How much time did you give yourself to find the house?

[HavenSprings]

Hi everybody,

I'm new to the forum, trying to embark on the great adventure of starting a family and buying a family home and, most of all, trying to balance it all out!

So, DH and I started looking for a house exactly a month ago (not a long time, I know!). We quickly learnt that August is a very slow month when it comes to the house market, so we are not worried (especially because we are in rented at the moment, so no hassle of having to sell first).

However, a few things did change our vision on this slightly (still not worried, but getting 'alert'). The first one is that, following the frenzy of landlords wanting to get rid of properties now that things are changing, our landlord is doing the same and selling the building where we live. They ensured us this will not affect us as the new landlords will have to take us on, but you never know what they might do once our 6 months contract expires.

The other thing is that our checklist has become a bit longer once we got a bit of experience through house viewings (things to avoid, that we couldn't work with, etc.) so fewer houses coming on the market check all the boxes (and, may I add, I'm still waiting for the so-called September boom, which hasn't boomed at all in my area?! There are even fewer houses than in August ha).

Anyway! My original question is: provided you were in a similar situation (no urgent need to move, so a bit of time to look around, assess the situation, keep living where you were, etc.) after how much time did you begin to think 'OK, we are not really moving forward, the next decent house will do, even if it's not the one'? Did you have to settled? Did you hold on and waited for 'the one'?

Thanks!

Could you buy the property you're living in now?

We had a window of opportunity tied to school years and work contracts that meant if we hadn't been able to love by X date we would have stayed for several more years. We managed it, but it was a close one. Really pleased we moved!

We are not interested in buying where we live - we don't like the village and can't wait to move out!

Were you pleased with the house as well or just with the close call in finding the house on time?

Settled twice, first time London at a crazy property boom time, financially good move but never felt like home. Second time settled on a not yet built property as moving a distance, was meant to be a stopgap, still here 30+ years later.
You have to take the time to find something you really like but not allow yourself unlimited time to find perfection.

We definitely held out for something that felt right and 11 years on have no regrets. Still love the house. But it never “ticked all our boxes” - we discovered after an 18 month search that the houses that ticked all the boxes didn’t tug at our heartstrings, but when we found this place it just felt right. My advice - don’t settle for something that doesn’t feel right. Especially if you are under no pressure to move.

Spent years casually looking online, but only viewed 4 properties before we put an offer in. Currently going through the purchase process now.

I've definitely compromised...older FTB, toddler think about school admissions in January, in London so massively limited with where we can afford....
Basically settled on a house much smaller than I'd hoped for, but we really wanted to avoid service charges, leasehold etc.

Time will tell if I've made the right or wrong choice!

Thank you all! I'm definitely finding it a struggle to understand when the house feels right. I've seen a couple that seemed good enough for us initially, but then the more days passed the least I felt convinced, like my mind kept finding things that wouldn't work/could be a problem.

Probably that's exactly what you are saying when talking about settling and feeling that the house is right, and these houses just are not right! I'll definitely keep looking - hopefully, finding something within less than a few years/18 months search😬send me positive thoughts! 🙏

Good luck @HavenSprings
It's sure not easy if you have restraints. If you've got flexibility on time/ value etc, I'm sure the right home will find you.

Our current house didn’t check all the boxes on our list, but it was the best we could afford in the timeframe we needed to buy it. Once you make your peace with that aim, I think it becomes easier to make a decision with confidence even if it isn’t your absolute perfect house. (We’ve had an excellent 10 years in our place and are sad to be selling - although we are also looking forward to righting some of the compromises we have made in our next place.)

BUT - and I think it’s a bit but in this market - things are so slow at the moment that there really is very little to buy. So for our next purchase we’ll be planning for a long window in which to find a place. Otherwise I think we might be compromising more than we should.

Thank you for your comments, much appreciated. What are the things you compromised on mostly when you 'settled'?

Needing a huge amount of work done, that we were going to have to do over a period of years.

We bought this house in late 2020, started major renovations (chimney stacks, outside re-rendered, leak in bay window ceiling, inside rewired and replastered, new heating system, boiler etc). A year later, we knocked down the back of the house (old scullery, outdoor loo) and built two new bathrooms (we'd been surviving on a single en suite), a utility and pantry, and some downstairs storage.

Before the end of this year, we're starting a kitchen, as what we have is a tiny concrete shell with a hole in the wall where the Victorian range was!

Then we need to tackle the garden, which is steep and jungly.

Basically, we bought the house because of its location, it had off-street parking (which we needed, and which is a rarity even for very expensive houses around here) and because it was beautiful. But it was also falling down.

We ended up backing out of one purchase when a house we'd lost out on a couple of months previously suddenly came back on the market.

We would have regretted sticking with the first property, and I feel a lot of relief it worked out the way it has. I think there are plenty of compromises when buying a house, because nothing is perfect (not even a brand new property), but the pros have to outweigh the cons. We are happy with where we've ended up.

We started looking for our next home last June, finally found something we liked (and could afford) in March this year, and a couple of weeks ago found out our vendor would not be moving ahead with her purchase, so the chain has stalled until she finds something else.

It feels like we've already been in this process for so long, and still with no end in sight.

When we got the news we went back to rightmove etc, but haven't found anything we like, or that is as suitable, for the same amount of money. And I'm loath to borrow another 30k for a house that isn't as good, in as suitable of a location/school catchment, with a smaller garden, or without off road parking etc etc. I don't think anything we want is wildly unreasonable in a family home that we hope to stay in for 15-20 years, and yet finding something that ticks the non-negotiable boxes and that we can afford is really tough. So right now we are just holding on and hoping our vendor finds something else and we can maybe move in another 6 months or so.