How long to renew rental contract for?

[Cyantist]

We have been in our house for nearly 6 months so the contract is up for renewal. We can choose a new 6 month contract, 12 months or just go onto a rolling contract.
We are looking at houses to buy, but there is absolutely nothing on the market here that suits and there may not be for a while. But I'm worried a rolling contract gives us less protection.
If the landlord gave us notice we would struggle to find anywhere else at all; whereas if we gave notice to move out, they'd have 20 people queuing up to take over the tenancy, probably for more than we are paying. So I feel a bit more vulnerable because of that.
What should we go for?

I'd go for six months. Even if you find somewhere tomorrow it could drag out 6 months. If it ended up being 4 months you could stretch things out a month so you'd have a month overlap, which might be handy with moving into the new place (for cleaning or decorating). I'm in a similar boat. Fed up.

Thanks - this is what I was thinking. I don't want to request a rolling contract and the agents think we don't want to stay here, because we absolutely do! It's just we'd prefer to buy somewhere if the right place comes along (but that seems unlikely).
Our previous sale took 3.5 months and there wasn't a chain on either side so I could see it easily taking longer than that and like you say, some overlap is useful.
I hope you find somewhere soon!

I'd say 6. It took my DD 3 months from offer to completion and that was at a reasonable pace no real hold ups and a short chain. It wouldn't take much to extend that a bit to fit your timeframe and you haven't found anything yet.

12m might also be OK but not if you found something to buy soon! The rolling one is a gamble too although youd hope if the landlord is happy to sign for 12m they arent thinking of asking you to leave anytime soon.

Difficult one.

Thanks Cyantist. Good luck with your search too.

We went for a rolling contract in similar circumstances. Thought the landlord was unlikely to turf us out as, even with queues of people wanting to rent, there are still costs and inconvenience for the landlord in getting new tenants and an element of uncertainty vs us as known reliable tenants. There would always be a void period with no rent as it would be unusual for one tenant to move out and another move in immediately. Plus they'd need to make any repairs and spruce it up again.

We actually ended up staying six months but the rolling contract meant we had the flexibility to do a house renovation and then give notice when we knew it was definitely almost finished.