Giving up on hopes of moving - WWYD?

[NoFitStateMum]

It's been a whole year since we had agents round to value our house and chose on to go with. Almost a year since we accepted the offer from our first buyers. They waited 6 months while we searched in earnest. We have viewed in excess of 60 houses now. Have offered 8-10% over asking and keep losing out to people offering more or with nothing to sell. Our latest buyer was secured before Christmas after the previous ones (understandably) moved on to another purchase.
I'm worn down and mentally exhausted.
We have loads of equity and good savings and salaries so can afford a decent purchase amount and still can't find anywhere. We're stuck in a house that's two small for our family our 4 and just doesn't suit our lifestyle. We need a usable garage for sports storage, a proper utility space, space to accommodate family who live hours away and visit often and possible home gym / office space, bigger bedrooms for our kids and more living space with separate rooms ideally. We have no extension or conversion option due to the style of house and size of plot (1960s, low pitch roof semi, narrow side access, 1 decebt double, 1 small double and a very boxy box room) and already extended downstairs so garden is only just big enough still.)

Sick of the limbo. If we aren't moving there is plenty to do to update things here but there is also a ceiling price on these houses so I don't want to spend too much. Do we keep looking or try again in a couple of years and make some decorative changes meantime? But will my age (45 now) be an issue re: mortgages in a couple of years time?

All my friends are extending their houses and converting their garaged and lofts, because they can and I can't blame them. If we could, we would.

Aaaaaaghhhh!!!!!

I feel your pain. We are in a similar-ish position except we had an offer accepted end Nov on a new house. Our vendors are now on their 2nd solicitors, we're on the 2nd buyer for our house as the 1st gave up and there's no end in sight.

We have no idea how long the chain is and we're going to have to get a new mortgage as our offer runs out in 8 weeks. If there was something better to buy we would. Just have to sit tight, hope the chain doesn't collapse, and hope the fees bill doesn't get much higher

It's what putting me off moving and we desperately need to - WFH, 3 young children but also several cats which means impossible to rent - our current house is Beth a stater house
We are just going to have to stay put for at least 2 years until hopefully the market settles down - hopefully the summer will be hot - we have a big garden so less time spent inside a too small house means hopefully won't notice it too much

Yeah, mortgage rates are only going up. The current mortgage the deals are noticeably worse than others we had seen earlier on in our search. We have viewed houses where the vendors are in a similar position to us. I also know of houses we viewed at the very start of our search a year ago and which we didn't offer on or secure and which still haven't completed either cos of collapsed chains or vendors not finding an onward purchase. My neighbour's parents live v locally and have been under offer for a whole year. They're massively downsizing but refuse to move more than half a mile away so aren't having much luck.
It's an awful market and the agents promises of 'lots more about to come onto the market' never materialise.

If you are getting outbid then you need to look at cheaper properties. 30% over asking is more common in some areas.

HopelesslydevotedtoGu (great username btw!)
You make some good suggestions, most of which we have considered but some we might need to revisit. We have all open plan downstairs so both of us working there at hot desks is tricky. As far as putting a desk in a bedroom goes, we would struggle to fit a desk even into our bedroom which is the biggest. The kids have a small, 50cm wide desk that they share wedged into their small shared double atm. The box room can't accommodate a decent size desk when used as a bedroom either.

We looked at garden rooms a while back and at the time the prices and wait time meant we ruled it out. We could just about fit one into the garden but it would kind of dominate. If we were staying longer term I might be more open to it.
If our garage was located alongside the house we could convert it to be more useful but ours is the kind that's in a block around the corner from our road so not so useful beyond basic storage.
Our house was perfect for our needs 10 years ago when we bought it but now it really isn't. :(

30% over asking would start to cause valuation issues for most who need a mortgage, surely?
It's not common here. I would love to have had offers 30% over asking for my house! 🤣

How old are your kids? If you've got a few years before secondary you could look at a new area. They will have time to make new friends before going up to secondary.

We have a 70s chalet style house and raised the roof on one side to give us a master bedroom with en-suite in the redundant eaves space.

