Fell in love with a house that's for sale

[lunylovegood]

I browse Rightmove like it's Instagram, we have known for a while we have wanted to move, but we're planning to do it in 2024.

We are in a position now, and financially able but have only just booked a value on ours due to seeing this house and just figuring why not. My question is- how unrealistic is it of us actually getting the house we've fell in love with considering we have only just started the process timeline wise?

I've decided where I'm putting my furniture and everything and my DP keeps telling me I'm setting myself up for disappointment

Judging by how selling is going round here I’d say a good chance (people are mostly quite reluctant to buy ) but then you have to sell yours first so it will depend on what you can do there probably . We went on with too high a price with our house after being in a similar position and still trying to sell some months later (we were lucky in that we knew the sellers and for now they are waiting but we will end up losing out money wise due to having to drop our price so much ). We were badly advised and have just switched agent .

I put my house on the market because I really wanted one that had just been put up for sale. Ours was on the market by the time we went to view (open house situation) but because we weren't proceedable they went with another buyer. We then found a buyer, and put an offer in on another house which is on a par with the first one. We got it, and about two weeks later the chain collapsed on the first one we liked and it went back on the market.
All you can do is put an offer in, get your house on the market ASAP and see what happens. It depends what the competition is like in your area, we're in a real hot spot where there are only a limited amount of houses with 4+ bedrooms.

Should have said - fingers crossed for you though and getting the right agent seems to be the key (I hope anyway as I really am hoping to sell now we’ve switched !)

Thanks both!!

I hope the new agent gets your house sold!!

It all feels like a rush but I can't stop myself looking and working out what rooms gonna be what. I know I'll be so disappointed if it sells!

Luckily we're in a pretty good position in ours so we can afford to price fairly low if needs be, or accept a lower offer.

Hope you both get what you want!!

More likely in this market than when houses are flying off the shelf. Go for it. Price your own home as low as you can to generate maximum interest and offers.

Hope it works out for you @lunylovegood! I think that it depends hugely on how the market is where you're selling/buying. If you are able to price yours very realistically I imagine you'll have a better chance of securing it.

It happened with us a few years ago - I saw and fell in love with a house on RM, but ours wasn't quite ready to market. We'd been renovating it (mostly DIY) and still had a couple of rooms to complete. The house - which had been for sale almost a year - suddenly went sstc but we kept on working on ours and a few months later the sale fell through. As ours was now finished we put it on the market at a realistic price and secured an offer fairly rapidly (5 weeks) in an area where we'd been warned we might struggle to sell quickly - although the other house had gone sstc again. By the time we were in a position to start viewing, the 'dream house' was again re-available, we offered and the sale/purchase went through.

Coincidentally we're in a similar position now. We're planning to relocate back closer to family and I've been obsessing over following RM closely for a while in our chosen area. Unfortunately for us, in the part of the UK we hope to move back to, decent houses are flying off the shelf still, so anything that's suitable is selling fast. We (again!) aren't quite ready to market ours so I should step away from RM really 🙄

Thanks everyone!!

To be fair that's why we were waiting until next year, there's a couple of snagging list jobs we've not got round to E.g. new flooring, landing decorating etc, but the estate agent (appreciate he's got a job to do) said it's worth not doing it cause what you spend you won't necessarily get back so we figured we might as well test the water. I honestly have my fingers and toes crossed, it's a big jump from a starter home to our "forever home" but we're quite fussy so I was astonished when something came on the market in our budget with everything we're looking for.

Hope everyone gets the houses/sales they want!!!!

You can try, especially at the moment, but do keep your hopes realistic. I wouldn't worry at all about those small jobs, likely new owners will change so would be a waste. Just price appropriately, and do discuss what you'll do if the house you love isn't available.

I'd also be a little cautious if the house you love does seem low price for what it is - I'd want to know why, and get a full survey as soon as you can.

Depends a bit on the seller's circumstances too. If they are not in a rush, a motivated buyer is really attractive, as unlikely to let them down at the last minute.

It might be worth an initial approach to the EA, to get some background. No point building your hopes up, if the seller is desperate to sell quickly.

Good luck!

Luckily it's not underpriced, it's fairly average for what it is, it just has some weird specifics that appeal to us (utility room, downstairs shower, big bedrooms, high ceilings) and it's in our dream area!

Didn't think about approaching their estate agents, I always thought it wasn't worth it until we had a value/mortgage in principle but may be worth a call!
Thanks so much for all of your advice!