House move dilemma!

[melsw]

Looking for some advice on a house move dilemma we are currently having! We decided we wanted to move earlier this year, nothing particularly wrong with our house but would like more room upstairs as I work from home, a garage for storage and just want to be in a slightly nicer area. We saw a couple of properties we really liked but hadn’t got a buyer for ours so we missed out. We’ve now got a buyer who is selling to a cash buyer so a small chain however nothing is coming up in the area we want to be in. I want to stay fairly local as my DS is settled at school (year 2) with some really good friends. There are some really good houses coming up about 3 miles away in a nice area but I’m reluctant to move from the area we’re in. I feel really settled here, my DS is happy, I’ve got some great mum friends/support network at school, we’re members of the cricket club across the road etc. It’s a perfect location but there just aren’t any houses to buy! My husband would happily move to the area 3 miles away but he doesn’t have the same sense of community I do with working from home. I’m worried we’re going to lose our sale but I just don’t feel happy with the upheaval of a new area. Our DS wouldn’t need to move schools necessarily but I want him to be close to his friends as he gets more independent and it also means he’d end up at a different high school. Not really sure what my question is but any thoughts gratefully received!

Have you spoken to all of your local agents to check if they have any houses coming on soon? I would just hang on as long as possible, it can all change in one day. Worse case scenario, your buyers pull out but they'll know you're waiting for the right property so are probably happy to hold on for a while.

I wouldn't compromise on area just for the right house, personally. You'd kick yourself if you missed out on a good house in your area.

We’ve had the same issue in that there is nothing coming up which is suitable within the catchment of the high school that our kids primary school feeds to. There are lots of things in the village just outside the catchment.
in the end we told the agents to pause marketing ours and will wait it out to see if things start to come up, or worse case get the kids into secondary then we have more choice of area x

Is it an area where you can rent pretty easily? I’d get the sale of yours done, cash in the bank and then rent somewhere (either a holiday rental for a few months- if your sale will take until September) or a 6 month rental in a flat. From what you’ve said it sounds like houses in your area are pretty scarce and you need a bit more time to decide whether to change areas. If you let your sale falll through, it will be Sod’s Law that the perfect place will come up just as you’ve lost your buyer.

You sound as if you really want to stay very close to where you are right now after checking with
local estate agents that there is nothing coming up. I am very attached to our local area too. Even moving just a mile away wouldn’t feel the same to me as we are involved in the community too. I think I would stay put where you are and maybe try another time when there are more people selling.
lots of people are very reluctant to sell at the moment. Maybe long term, move when kids are starting secondary school, it may feel easier.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts. It’s helped me clarify that I do want stay in this area and focus on location rather than the house. I think we’re just going to have to be patient (and hope our buyer’s are too!) for something in our area to come up. I really don’t fancy renting as we would have to pay a huge early repayment fee on the mortgage. As much as we want to move I don’t want to risk moving from the house we’re currently in for nothing suitable to come up and then we’re stuck in rented for ages. It’s very frustrating as all the estate agents said the market would have got busier by now but it actually seems like less properties are available compared to Jan/Feb. Off to scroll Right Move again….

Do you have any scope for extending OP? A loft conversion for upstairs space and building a decent size outbuilding?

Yes it sounds like you need to jointly agree to a very clear area. Hopefully your buyers will wait but one other thing is you can usually port your mortgage but with a payment holiday which I normally think is about 6 months- so if you went into rented you can avoid paying the early repayment fee provided you buy somewhere within 6 months of selling your last place. You might want to check that out. And yes no one really wants to go into rental but sometimes it’s the only way to get things in sync!

Is your house just too small op? Sounds like it's in the perfect location for you and nothing else will quite measure up location-wise. But if you're sure you want to move then just hold on. There's not much else you can do. If there are not many houses near you then does that suggest you'll find another buyer fairly quickly if you need to?

All I would say, is be careful giving up something you may regret. Luckily we found a local property, but when we moved we really wanted to stay in the same area (ended up moving two streets away!). DH sometimes talks about moving away, but DD has actually said he's silly to even contemplate as I've got lots of friends here, he has a couple and a couple three miles away - we've got everything on the doorstep we could dream of other than the sea.

Have you tried putting leaflets through doors locally to try and get a private sale? That's how we ended up in this house, we had 4 people respond to our leaflets, two elderly down sizers and two houses where they were applying for probate. One was out of our budget, one we agreed a sale and they then couldn't find anywhere to buy so they pulled out after 10 weeks, the second house we started to buy but then a couple of weeks into the process we were contacted by someone selling our dream home which we bought directly from the relatives of the deceased. Many people in our locality are keen to see the houses go to local families with a connection to the area.

Thanks again everyone. Me and my husband had a good talk last night and we both agreed that we want to stay in this area and the other area he was considering wouldn’t work from the perspective of our DS and our life round here. I have contacted our estate agent this morning as I remember them saying when we had our original valuation that they could do some sort of marketing campaign in a certain area so will see how that goes. Otherwise I will look into some leaflet dropping on the streets we really like.