How long have you been looking for a house?

[Ladyof]

We have been looking for nearly a year now and not 1 has come on in the area we want, we have offered on a couple but all of them was us making sacrifices. It is a really bad time for buyers now and I just wondered how long you had been searching and how you were finding it?

It took us 7 weeks first time, then took 9 months to find the one we are buying now despite being in a rental I hated as motivation.

Looking at Rightmove now it only appears to be getting harder and I think we would have been priced out of most things we would have liked now.

In terms of the house we just sold, it took a year to find it, and the huge compromise was living on the main road, never again.

Been looking for a couple of months now, and still haven't found anything. It's so depressing.

Only just over a month, although it feels a lot longer! Have done 9 viewings so far and offered on 1 which was rejected.

It took us two years. That was nine years ago, so I don’t think this is necessarily a new problem, although the market is currently on fire. It all depends on how fixed your requirements are and how wide your search area.

almost 2 years :(

18 months.

In that time we had one house purchase fall through due to vendors being lying lunatics, one that we were bidding on and dropped out, two that we didn’t get a chance to bid on as they went over our budget immediately, and now we’re sale agreed on a stunning house and our solicitor has the contracts so we’re happy and very excited.

Thankfully, we didn’t drop our standards in terms of the big requirements we had in a house, so have ended up with something really lovely that we hope will be suitable for us for a long time to come.

Also, I know it doesn’t feel like it, but the delays benefited us a bit as it meant we had more time to accumulate savings and so got a better mortgage deal because our LTV was lower than it would have been 18 months ago. Of course, prices have increased in that time too but, for us, it worked out well.

Chin up, OP. It’s a tough market.

Over a year, we've offered on 4, had 2 accepted and both the sellers pulled out having decided there was nothing coming up they wanted to buy (the first after 8 months, the second after 2 days!) We're in temp accommodation as we went through with the sale of ours anyway. It's just so effing depressing. We have viewed getting on for 40 houses now

Took one month.
Saw the house on RightMove. It was the third house we viewed .Ticked all boxes (particularly in terms of location).
We will be renting out our current home so no issues with a chain
Moving in August

I've had Rightmove alerts set up for a year! We are quite specific on location in one or two local villages though which doesn't help and we're not in a huge rush.

One house that fits the criteria has come up (4 bed with study or 5 bed that we can turn one room into a study, detached, driveway parking, decent garden, certain location). It needed so much work doing to it that it just wasn't an option when we viewed it.

I had a dream the other night that I won the lottery and was designing and building my own house.... it was a lovely dream!

We've been looking since March but only actively viewing since out house went on in April.

We've viewed 3 houses and had 4 that we didn't get into before they'd sold at above asking price.

We did actually have a house lined up, but our buyer pulled out and so it went back on the market. I'm hoping that we sell before they get another offer as anything that meets our (not unreasonable) requirements just disappears and there don't seem to be many coming on (3 bed plus office space, reasonable garden, off road parking, some school catchment limitations).

It took over a year to find our house.
We were moving with my parents so our needs were quite specific.
We needed downstairs space for them and two bathrooms.
All the 5 beds we looked at just were not big enough then when this house popped up we offered it that night.

I've been looking at my local area for over 15 years as I've alway toyed with the idea of moving - I don't look very regularly - but in that 15 years only 2 suitable houses that are also in budget and I liked the look of have come on the market!

Started looking in late February after accepting offer. Found one a couple weeks later. Then waited over two months for vendor to find a place, got no reassurance that she would actually move so pulled out (hoyse has since been taken off the market). Found second house early May, chain free. In attempt to make stamp duty deadline pulled out all the stops to be ready - but got nothing from seller for three weeks. Found out he was ill and wanted to withdraw from selling. Completed on my house and moved into holiday let and have found a third house. A previous buyer pulled out so hope to buy their searches and survey.
The hunt has gone from trying to find (not quite) dream home to 'it will do' home. It's lovely, not quite in the location I wanted but I need to move in by August for start of school in September. It was beginning to affect my daughter's mental health not having a place to move to. I'd go into rental again though - being in a chain is the worst.

We’ve only been looking seriously for a 2/3 months but in that time only 5 or so houses have been suitable enough to view.

We offered on two and didn’t either unfortunately.