Selling/buying a house in 2022 or the seventh circle of hell

[foxyvox]

We need to move as I've started a permanent post back in August last year (I work in a very niche domain and there are very few posts around the country). Husband works reasonably far away, but we found a town about halfway, which would mean a reasonable commute for both of us. We have small children so schools will be an issue, as will childcare as we work long hours.
We started looking last year; we very quickly found a house we loved. We put our house on the market in January, reduced it within the first month to sell it to be able to make an offer on the house we wanted. The day we made the offer we were told the house had another offer from cash buyers. We went to best and final, and lost the house (we were told it wasn't about the price, they just preferred the cash buyers).
Fast forward eight months.
Our house sale fell through four times. People changing their minds, buyers buyers changing their minds.
We offered on seven different properties and did not get any of them. We even offered 50k over asking on one.
Interest rates have been increasing dramatically. We clearly cannot afford houses we would have been able to when this palava started.
I am exhausted. I have to drive an hour to view houses, and after commuting the entire week this tends to really take it out of me. I really have lost all hope, and feel trapped in such a difficult process.
We have sold our house for the fifth time, to some people who sound really nice.
I don't want to disappoint them and perhaps we should move into rented (although that's also going to be really tough as we have kids and cats!), but I worry in a year the interest rates will effectively mean we can;'t buy anywhere.
I am so tired.
Any positive stories out there? Any insights?
I am sorry to rant, it's really depressing, isn't it.

We are currently on buyers 3 for ours.
However, we have begged, borrowed, but not stolen, every penny we can and have managed to keep the upward chain going. We move on Thursday. That onward chain hasn't been easy either, but if it had been twice as long, it would have been horrific. But we live in a cheap part of the country, and even with 2 houses probably have less mortgage than many of our southern based peers.
If you can, I'd be prepared to break the chain.
Good Luck. I've stressed more about this house sale/purchase than pretty much anything in the past (and that's included an international move!)

I hear you OP. We’ve sold & purchased a lot over the last 10yrs (our friends are convinced we’re nomads) and finally found an onward chain free house after selling ours in feb. Our buyers have been patient, but they lost a buyer a few months back, so at least it reset the clock for us whilst they got a new one. Anxious as our vendor is applying for probate which could take forever, we don't want to break the chain as we want to port mortgage for a decent rate and no redemption fees.
Agree it’s been the 7th circle of hell, too much demand and not enough stock has massively pushed prices up and made it really hard to secure a place. We lost out on so many.

We are finding it difficult too, but mostly because the selection of houses is so poor. While technically FTB my partner and I are in our 30s and would like to start a family soon so aren't looking for the typical FTB house. We have a large deposit/good salaries and still can't find anything. It's not budget because we are staying well below what we can actually afford and would increase it for the right house but just haven't found anything. We've been looking for six months now and have only found one house we even wanted to view and it had been cleverly photographed to hide the fact that the previous owner had run out of money mid renovation!

Everything seems to be tiny 2 bed terraces or large 4-5 bed detached family homes. The few houses in between have either been renovated cheaply or extended in a way that would have to be undone (saw a house yesterday where someone had put a staircase in the middle of the front room!). We would actually prefer a fixer-upper, as long as the floor plan was decent. I've even increased our budget in my rightmove searches just to see what more money could get us and the houses aren't any better, just in more expensive areas, and similar to you Foxyvox, my partner and I will be commuting to different cities so these other areas, while lovely, aren't as convenient for us.

I'm really hoping we are able to find something chain free because I'm dreading the thought of this dragging out for ages.

Its been a while since you posted but i saw this and i had to reply. We are with you 100%. We started look in April last year. Sold our flat quickly and thought we would find a house too. We did find houses except we didn’t realise the amount of competition (FTB, cash buyers, no chain buyers) out there until we started offering. We were so so blown away by the market that what we thought we could originally offer had to have an extra 50k attached just because of our position!! Being in chain was and is like a damn pariah in this god forsaken sellers market.

meanwhile market was increasing by the month. Lost 2 buyers simply due to bullshit excuses we have already said we will move in with relatives to break the chain.
So I decided to take my lovely mother up on her offer to give me my inheritance early, added 100k to the budget- didn’t dent at all as its london and the 10% increase is basically 100k Ffs.

We offered on 13 in total!!! 1 accepted but undervalued by 85k (we offered asking) and another we were gazumped by 25k having offered 25k over asking already.
If we didnt have to move we wouldn’t but we do and thats the worst part. The agents we were offering with kept telling us to go into rented as if its as easy as that and money is falling from the sky.

Our beautiful 1.6% mortgage offer ran out. I still dream about it today. Oh the savings!!!!!!

We are buying in the opposite end of london so the commute to view is also an hour. The weekends lost to estate agents makes me want to pull my hair out. Its like hell on earth and we are in limbo, I hate this evil process to the point i no longer have any desire to view a single house until we have officially sold. I have already told my husband we are NEVER doing this again, i would rather extend 8 times than buy a larger house.

the worst part is we all know a recession is coming so whatever we buy will lose value anyway. Yay capitalism!

I am about to put my late fathers house on the market. I had 4 valuations done and they varied by 35%!
Logically I think house process will start to drop soon but this thread seems to support the information from all the Estate Agents that there are still a lot of people looking.
I am dreading the next few months.

Good luck with the process and sorry to hear about your dad @BeginningBridge At the moment there is nothing on the market as is usual for this time of year. I think the market will stay strong for housing, 3-4% interest rate on a mortgage is actually pretty standard and the bank of mum and dad is funding many purchases so the houses worth buying will fly off the shelves, plus the rental market is dire and many people are desperate to get out.

We viewed plenty of houses and the ones we liked usually had about 25-35 viewings same day and this was only a few months ago. Personally think the only thing that may impact is fear of a recession and bill increase, may mean less people borrowing to their max but I dont think there will be a huge fall though just not the 10% increase seen last year.