Current property market 🤯

[AK1993]

We had an offer accepted on our dream home back in February. We sold our house and moved out to live with parents/inlaws so that we didnt lose our buyer. The vendors of the house we are buying are really dragging their feet! We emailed 3 weeks ago asking for an estimate of when we are likely to complete and we still have no reply, despite chasing! We are now going to lose out on the stamp duty holiday because our vendors are in no rush! We are reluctant to pull out but we can't wait around forever. The vendors have not yet found an onward purchase and are reluctant to go into a rental property (even though their estate agent has told them it would put them in a better position). Any advice on what we should do? Should we wait it out or pull out?

Can you do both? IE, wait it out on this property and start looking at other properties too.

its a sellers market at the minute unfortunately . we are also trying to buy and alot of sellers have the same attitude. its really annoying

Very common issue at the moment, low stock on the market, nobody wants to move into rental because there aren't many of those either.

February is a long time though, I'd have been looking at other options well before now, not that there may be any much!

My sellers haven't found anywhere but it's only been a matter of weeks, but I keep an eye on the market as I'm not convinced they're all that fussed about moving.

I can understand though with property prices rocketing, you want to be absolutely sure you're getting what you want.

I think you have to do what is best for you, but accept that your vendors are doing the same. It may not be that they are ‘not in a rush’ but that they genuinely can’t find anything, don’t have family that they can move in with and cannot find a rental that will accept them (e.g. maybe they have pets).

Perhaps the right thing to do would be for them to pull out of the deal they have made with you, but you won’t be any better off, having to start looking again now that prices have shot up even more and hardly anything is coming to market; they might now get more for their property. Don’t assume they are being arseholes - it’s mad out there at the moment in many places and taking yourself off the ladder is a scary prospect, regardless of how much estate agents tell you it will improve your position.

We are in the position of your sellers. We had an onwards purchase fall through about a month ago and now we can't find anywhere to buy. Our buyers probably think we are dragging our feet but we are really not, we are trying as hard as we can to buy somewhere. We did look into going into rented, but round where we are landlords of family homes want a minimum 24 month contract with no break clause, so that wouldn't work for us.

We are aware that we may lose our buyers, but to be honest property prices have risen a great deal in our area over the last few months that we aren't too worried about having to go back on the market. Sucks for our buyers, but there's not more we can do - if there's nothing for us to buy there's nothing for us to buy!

I pulled out after waiting two and a half months for my seller to find another to buy. Frankly of we hadn't planned this move two years ago with my daughter changing schools, I wouldn't be moving. I have found another house, but my solicitor has requested draft contracts pack three times now
over a space of a month and nothing. The property was advertised as chain free, and the seller was (according to the EA) happy to try and make it by stamp duty deadline. We've done our bit - survey, searches etc.
I'd definitely start looking if I was you, but keep this one going until you find another.

If you pulled out of purchase would you incur a lot of solicitor costs? Do you think after end June stamp duty deadline there’ll be more stock of houses and prices will come down a bit?