Now I believe it's possible to not be able to find a home to buy

[HopefulMuvur]

When reading threads on MN previously, I didn't actually believe that others genuinrly couldn't find somewhere to buy.

Yet now here I am SSTC and can find nowhere that meets my not particularly demanding requirements. Simply want an older property, not on a big estate, in a particular small town.

Don't need any of the biggies like schools or transport links, and have a decent budget.

My new home does exist yet they seem rarely to come up for sale. I'm registered with all thevlocal EAs.

What did you do if you were in this position?

Have you tried leafleting? A lot of people are probably holding off from selling due to the general election and interest rates, but if they knew a buyer was there waiting to go and they could avoid EA fees and being on the open market, they might go for it!

I’m in a position of knowing we will sell our house soon but can’t really market it yet as we’re waiting for probate to come through on the one we’re buying and have no idea on timescale/ need to do some work to it before we can actually move. If someone leafleted us now we would be happy to agree a sale though, if they could wait a bit!!

Might be someone in a similar situation sitting in your dream house??

Is going into rented an option for you, seeing as you have a buyer?

Ps it took us a year to find the house we wanted - our requirements were a little more specific but we had a huge search area and happy to do work. There has not been much coming on the market and what there has been has been mostly situations where people had no choice about selling (probate in many cases).

I can’t help feeling there are a lot of people sitting on their hands!

Widen my search area.

Widen search, look at different styles of property. Increase budget.
That's all you can do really, unless you pull out of your sale.

I found mine by approaching a man in a street I might want to live on, three doors down from a house I viewed but did not want to buy. We exchanged numbers for his partner to tell me more about the area, and they called me a week later and said “it might be the end of the year by the time we can leave, but would you like to consider buying our house?”

They are very, very good people, and it is a huge relief to us not having to deal with an EA.

We were in the same position, we actually offered on 5 properties before we got ours.. took us over 6 months to finally get a property. I’m amazed our buyers stuck with us!
i think so long as your buyers know you’re trying, if they’re decent human beings, they should be understanding, it’s a lot of money to spend on something not completely right!

I always get annoyed on here when people post saying sellers are stringing their buyers on, taking the piss and why have they sold their property when they aren't committed to moving? They often state they will have to move into a rental, as if this is in any way easy currently.

Nobody wants to leave their buyers hanging and risk their sale falling through, but equally nobody should spend hundreds of thousands on a house with too many compromises out of some kind of loyalty to people they don't even know!

Hope something comes up for you soon OP.

OneDayIWillLearn No had considered leafleting. Will give that some thought.

KievLoverTwo The approaching the man in the street idea really appeals. The locals seem friendly so this is worth a try.

All replies much appreciated. Seems like I will need to move into rented as don't want to lose or let my buyer down.

We were in a similar position although had gone into rental as it was a long distance relocation and we needed to be there by a certain date because of work and school. It wasn't a long term solution though as the rent was considerably more than our mortgage had been. It did mean we were chain-free though which put us in a good bargaining position.

We worked out what our non-negotiables were: within a mile of one point (school), off-road parking, garden, how much bedroom/living space (although configuration could vary).
What our definite not considering points were: flood risk zone, open plan living/kitchen/diner, courtyard garden, woodburner stove, street/permit parking, townhouse with accommodation on more than two floors.
What our nice to have but not a dealbreaker points were: detached house, garage, utility room.

Then fiddled with the search filters on RM, Zoopla and OnTheMarket. OnTheMarket seemed to get some properties about half a day before the others. I set all of those to instant alerts so we could book viewings as soon as possible. Widen the search as much as you can as that means something that doesn't quite meet your criteria will be included. We needed a minimum of 3 bedrooms but also wanted a lot of living space but you can't search on that so we didn't set max.bedrooms.

If you're going past the EA office pop in and stand there looking sad and remind them of your existence and emphasise your brilliant buying position. The EA mailing lists seemed to vary in how useful they were but dropping in reminds them you exist and are serious.

Know the local market inside out. I started looking on RM six months before we relocated (and it turned out to be a year before buying) and looked at what had been SSTC. That gave me an idea how often something even vaguely suitable might come on the market.

One agent offered to leaflet for us. I don't know if that happened but a couple of houses did appear for sale on that straight albeit a while after we ended up buying so maybe it did prompt some people into selling.

Good luck! We ended up getting the utility room, but not the garage or detached house. And we had to have the wood burning stove removed. But prioritising location has really paid off!

Last Friday night I went through every single house on Rightmove within a large county at the right price- about 4,500

Found 8 possibles, 1 was about 30 miles from where initially looking. called to view and luckily they had another viewing which we jumped on to. Viewed it and buying it.

*RidingMyBike that's *really useful step by step guidance which I'll work through.