I know this has been done to death but...how much time would you give your vendor to find a property in current climate

[Eastie77Returns]

I'm trying not to BU as our offer was accepted 3 weeks ago. The vendor lives with his very elderly mum and told us during the viewing that they were downsizing and moving out of London. I was immediately a bit wary as they want to move to a very popular and expensive retirement area and I really want to move as soon as possible. We have just sold and are in a less than ideal rental.

EA specifically made a lot of noise about the fact that my offer was not the highest but as I was chain free the vendor went with me as they want to move asap etc. He also told us that the vendor had found a property so all seemed good.

Well now 3 weeks on it turns out his onward purchase fell through (outbid) and we've had no update since other than "he is out there, looking". I don't think there's even any point in asking if he will go into rental as his mum is very frail and I doubt they would want the upheaval.

I can't give any kind of deadline/ultimatum because the market here is dead. Nothing else suitable has come up in the last few weeks so there is zero point in me threatening to pull out if he hasn't found anywhere by x date. So I'm not sure why I'm posting..just venting really and perhaps hoping someone has a nice story they can share around having to wait for a vendor and it all turning out fine in the end? I'm really worried he will just take the property of the market if they don't find anywhere

We gave up waiting after six months and have found somewhere else.

I am in a similar position. Offer accepted about 8 weeks ago but our vendor can’t find anywhere. They have only viewed one house in that time, they put an asking price offer on but someone else went higher.

Our buyers have told us they are happy to wait, but not sure how much longer they realistically will.

I’ve started seriously looking again and will have to decide whether to pull out if we find something else. I would hate to do so but there’s so little going on the market at the moment that would suit our vendor it could be months..

I waited about 6 weeks in the end, and I'll admit I was looking at other properties after about 3 as similarly I knew the vendors were only looking at one particular area (that is very, very popular).

I kept looking as their vendors then wanted an onward purchase, but they found a chain free property after about 2 weeks so it wasn't too bad.

I went to view 2 properties - one was chain free but just didn't like it, the other I liked but the vendors would want onward purchase so wasn't necessarily in better position.

So from listing my place to chain completing was about 8 weeks in total. My buyer has been patient as I know they took about 2 months to find my place from listing theirs!

Where I live there are very few properties coming on the market and those that are often have vendors looking at new builds. Some have been SSTC for 6 months while the new houses are being built.
Buyers are having to wait as if they do pull out another buyer will be along in days and there is nothing else for them anyway.

Maybe keep an eye out for other things. But if you can't find anything as you say there's no point in an ultimatum.

You might just want to think about when you start paying out for surveys and searches. Time Vs risk of losing £ if you find somewhere different.

You just have to wait, when we sell there is only one estate we want to buy on and houses come up 1-2 times a year so our buyers will have to be willing to wait 6-12 months. Luckily houses on our road are also highly rare and sought after!

We pulled pulled out after a month, our vendors found somewhere quickly that wasn't vacant, their vendors took 3 weeks and did a few viewings but nothing moved. In that time we found a property that was vacant possession and looks like we'll complete soon meaning the process could potentially take less than 6 weeks.

The original property was initially advertised as chain free, but then it wasn't. We made it quite clear that we were in a bit of a hurry but happy to be patient in the mean time. We asked if they would consider breaking the chain and it was a resounding no (fair enough), so we kept our options open.

We offered nearly 20k over the asking price and had said during that offer that we were looking to complete by September.

Yeah, guess I have little choice but to sit and wait

The vendor’s ears must have been burning as I received an update from the EA a short while ago to say that he has decided to ‘widen the area of his search’. He is now looking in a completely different location almost 200 miles from the original one so seems to be a bit of a scattergun approach. I wonder how realistic is about what he can get within his budget (not that I actually know what his budget is!) as both areas are extremely expensive and it sounds as if he only found one in location A which he was outbid on.

The house is comfortably within our budget so I was thinking of waiting until the end of the month and then offering a sum to cover a 1-2
months rent if they are willing to break the chain. I honestly cannot bear the thought of having to extend our rental and being stuck here beyond Christmas.

@whistleinthewind 6 weeks sounds like a dream!

Three weeks isn’t long at all! Given you’re generally not allowed to view until your house is sold, your vendor couldn’t start viewing until they’d accepted your offer, there was no way of getting ahead.

You have no choice but to wait, I have friends who have waited 12 months and this was before covid.

EA are not allowing viewings until your property is sold in my area so that is also causing issues. There just isn't any homes coming on the market at the moment.

Yes it was a dream @Eastie77Returns ! But we have no chain and are fully proceedable so lucky!

Hopefully you get it soon. I would keep an eye open and if they won't then accept you have to stick with it till you've found something else. He may enter a chain and it may not complete with his purchase - be prepared for that!

I waited two and a half months but got fed up
as even the seller’s estate agent started sending me emails about their other listings. I asked her for some reassurance that the seller was still committed to selling and looking but got no such thing so I found somewhere else. The vendors have since removed their property completely.

@Livingintheclouds the EA is still sending me listings. I’m not sure what the etiquette is re. viewings when I’ve had an offer accepted on another one of their properties but if anything suitable comes up I’ll certainly ask to see it.

We had an offer accepted on a property back in January. We have been waiting since then for the sellers to find suitable onward accommodation, but I think the market has now gone a bit flat and anything half decent is absolutely flying.

We waited 6 months and then gave a sort of ultimatum as our mortgage offer was about to expire, this seemed to give them a kick up the arse as they are now suddenly moving into rented and we complete tomorrow. I do totally understand your frustration, we got to the point of pulling out but as you mentioned, there felt little point as we were not missing anything else coming onto the market.

