Does not having a house to sell really out you in a better position to buy ?

[Rosmah1511]

Just that really.

Looking for stories on how this makes a positive difference as a buyer ?

We are looking to sell and then rent . Will this put us in a much better position? Or does it only make a small difference?

Thank you

One house I sold had multiple offers so rent to best and final. It was asking price of £945k. One offer at the ask, one offer at £975k with house under offer through same agent and a few weeks into the sale, and one at £1m but house not under offer. I took the £975k.
If I received a good offer from proceedable buyers but hadn't found a house to buy I'd rent.

My buyers with nothing to sell were a bloody nightmare. I took a lot of money off because they were first time buyers and they took twice as long to buy my house as someone with something to sell.

Yes, we got a great price on our house as we were chain free.

Ask yourself the same question - if you are about to put your property on the market, which offer would you be inclined to accept? A buyer with a property of their own to sell which is not guaranteed, affects timescales and potentially could end up as a last minute cancellation if their sale falls through, or a buyer without any of those hindrances?
Any potential buyer without a property to sell providing they have proven financial eligibility to your Estate Agent would be in the stronger position to proceed.

When we bought our current house, we had already sold our property and were in rented accomodation and the people selling were moving abroad and staying with family temporarily so no chain whatsoever. It went so smoothly, done and dusted in 2 months . No other move has ever gone so well.

@Chumleymouse

We were cash buyers (selling current house after ) and buying an empty property, it still took 3 months . Having cash dosnt speed up the process .

I think 3 months is fast. I don't think expecting a sale to go through quicker than that is realistic really. In my experience many sales take significantly more time than that to.go through. My definition of a quick house sale would be 3 months or less. 3-6 months is probably more common

I do think some people are unrealistic regarding time lines. First time buyers are now being asked for larger deposits than they possibly expected. More questions are being asked about where deposits are coming from. No one can possibly say their ftb took longer - you didn’t have a chain so you cannot possibly know!

I think there is a difference between a First Time Buyer and other chain free buyers (i.e. buyers who have been home owners previously and have sold up). I think FTB are always a bit more cautious and ask query after query, so yes, I agree that chain free FTB can be problematic.

On the other hand, I do think being a chain free buyer puts you at an advantage. When we bought our current house, we were in rented having sold, the house was a probate sale so the vendors just wanted a stress free sale. It went to sealed bids such was the desirability of the house (potential to extend, brilliant location) and we got it on account of being able to move quickly.

I think (but will never know for sure) that our bid was lower than some of the others put in, but our position was key. Houses we could afford & met our wish list came up very rarely so being able to move quickly and differentiate ourselves from other bidders was what swung it for us. Even if we didn't save £ on this particular house, the fact that we bought sooner rather than later in a rising market and got a house that we could stay in indefinitely will definitely have saved us £££ in the long term.

@MyGazeboisLeaking

It's not always as cut and dried.

If you don't have anything to sell and are a committed, genuine buyer of a desirable property, then that's a great situation for all parties.

However - people with nothing to sell also (sometimes) have nothing to lose and nothing to make them do things at a good pace, change their minds and generally hold all the cards..

Ideally you want buyer(s) and seller(s) to have equal skin the game.

But every chain is going to start with someone who has nothing to lose. I don't think being 1 link removed from whoever that is puts you in a better position!

Agree with PPs but just a moment of caution. If there is a big delay between sale of the old house and buying the new house, then prices can go up during that time. So check market trends first.

It didn't help us 10 years ago. But there weren't many houses on the market for 2 years following the financial crash. What souls have been a buyers market became a sellers market. We sold ours easily - renting in another town we moved to for work - but took ages to find something to buy and knew of we didn't pay asking price, someone else would. It's a little annoying that we wanted to move ASAP. Sellers had no upward chain as they were moving to a job with a house provided. But they cost the completion date in line with dates that suited their social goodbye parties with various groups of friends and I wish we'd pushed more for the date which suited us. It's no fun to move 3 days before DH's INSET day and 5 days before kids are back at school for a new term school year. (still bitter but that's also because they left the house and garden in a skanky mess despite having jobs which supposedly made them the pillar of society)

It's been my situation every time and I don't feel like it's ever benefitted. In fact one seller rejected us as the highest bidder because we were chainless and they felt we'd put pressure on them to speed up the sale

We're looking again atm and I think it might be a benefit with all the sales falling to through and properties going back on. Viewed one last week that had been sold 4 times and the chain had collapsed every time due to someone being affected by current circumstances.

I agree with zafferana, I'm a cash buyer in a rental which expires on 7 February.

Six weeks in my seller hasn't returned the draft contacts yet. She is buying in a Tier 4 area, I'm not sure if viewings are allowed there. I'm just going to have to go onto a rolling monthly contract if I have to, but I'll be p'd off if I miss the stamp duty holiday.

We have been chain free for ages (in rented). It has not given us any advantage! We were even gazumped on a house by a previous buyer who had to pull put as their chain fell through. We were well into the process and had paid out money for survey etc, but the seller decided to go with original buyer as they had been further along .... we suspected they were pushed by EA as they were involved in several houses in the chain.
It hasn't helped us with other houses either - even putting in over asking price, but every seller has gone with the highest bid.
In a way it has made it more difficult, I think we have been pursing a perfect house as we aren't being pushed or on a time limit, so has been a bit of a psychological barrier too.

Absolutely. As someone currently in a very long chain, I'd say anything that reduces the length of the chain, and therefore the uncertainty is very valuable.

35Mimitoo gosh, yes, I think that's what happened to us. We weren't being pushed so we kept looking and the longer we looked the more precise our remit became.

PP's have obviously had different experiences but I would only consider buyers who were either ready to purchase (cash and/or mortgage organised) or about to or post exchange.

You also need to factor in the stress or trying to buy and sell at the same time and possibly losing somewhere you really love.

Also, think about where you think the market will be in 6 months. Prices may well be lower and there may not be so many buyers around due to the knock on of redundancies and also there will be less pent up demand. Less buyers puts you in a stronger position... unless of course you haven't sold.

Personally, I would absolutely sell now and then rent.

I think it makes a big difference. We are renting and when we look to buy we will have a decent deposit and mortgage offer and be ready to go. I sold our last house cheaper because it was chain free

We are currently renting as we sold our last house then the one we were buying, they took off the market at the last minute as a family member became seriously ill and they couldn't manage the upheaval but we went ahead and sold ours as we got the asking price and wanted to be in a "no chain" situation.

We've now had an offer accepted on another house however the couple are divorcing and buying a property each so they were very keen on us having their house and we got our offer accepted £10k below asking price

HOWEVER

We are now part of 2 chains which is a total nightmare!

We had the offer accepted in August and the hope was we would be moving during October half term and we're still not moving!!

We have even emailed both the buyers solicitors and said that if it would help either party could move into our rental (we've checked with our landlord who was happy with this), just to try to get things going as everyone is moving to properties in the same village!

So in short no - it's still a
Nightmare for us