How do house sales actually work?

[Thatsd]

So we have a a house we currently pay mortgage on. Now we want to buy another house and obviously sell this one . So what do we do first ? Like do you need offer on your house before you put an offer on another or both things run simultaneously? Just too confused at the moment as I was visiting a newly build house and they said we needed offer accepted. Can you share your experiences please?

We found (9 months ago) that to be able to view a property we needed to at least be on the market and, for many, to have actually sold. But that was before the market turned and we sold after a single ‘open’ Saturday.

Most developers and estate agents prefer you to be in a position where you have sold (STC) your current house for them to view you as proceedable. We put our house on market and only started viewing once we had accepted an offer from a buyer

As above.

Buying an existing house you normally get yourself into a chain and that is where problems occur, different sales move at different speeds and the whole thing can be very stressful with collapsing chains being very common.
Over the past few years (when it all went a bit mad) it has been the norm that a potential buyer has to have at least an offer or be SSTC to even get a viewing but I believe it has calmed down now.

Buying a newbuild was an eye-opener for us.
Yes they were happy to let us look and would pencil our name into a future plot but to reserve you had to be under offer and be able to exchange 42-days later while accepting that it could be up to a year before your new house was ready.
Moving into temp accommodation was the norm unless you had the money to purchase outright, as soon as the purchase depended on the sale of your existing property you followed their rules.
Of course, if your developer offers PX then that could smooth the way considerably.