It's all a personal choice, I would say much longer than six months with no movement you're probably onto a lost cause, for some six months may be entirely unreasonable in the first place.

I guess my point is, sometimes patience pays off

We had an offer accepted in April. Tried to move forward in some way with the vendors but they have not found anywhere to buy. They are looking for a 'project' apparently. We tried to get a survey done and the estate agent refused because they didn't want us to waste the money. We've paid well over asking and asked if they would go into rented but said no.

The annoying thing is I'm pregnant and due in October and we were very very clear that we wanted to move quickly and if they were motivated. We now haven't had an update/change for two months. They're apparently 'still looking'. We now just feel bitter about the whole thing and don't want the house anymore. We get that there isn't a lot on the market atm but we feel we are being strung along and there is no communication.

I asked this question from the other side a while back, firstly I got a lot of negative comments saying I was messing my buyer about.
I did have some more reasonable ones, mostly people buying in selling in the current climate I think.
Anyway my buyer is still persistent they are buying my house, it's almost twelve months😱.
Yes I are looking, putting offers in if any thing suitable but I'm one of twenty people sometimes looking at the same house.
I think I may have to be cruel to be kind to them and withdraw, I need to get on with my life, a lots happened in twelve months.
I'm in limbo land.
I think one poster hit the nail on the head over the price, I think my buyer thinks they have a house 20k to 25k less but surely they realise I won't be able to buy for them to have it at that price.
Yes I will need more to continue my move.

We accepted an offer on our place, and from there commited to buying the best of what was available rather than make my buyer wait. Our own offer was accepted yesterday. It took 2 weeks between me accepting an offer and having my own offer accepted.

All over is a market of not much available. There were 22 listings on Rightmove within my budget. Of those I'd say half were already sold.

All you can do is mention it via your solicitors - generally pushing for an early exchange can force vendors to decide whether they actually want to sell or not. So you’re not wasting your time. Keep looking at houses in the meantime.

It's tough. Probably feels like an age, but three weeks isn't that long. It was about a month for us. We started looking at other properties, also nothing on the market that really suited us. The house we bought is a bit quirky and they hadn't had loads of viewings so I think they knew they had to get a move on and they went for a new build in the end (from a 200 year old cottage!).

House buying and selling is hard going. Good luck OP, I hope they find something soon.

We had our offer accepted in late April. Took about 7 weeks for our vendors to find their onward purchase. They then pulled out of that and had an offer accepted on a different house a fortnight later.

Then of course you have the potential issue of the vendors vendors needing to find somewhere. Mercifully our vendors' new purchase came about due to the original buyers of the property pulling out, so the chain was already complete. However, apparently the very top of the chain is 'moving into rented' so who knows what will happen. The last year has made me very cynical about vendors saying they'll do this, and of EAs saying anything to keep buyers sweet...

We've made it clear that we'll be considering our options of exchange isn't looking likely by the end of this month. EA says everyone is committed to that timescale but I suspect they are just telling us what we want to hear and it will drag on.

There have been no other properties come on the market that we'd have been interested in so I guess we'll just have to carry on being patient.

It's a miserable process.

Thanks for all the replies. Miserable is certainly the word. I do sympathize with my vendor as he has a very elderly parent in tow and it probably isn't the easiest move to make. It is just the false hope we had at the beginning when the EA indicated they had found a property only for it to fall through.

If he cannot find anything I'm wondering if he will remarket at a higher price as the house would be snapped up in hours if it went back on. We'd be willing to pay a bit more so I'd hope we'd get the option to increase our offer first.

I don't think I'd be as impatient if it wasn't for the fact I'm unhappy in our rental. It isn't terrible and the landlady is lovely but it's very small and half our stuff is in storage so just feels unsettled. We are in an expensive part of London (well everywhere is expensive here..) and set aside money for 6-9 months rent as we didn't want to move out of the area due to DC's school but I truly hoped we'd have the ball rolling by now.

Looking on Rightmove and Zoopla is so dispiriting, so little is coming up even when I increase the max price . In fairness I'm restricting my search to a particular area + 1 mile but I don't want to settle for something in an area I'm not keen on.

@Redwhiteandnotblue I cannot believe your buyers are still in the game after 12 months!

As someone whose sold and us now looking for a house the market is not good out there. Very few houses coming on so it's going to take a while. There's a chance you could pull out and five yourself in the exact same position with a new house. We're not even being picky, we've already massively compromised and widened our search area which I'm horrified by but even still we can't find anywhere. Please be patient, it's not good out there at the min 😩 x

An update of sorts. EA informed me a couple of weeks ago that the vendor had found another onward purchase. After an initial period of elation I started to see red flags when I enquired about the chain (had a slim hope the vendor’s purchase was vacant or similar) and the EA told me the vendor had not provided any additional information whatsoever about his purchase and he was chasing him for an update.

Yesterday the EA told me that the vendor has informed him that his seller had withdrawn the property from sale. EA was quite candid and said during the two weeks the vendor said he had an offer accepted he failed to provide the EA with even basic information about the alleged purchase, e.g. the name of the sellers EA, and wouldn’t even share where in the U.K. the house is. This is the second time he has done this.

So for reasons that are completely beyond me I think the vendor is playing some kind of game or is simply not motivated/committed to moving and I’m back on Rightmove. Sigh.

We accepted an offer on our before Easter and only managed to get an offer accepted 2 weeks ago. Normal in our area at the moment!