now 😣

I suppose ultimately there is no set 'reasonable time' it depends on each buyers circumstances I guess.

Been a couple weeks since we had an offer accepted, so I’m not stressing too much. Our buyers & is agreed it’s reasonable to give them a good month initially.. annoyingly the vendors told us ‘oh yeh we’ve found somewere & are good to go once we have an offer’ .. appears they lied about that bit 🤦🏼‍♀️ I’m starting to learn not to trust anything in house buying! But I just don’t think our buyers are gona sit & wait 8+ weeks for our vendors to potentially buy a house in a chain that’s not yet complete 😫

Annoyingly, another lovely house has come on the market that we could stretch too & is chain free. It’s in a totally different area but one we like. I do prefer the house we’ve bought but I think I’ll be gutted if we can’t proceed with it & never got chance to bid on that one either!

Guess we’ll sit tight & keep fingers crossed for now!

Wow, didn't realise selling and buying would be quite so hard!

This is our second property together but we have only ever bought new and before the purchase of this house we stayed with my parents whilst this was being built, so have only ever been chain free.

We accepted an offer on our house almost 3 weeks ago, we thought the stress was over and that the fun of house hunting would now start!!!

However, what we are finding is that properties round here (we are in the SE) are sky rocketing in price and making an offer less than asking price (even if it's not worth asking price!) is not worth it.

Last week we were gazumped and this week we viewed another house, put in a cheeky offer (refused) and have now had the asking price offer refused as they have more viewings tomorrow and want to see what happens there.

For context we have a good chain as we have sold to FTB who are paying cash.

This all just seems a bit crazy and unbelievably stressful, is anybody else living on Rightmove at the moment 

Can I join too, we accepted an offer mid-July, we had to pull out of our purchase (beyond sad the bank wouldn't lend to us on it) and now can't find another property. We have looked at all sorts, but it is definitely a sellers market and demand far exceeds supply (SE).

Yes @raspberrylimoncello I'm lucky if I manage an hour without checking rightmove. In the last 10 days 2 new houses, neither in quite the right area and one that seems to have been withdrawn and reposted at the exact sane price today!
It's starting to feel like we're slowly, voluntarily making ourselves homeless! Not good, come oooooon house!

3 weeks from offer acceptance to having an offer accepted. And our buyers were getting VERY gittery. Put us in a great position for offering but was very very stressful feeling pressured to find something (anything) half decent.

If you haven't exchanged go and see the other lovely house. You can't sit around for ever waiting for your sellers to find something. Warn the agent that you are going to keep looking around so it does not come as a complete shock.

In the same position I just cut the chain. Sold first then rented for a bit before we bought.

@GrumpyHoonMain That must be some slight relief. We looked into doing the same but would have to pay a very hefty mortgage redemption fee (circa 10k) as we are on a new product. We could claim it back so long as we moved and mortgaged again with the same lender within 3 months... which before now I'd have said would have been easy!!

Acutely aware that estate agents are whipping us up into a frenzy and encouraging bidding wars with ourselves at the moment. House we are going to view tonight apparently has 6 other viewings booked! 2 months ago an almost identical house on the same road sat unsold for weeks!

We will all get there I am sure! How are the rest of you doing?

We found a house! Its not even on rightmove after all that obsessive refreshing, will be a private sale we found out about via friends. The 3 house chain is complete now too as they are buying an empty house. Such a relief, probably just in time for another lockdown just hoping it all comes together now.
I hope things work out for the rest of you too.