What order to sell our current house, buy a new house? Confused.

[EuphorbiaPlant]

Me and DP are wanting to move in the next 1-4 years to a detached house. There are a few roads around by us that we like, so we’re kind of waiting for something on those roads to come up.

We had our current house valued yesterday and the agent recommended putting ours on the market then finding a new house. But the houses we want don’t come up very often so it might be another year or more before a house we want comes up.

Our approach had, until yesterday, always been to wait until a house comes up that we want, then get our current one on the market immediately so we can offer on the new house. That way, we don’t keep buyers waiting and we’re able to get a house we want rather than settling.

We’ve never sold a house before so I’m really confused. MNers, tell me your thoughts and experiences, please!

Around us, agents aren’t even allowing you to view unless you are procesable, so you’re either not needing to sell anything to buy, or you have agreed a sale. In your position I would consider selling and going into rented if you can afford it, and sit on your deposit. The risk is that nothing comes up for a while and house prices rise when you’ve already sold so your despising might not stretch as far. You would need a plan in place to mitigate that.

Can't even but a proper offer in on a house until you have sold. Also if they are that rare probably going to have someone offer that would be far more advanced from yourselves.

As others you need to be sold atm to get anywhere.
Option to sell yours and rent but then how long would you be renting for in the hope a house comes up where you want it to.

If you need a mortgage to buy your next property, you'll have to sell your own property first otherwise you can't proceed with the purchase. Personally, I wouldn't accept an offer from someone who couldn't proceed. I don't think you'd accept an offer on your own property from someone who couldn't buy it until they'd sold their own.

In any normal market your proposed approach would be fine and sensible.

At the moment things are insane and you don’t get a look in as a buyer until you are proceedable ie your house is under offer or ideally you’ve sold and are renting.

Things are slowing a little so I would suggest waiting if you can.

If you wait till you see a for sale sign then you will have to get yours on the market, get an AIP and have an offer on yours before you look like an attractive buyer tbh. That could take a bit of time, meanwhile someone who can proceed may already have offer accepted

If the market is limited and competitive your offer will only be taken seriously if you are under offer and "proceedable".

Right now, that's a bad idea. Good houses are gone within days and you wouldn't even be able to view without having sold your house. We're completing ours and moving into a rental to make ourselves more competitive in the current market. Plus we are concerned our buyer has been waiting a while and if they pull out we'll be stuck not being able to view (plus I'm expecting in September so don't want to deal with people traipsing in and our when I'm dealing with a newborn)

We are in a similar situation and decided to sell our house and move into rented until that elusive house on one of a handful of roads comes up. Risky strategy though.

Most sellers and especially those in rare to market properties like you suggest will only accept offers from buyers who are sold subject to contract themselves.

It puts you in a difficult situation if you are holding out exclusively for a particular type of house. Especially as when it does come to market it will go quickly.

Have you considered dropping letters into the houses on the streets you like saying that you will be coming to market yourselves soon, and that if they themselves have any plans in the next year or so, you would be interested to work with them with a view to purchasing their property?

We had to have our house on the market before we could view and couldn't offer until ours had sold

Thank you everyone.

I really don't want to move into rented but I absolutely take the point about it making us more competitive buyers.

We've spent about £100K completely renovating our house and I absolutely love it so I don't feel ready to put it on the market just yet. I know that's daft, I need to be un-emotional about it but you know....

I had thought about popping slips through the doors on the streets we like, yes. I might do this.

I should say, if we put our current house on the market we'd expect it to be snapped up within a couple of days. That's what the agent said and that's what's happened to others on the street that've sold recently.

You could look at doing a ‘let to buy’ mortgage where you leverage the equity in your current property to purchase your next property.

It would also mean you then rent out your current home, and transfer the residential status to your new home and pay the ‘difference’ in the stamp duty.

Speak with a mortgage adviser.

@Singlebutmarried

You could look at doing a ‘let to buy’ mortgage where you leverage the equity in your current property to purchase your next property.

It would also mean you then rent out your current home, and transfer the residential status to your new home and pay the ‘difference’ in the stamp duty.

Speak with a mortgage adviser.

Yeah, I want to speak to a mortgage adviser anyway because there are some houses near us (not the exact ones we want but very very close) where we could buy them without selling our current house but that'd mean we'd only have a small-ish deposit. But we have no mortgage on our current house so we could release some equity and/or as soon as we sold, we could pay off a huge chunk of the new house's mortgage.

So I need to talk to someone in the know!

I wouldn't rent our current house out though.

You could be cheeky and get some flyers printed asking if anyone is looking to sell soon and then put them through the doors on the roads you want to move to? That way you might be able to proceed without having to use an estate agent to buy. It may just work?