If you're very open plan downstairs could you re introduce some walls / partitions to help with the WFH issues.

Can one of you return to the office or do a more timeshare arrangement.

Can you do a double height extension?

We've just moved, we found our onward purchase then sold to a first time buyer for less than the highest offer who was in a chain. We then had to be very insistent that completion went ahead without delays or we would pull out. It wasn't a pleasant experience (and I got called horrible for pushing the completion on here).

Can you offer something else to your seller? Round here searches are causing chains to collapse as they are taking weeks to come back, could you offer say 10% over asking plus you will take delayed searches indemnity to ensure completion or no survey, I would have took a lower offer from a buyer like that to get it over the line.

You have the advantage of commited buyers by the sound of it.
I'd set a deadline, say end of May to find something or make the best of what you have a bit longer.

It's not ideal but it is cheap in the current cost of living crisis. Make the best of it you can with a trip to IKEA and clever storage.

Is there anything that could improve layout without major work? Move a stud wall to make bedrooms more equitable? Steal a bit from hall?

Your only option is minimal changes that make it more enjoyable to live in for a year or so while things calm down

@imaeasteregg

Could you move into a rental so you are chain free?

I don’t blame you OP. We moved last year, I would have backed out if our buyers weren’t prepared to wait. Its too an important decision, to make a mistake. And the lack of rentals available, would have made it an unethical choice for me. I hope it all works out for you, it’s a very stressful process.

OP, we're in the process of buying a house - hoping to exchange soon.

We were slightly caught by surprise with the escalating house prices and rush of interest for every property! Ours is a complicated situation as both me and my DM are selling and we're buying a bigger house for her to have an annexe.

Her house took ages to sell. All of a sudden, the houses just weren't affordable - and as this will be a final move for DM, it has to work long time for my family too (and we have lots of needs due to a combination of WFH and SEN DC who are unlikely to ever live independently).

We eventually discovered an amazing doer-upper which was about £70k less than what we were expecting to pay. When we complete we're going to be doing an absolute ton of building work downstairs right away - the main house is being completely renovated and a big extension added, plus new kitchen and bathroom, creating a study. The annexe which is already part-built is being extended, a kitchen added, plus new floor and roof. Basically nothing downstairs is staying the same in either the main house or the annexe. The amount of work is terrifying.

But, we found a wonderful builder and fingers crossed, hopefully a decent architect and when the building work is done the house will be amazing. We don't know yet if we can afford to do everything we want on the main house immediately - I'm hoping so but I'm not 100%. If not, we'll go as far as we can and then try and finish it off in the next couple of years. My brother - with a small toddler - managed without a proper kitchen in his house for nearly two years!!! I have no idea how he did it (and he's frequently the main cook in the household so no fobbing off onto SIL).

If staying where you are is so miserable - find a project. A house with space. Lock into the mortgage rates before they rise. From what you're saying, it won't be worse than where you're already living and if you can't afford to make it perfect just yet, then you're not worse off but you have a property and land that you can increase the value of by doing work.

It doesn't matter if you don't get everything you want immediately. The way I looked at it was that I was buying a house that had potential. That's what you want in a property, don't look for something that ticks every box and is the finished article.

We have a chain-free buyer and a budget of £450k. We're now only really looking at properties worth £400k so we can offer over.

We'd consider renting if something suitable comes up. That way, we'd be chain-free and could also consider buying something that needed serious work doing that we wouldn't be able to live in straight away. We're just trying to be creative and open-minded in a very difficult housing market. Like you, we're bursting at the seams in an open plan house unsuitable for home working.

Have thought of staying put a year or two longer but I'm not sure how much different things will be then? Prices and mortgage rates just seem to be going up and up. And the gap between prices for 3 beds like we're selling and 4 beds like we're trying to buy is huge and getting worse (£150k ish).
We can try to make here work better but we can't make it any bigger which is the main problem. Just a crappy situation all round. We had planned on putting the house up for sale just as the pandemic hit so we're already 2 years behind schedule iyswim?