So, inevitably, our house sale is falling through. Buyers have got cold feet.

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I was sort of expecting it due to the doom and gloom news but since they recently paid for a survey and some other kind of inspection, I retained a little optimism that the sale might still go through.

They haven't come back at us with a revised offer - yet. I don't know if they even will. I guess we can go back to them with a revised offer and see what they say or forget the whole thing.

We have to move. DH has a new job to start in the summer 3 hours away. We have some equity in our house. We could drop the price and hope that we'll be able to buy a house at a relatively lowered price. But that is risky. I am not convinced that prices are going to fall and remain fallen for very long. I'm nervous that we will sell for a reduced price and then prices in the new area will not go down or will go down and go up again by the time we find something to buy.

Should we just rent this place out and rent (we were going to rent in the new area for 6 months anyway) for a year to see where this is all going? Or should we offer to sell at a reduced price and cross our fingers that we can buy a house at a reduced price?

where do you live now and where are you moving to?

We currently live in the South East and we're moving to East Anglia. So house prices have remained the same in the South East and risen in East Anglia the past month!!

tbh iiwy I'd set a deadline by which you would have to have exchanged to enable the move and allow at least 8 weeks prior for an offer before looking at renting. It can be a pita and unlikely to cover itself short term if you have a high loan to value and involve an agency.

I live in Norwich, in a highly sought after village. Nothing has moved much since Christmas and prices are dropping. The house across the road from me was on for sale at £275k last year and has just been reduced to slightly under £250k.

If you can keep your buyer, you may be lucky enough to pick up a bargain here.

They may not have got the survey results yet. I remortgaged Nov / Dec 06 and have to have a survey done, and had to wait 3 weeks for the results, so it could be that, or they could be waiting on the results of the other inspection. Sometimes the building societies take ages to look at the results and come back with an offer.

If they haven't told you they've got cold feet, and they've paid money for surveys then they are serious hopefully and will get back to you. It may just take longer perhaps.

They told the estate agent they have got cold feet.

So have they formally pulled out ?

I think the prices elsewhere will follow suit tbh

We've moved from the SW to the NW for the same reason - DH's new job. Looking at the figures, it makes no financial sense for us to rent our house out since we get more interest putting the amount of equity from a sale in a normal bank account than we would from the rental income and as we had no emotional ties to the area, we decided to sell. Swings and roundabouts. We're be selling in a falling market and buying in a falling market so I would be inclined to reduce your asking price - that's what we'll be doing in the next few weeks. BTW, we're currently renting in the new area and plan to for the next 12 mths if not longer.

Just to add that our house has been on the market for 3 weeks and has had 4 viewings but no offers but because I feel that the market can only get worse, it would be better to reduce the price sooner rather than later.

Thanks for everyone's advice. We offered the buyers a reduced price but they're still pulling out. I think we'll put it back the market for a few weeks and see if we get any more interest. If not we'll have to rent it out.

this happened to us 3 weeks ago, we stayed on the market, and had an offer on our house today for the same amount.
so there is hope if you continue to market