Would you accept an offer from someone who didn't yet have their property on the market?

[Dawnofanewera]

I'm in a bit of a twist about this one.

Currently living in a perfectly nice house (a bit small but enough for us). Want to move a bit closer to preferred secondary school but houses local to their rarely come up for sale. Anytime one comes up it goes really quickly in a matter of days. I'm reluctant to put my house up for sale until I've found a house on one of the selected street I want (near the school) If I found a house I would put ours up for sale immediately within days and willing to price competitively so it sells quickly. But would you if you were selling be prepared to accept my offer if my house wasn't yet up for sale?

We actually did this exact thing, we were in the same position as you where we wanted a certain area and houses rarely came up, so we went and put in an offer before ours was for sale and it ended up being accepted. We decided to sell ours with the same estate agent who was selling the one we wanted to buy and felt this helped as she could obviously explain the situation to the seller and that we were ready to put ours on the market ASAP

No I wouldn’t

I would not want people viewing my property unless they had their property on the market at a reasonable price. In my experience EA won't let you view unless you have your house up for sale, are a cash buyer or btl. Put your house on the market but advise those who view you have not found house to buy yet. Would you be agreeable to move in to rented until you find house you want?

I wouldn't but I know someone who after no other viewings accepted an offer from a neighbour who hadn't put theirs on the market yet. This was only a few weeks ago, the neighbour has now got a sale agreed on theirs so all seems to be ok.

@Melonlover80 I guess because they were in a position to move and we weren’t on the market so they always held the trump card. I think the estate agent used our much less attractive offers to spark a bidding war when in reality the vendor was always going to go with the proceedable party.

Definitely not. You won't be taken seriously unless your house is under offer too

We recently did exactly the same as Anonuk. We were pretty confident ours would go quickly based on local market conditions but the type we wanted were harder to come by so we were reluctant to go to market on the off chance as literally could have been waiting for months and months. We found one we wanted to offer on so immediately put the ball in motion with same agent who sent along interested parties within the week to view ours resulting in offers and two potential commissions now for the agent . So in short I wouldn’t rule it completely it does depend on the individual situation.

I don't know why anyone would accept an offer you would make without having accepted an offer yourself. If you haven't sold your house, you don't know if you can buy another. It's fantasy money. It's the predicament everyone finds themselves in when wanting to buy and sell. You have to arrange the selling first.

@Melonlover80

Truthfully, I have no idea except their impatience and distrust in us. We accepted our offer in early August (we were selling a restored Cornish cottage so they go like hotcakes to people up country) and by early September they went with another buyer and left us high and dry because it was moving 'too slowly'. By November our buyer had a buyer, and so on, so by that phone call in January we were all set to go. I've heard on the local grapevine he had done it before to another buyer and was really boastful that he'd bought the house in 1989 and was now super proud to see how much he could get for it... We bought a house about next door but 20 and I REALLY hope they noticed we had moved before they did!

I would, but only if I were quite desperate to sell and didn't have other seriously interested parties.

I would

I’m so glad our vendors were willing to consider us! Our house wasn’t on the market because we’d just started talking about upsizing and then the perfect house came on so we looked just to see. They accepted our offer and gave us 2 weeks grace to get ours on the market / an offer.

We saw the house on the Friday evening our house details went online over the weekend and we had 5 full Price offers before lunch on the Monday (which was the first day of viewings). It can work out

We had an offer accepted on a property prior to putting ours on the market.
We lived in a highly desirable area, we knew it would sell quick. The first week, we had 16 viewings, one of those bought.
We were buying a farm, it took a lot longer for us to sort out our purchase but our buyer was happy to wait.

If I was to move now, I would wait until we had an offer on the farm, it is far more of a niche property, before I offered on a house.

In these Covid times we weren't even allowed to view without at least being on the market and in most cases being proceedable i.e. under offer.

We did, but a different situation. We lived in a very tiny house in our ideal village location. The housing stock is only about 100 houses and these are mainly massive houses or very tiny old workers cottages and not many family homes in between. We wanted to stay in the village and so made it known we were looking to buy. A couple we didnt really know were about to downsize and said they would sell to us. We agreed a timescale they would give us to sell ours before they put theirs on the market. It worked out. I will be forever grateful to them as they didnt need to do it as it would have sold in days if it had gone on the market, whenever I see them I still say thank you. Closest thing to this is leafleting the area as you may find someone wanting to sell.

Would anyone consider a bridging loan in this situation?
It is something that is possible theoretically, but quite scary. I haven’t looked into how expensive it is to do this.
We’re in a similar position, having seen a great house, in school catchment, just come on the market, but our house has land and there in nothing more unattractive than a muddy cottage surrounded by muddy fields churned up by muddy wet animals in the endless rain, so ideally we’d wait until May to put it on the market.

@Woodspritely

Absolutely not would I consider
Particularly at current time when all so up in the air
However I actually wouldn’t ever consider

I knew of someone with a bridging loan for six months as several sales fell through on their original property. They lost loads of money. It's harder to sell a property that isn't inhabited too. I wouldn't do it unless the desired property is so very rare you can't bear to lose it.

@Woodspritely I think that would be incredibly risky, especially at the moment. I know none of us has a crystal ball but there is more than a possibility the property market will tank next year.

We were in a similar position. We didn't need to move, wanted to stay in same village, but only if a certain type of house came up (of which there were literally only a handful in total - we viewed 3 houses over 2 years). We were the first to view a house that came up, offered full asking price, rejected as not on market. Put ours on market next day, priced competitively, and had a bidding war within 2 days. Went back and offered £20k less, which they accepted after a bit of haggling.

We've now been in that house for 18 months ❤️

We actually got outbid on two separate occasions by buyers who hadn’t sold their places...they had to offer a considerably larger sum and buy from sellers who were not in a rush to sell...it’s doable if you have the money, but better to sell yours first

No.

I am in the middle of selling and buying and EAs weren’t showing anyone around whose house wasn’t under offer.

Is your house likely to get an offer quickly?

If you want to be in a position to strike quickly and successfully for the right house, consider selling yours, moving into rented which puts you in the best position as ‘proceedable’.

We were in a similar position but had a little more in the words of mumsnet ‘ducks in a row’.

We had had ours valued, chosen agent, photos done ready to have on the market in a matter of hours should the right house come up. Had also prepared our house for selling, de cluttered, touched up paint etc. We had also gone through all figures with a mortgage adviser ahead of time.
All this did take quite a bit of time and effort but if you are serious get on with it.

Only a couple of weeks latter the house of our dreams came up. Ours was on the market and sold within 48hours and we were able to offer in a very stressful seal bids process, we are moving next month.

Main morel of the story is it’s always worth being prepared, you never know when the house of your dreams may come up and if we hadn’t done all the stuff ahead of time we would never have got it.

So... What on earth do you do if you've accepted an offer on your house but then you can't find somewhere else to live? Especially if you live somewhere with few rental properties?

We moved in 2019 and were signed up to an EA, had photos done etc but told them not to market until we found something. The day we viewed a house we wanted we went on the market and our sellers agreed not to market the house for a couple of weeks.

Our old house was first time buyer range in a popular village so they knew it was quite a safe gamble.

We saw our dream house, called the agent and agreed to put our house on the market with them, made an offer and it was accepted.
We are in the £1m+ category and it was a doer upper, I expect interested parties were thin on the ground, but we would not haves moved except for that exact house