How long should it take to find a new property?

[Numberthree3]

Due to ageing parents and dad’s ill health, we have made the decision to relocate closer to family in Somerset but taking our jobs and salaries with us. We’ve sold our house within 2 weeks of going on the market, full asking price to first time buyers who love our house as much as we did when we first moved in, and everything seems positive and should be exciting.
But we are getting so downhearted. Relocating to a new area is so tough when we can only arrange viewings at the weekend, we had two planned for Saturday and both got cancelled as other buyers had viewed and made offers before we even got there.
Our current home was our first as owners, we moved from rented and our vendors had no chain so it all happened really quickly, so this time around is our first as both buyers and sellers.
My question is, how long is a reasonable amount of time to find a new house? Should we be worried that we have sold and are not having success in finding somewhere? It’s only been a couple of weeks but my OH is worried we might lose our buyers even though they say they can wait. Are we panicking too soon? Can it take months to find the right place?
Would love to know anyone’s experience

It's really variable and depends on so many factors. I'm 18 months looking, two sales fallen through at the end because of house/vendor issues.

If you’re keen to make the move ASAP and you’ve got good buyers then you could go into rented in the new area. It’ll also be easier to house hunt if you’re local as you won’t miss out by having to wait until the weekend for viewings.

OP we’re in Somerset and have been looking for a year! We completed on sale of our home in December and have been in rental since then. We’re cash buyers. We have only offered on one property in all that time and sadly that feel through due to the vendors. One, in a whole year!!

It really depends what you are looking for - how big, budget, town or country. The bit of the market in Somerset that were looking for (detached village house) is in very short supply; hence our long search. But your criteria might have a better supply. What I’ll also say is that the rental market is also incredibly hot; we were SO lucky to find our rental.

Have you considered using a search agent? It is a massive help if you can because you’ll get to hear about places before they come on the market, which could make all the difference for you especially as you’re not on the spot to do viewings next day, for instance. Good luck.

If you want me to tell you the name of our search agent please PM me.

It’s unfortunately a how long is a piece of string answer, good luck and as urgent maybe consider renting though that brings more stress.

We had to move quickly for work. We rented in the town we wanted to buy in .
It is quite a tourist town, we quickly realised as much as we enjoyed visiting it , we wouldn't want to own a house there. It took about 18 months but we bought one about 8 miles away.

We waited 8 weeks in March for our seller to find somewhere else, and we’d have waited a bit longer - he was clear that he wouldn’t break the chain from the start, and sent weekly updates through the estate agent, so that worked for us. Unfortunately our buyer felt that was too long and pulled out at 9 weeks.

It’s a “how long is a piece of string” question… really only your buyer can answer, but if you’ve been clear with them, hopefully they’re prepared to wait.

I wouldn’t be breaking the chain for anyone at the moment; rentals where I am are currently 4x more than my mortgage, and I’m not sure being a cash buyer has as much sway as it once did, unless it means you’re willing to pay over the valuation.

I have been in this situation it’s awful. I would say rent in the area you want to buy in. We are thinking of selling and moving to the Somerset area next year. In a similar situation. Rental prices are ridiculous at the moment and we will lose so much money doing that rather than just buying, but I think we will be forced to do that.
Which area of Somerset are you looking in?

Have you registered with all the estate agents in the area and are you pestering them often to ask what new properties they’ve got coming into the market? Don’t just use Rightmove - by the time the listing is on RM the agent will have alerted the hot list and got viewings lined up and might even have had an offer. For instance my DSis’s house sold recently without ever getting on RM.

We are looking at Weston Super Mare and surrounding area so that we are in a central location for various family members and also convenient for work for me which involves regular travel to Reading, Leicester and Shrewsbury.
@NameChangedForAChange yes we have registered with loads of agents. One of our Saturday viewings was only cancelled with less than 2 hours notice so we were already in the area, so made use of the time instead to register with about 7 agents in person.
We know we could move in with family short term if our buyers wanted to get things moving but we are hoping to port our mortgage without getting hit by early repayment fees. Maybe we will just have to think about including that in our costs?

We moved across the country and went into rental. Did a 6 months rental agreement with potential to extend if needed. Worked perfectly. It's incredibly difficult to house hunt from a few hundred miles away.

I’ve done it but into a rental

We moved across the country and went into rental. Did a 6 months rental agreement with potential to extend if needed. Worked perfectly. It's incredibly difficult to house hunt from a few hundred miles away

^ This - great advice about renting & house hunting.

OP if you have had a good offer on your house I'd seriously consider accepting that it's really unlikely you will be able to tie up a sale & purchase. Look at an early-repayment fee on your mortgage as part of your relocation costs.

Also in terms of having eyes on the ground: is there anyone local that can help, family perhaps?? When we originally moved out of London to Dorset we were lucky enough to have my parents who as soon as something came on the market would jump in the car and go and have a look for us, if we didn't already know the road/ location in question. In fact when we found that first post-London house, it came onto RM at say 9am, I rang my dad who then phoned me back 30 minutes later from outside said house saying "it's gorgeous!" I managed to wangle the afternoon off work & jumped straight on the train, booked a viewing for later that day, and subsequently made an offer on the spot.

If we'd have waited to the weekend it would have gone!

@Daisydoesnt OH and I went for a long walk this afternoon to discuss options and are thinking that including the early repayment fee into our costs is the best plan. My sister is local to the area and we are going to ask her about being our eyes on the ground as she is pretty flexible with her working hours. We also know that we could easily ‘work from home’ at her house if we can arrange weekday viewings, will just have a horribly long commute.
It’s so frustrating as we feel like we are moving for the right reasons to support my parents and are desperately hoping for good karma!
Thank you to everyone for their advice