Who are all these cash buyers???

[sweetpaws]

Trying to move house but can’t get a look in because we constantly seem to be up against cash buyers?? Who are all these people with so much cash?

Do you live in an area that people downsize to? E.g at retirement? Or move to from London? Or an area with lots of students where landlords snap up the property?

Anyone who sells before buying and realises enough equity to pay for the new property without needing a mortgage will be a cash buyer.

We’re cash buyers, retired and moving to Wales. Certainly not a huge amount of money available but we’re pragmatic and optimistic that we’ll find something.

People who have sold and gone into rented for some reason, such as to keep a chain intact, or who are moving a distance and prefer to rent there first until they work out exactly where they want to be.

People who put their pension pot and savings into a house, then sell previous house to regain their savings and refill the pension pot.

People who have had a legacy/inheritance.

New couple who have sold one half's house, will buy and then sell the other. Or who have sold both so as to make a new start in rented and test out how they feel before committing to a joint mortgage.

From my experience there’s a lot of people who like to go round saying they are cash buyers then when it comes to proving the funds they cant.

Dunno but I know a couple of people who took early retirement due to covid and are now cash buyers looking to invest for their future.

My dad is one of them.

@mayblossominapril but that would get them nowhere what would be the point?

@sweetpaws we were cash buyers and have been ever since..everyone I know (including us) who were cash buyers accumulated their cash from working tax free abroad and the buying and selling to move up the chain. It's quite common.

I have friends who have sold up and moved into rented so as to be cash buyers as they knew they’d get a better look in that way. When they moved it was a crazy hot market with houses going before they ever hit the internet. Not quite so much now.

It gets some of them no where, some try and reduce their offer or get a mortgage. My buyers didn’t have enough so suddenly the in-laws were in on the deal as well!

12-months ago when we first started to look at moving I would have been as surprised as you but we soon discovered that to be taken seriously you need to be at least "sold" but preferably "complete" (and living in temporary accommodation).
My ideal was to buy an old property and then spend the next 18-months having it re-modelled but we are moving for work related issues (with a 90-min commute at each end of the day) and the thought of getting home and having to deal with endless queries from contractors ready for the next morning we had a re-think. Instead we have gone for a newbuild which as it turns out was a great solution as it ticks all the boxes (and more!) and means we can move in without worrying about having work done. Of course it meant moving into temporary accommodation but due to sad circumstances my late parents house became available and we moved into that (rent free so a win win).
One thing we did find was that most developers INSIST you are sold (no help to sell or part exchange around here as they know they can sell every house the build) and as time has gone on we realise that more and more private sellers also want to operate the same way. Of course this can be inconvenient (a double move is twice as much fun as a single one!) and if you are renting, expensive as well (rent on top of moving costs). That said, it does appear to work so when we sell my parents house we may do the same ourselves?

I have a couple of friends who have had lucrative jobs overseas (UAE mainly) where they've lived in rent free company accommodation and saved as much as possible. Came back to the UK with enough to buy outright.

This was back in the 1990's so things may well be different now, but they've never had a mortgage because they have always saved as though they were paying a mortgage so when they've moved house they were still mortgage free as a result of equity and savings.

Around here they are couples in their late 30's with young children....have sold flats in an area about 20 mins away for lots of money...and seems made a lot of money so they now buy a house and then embark of a big refurb....flats probably sold for about 600k and they have bought houses for 700k ish....maybe family money also...all seem to have lots of cash to splash in the local artisan cafes etc...

We were cash buyers. We moved from the south up to the midlands. We stayed with family temporarily after we'd sold our house. We had around 50% equity in our old house, which bought us a slightly larger house around 100 miles further north.

I'm a cash buyer. My husband passed away so I sold the marital homes and bought a house half the size in a cheaper area for cash as I had small kids and wouldn't have qualified for a mortgage. When I sold that I was also able to buy an investment property which I flipped. This last move back to London I had to sell a couple properties to afford it, but still cash.

This is interesting. There’s quite a mix of reasons. This is making me wonder if we should sell up and move into rented so we stand a chance. We didn’t have this issue at all when we moved into our current house. Perhaps it’s where we want to move to too (rural Yorkshire to be close to family).

EA told me here it's overseas buyers like those from Hong Kong, immigrating with lots of cash.

@Tigersauros

EA told me here it's overseas buyers like those from Hong Kong, immigrating with lots of cash.

But that isn't really true is it?

Several people on here (including me) have explained how we became cash buyers and I can confirm that I am not from overseas.

We sold up our home then rented for a while in a new region to work out which area we wanted to relocate to and then purchased our present home with cash.

I think there are more cash buyers atm because of the stamp duty holiday when people were desperate to buy houses.

They got really great offers on their property so decided to sell, make money and be in a better position to buy.

The downside is that there is still a shortage of houses in the market, some sellers have taken their property off the market only to re-list for ££££££ more a couple of months later and in the meantime, buyers are being bled dry by rent.

We are selling up so we can be mortgage free. We built up equity by upsizing and then downsizing. Over a number of moves. If this final move pulls off as I hope, then we will have played the market pretty well over 16 years.

It has been exhausting...

We’ll be selling our large family home at some point to buy a flat. We’ll be cash buyers.

Oooh @MrsSkylerWhite that's what we're doing!

Good time to do it too, since flats have never been less desirable and mortgage rates are about to go through the roof.

Everyone coming to bloody Wales! Currently living with my parents and every time we've been outbid by a cash buyer looking for a fucking holiday home.
I'm in a very naice part of Wales and quite frankly it's really pissing me off not being able to provide a home for my family. Even the double rates isn't putting them off!

People who bought their houses for £3.50 35 years ago and are now downsizing.

Not that I'm jealous or anything

Because of the market being bonkers we’re technically cash buyers - extracting equity from multiple properties we own to quickly buy a larger family home outright, and selling shares we own. We’re you’re typical young family, you wouldn’t look at us twice! There are machinations in the background though (we’d sell some / mortgage the new place subsequently).

Your, ffs