How long will byers typically wait until we find a property?

[bookmarket]

We accepted an offer 6 weeks ago. They have no property to sell. I am feeling quite anxious about it all. We're looking frantically for something to buy but there's only been 3-4 properties a week to look at and some of those are clutching at straws just so we are seeing things. It took us a few weeks of looking to learn what our acceptable compromises are, so I suppose we have been looking hard for the past 3 weeks. Every week the estate agent calls I feel sick. Every buyer will be different, and I know no-one can answer my question.

I guess I am looking for the experience of others. I think in my heart I am fully expecting them to get fed up and pull out.

We’re moving into rental to prevent this happening. We already have an onward purchase but it’s taking absolutely ages to go through, so to save my anxiety I’ve said let’s just sell the bloody house !!

Go into rental. You’ve got a window for buyers until the summer holiday realistically and then the market will go quiet. I’d advise you move out asap and then start looking.

I'm reluctant to do that as we rented between our last house sales and the market was awful and took 14 months to find a house and 16 months to move. If we had family nearby to live with I'd be more tempted, but don't want a year out of paying back our mortgage as we only have 6 or 7 years left and a retirement looming for one of us.

We’re the buyer in this situation. Offer accepted eight weeks ago. Sellers are ‘actively looking’ according to their estate agent, but I have to admit I’m getting a bit itchy about it. We don’t need to sell to move, so that’s one thing - we don’t have that pressure from below us, so that sounds similar to yours. I guess soon we’ll have to weigh up how much longer we’ll wait before finding somewhere else. I love the house though. It’s everything we want. The idea of starting over again fills me with horror, but so does the idea of not moving this year at this rate! I’ve come to realise this house buying thing is just a load of time wasting!

Fingers crossed your buyer is patient and you find somewhere. It’s so fucking stressful and miserable for everyone.

But if it took you that long to find again, your buyers wouldn't wait anyway?

If I was your buyer I would actively looking at other properties.

We plan on moving next year. We already study the property sites and drive by homes to gauge the area so we know what areas we may be interested in, plot size/house size, layout etc. we always know there are compromises to be made so we’re studying to know in advance what is acceptable or not.

did you not look before putting your house up for sale or while it was being marketed?

in answer to your question, it will depend upon the buyers. Are they in rented and need to vacate by a certain date? Are they relocating and need to be in by a certain date? These things all create a time line. Your likely have much more lee way with people living with they’d parents and looking for first home or say an investor.

but for me, I’d give grace for up to 8 weeks then I’d be looking for another property to buy. 8 weeks to either identify a property or that you’d plan to move into rented accommodation.

There is no typical, it depends on their personalities, reasons for choosing your house, and their life context. I think you have to accept you can't control things. Renting in between would give you more control, but not total.

Something to consider is that they're not just waiting for you, they'll be waiting for the rest of the chain after too.
I would communicate with the estate agent to tell the buyers what sort of thing you're looking for to give them an indication of time.
We were told why one person in the chain was taking a long time and it reassured us that they were genuinely looking but that it was just a specific small village without many houses for sale. We did have to wait nearly 3 months in the end for that one person, but we knew they were looking for a 2 bed in that small village to be near an elderly relative, and so were able to see ourselves that there was only 1 very expensive one, and one very poor condition one available whilst waiting but that suitable ones had been up for sale reasonably often in the past. As soon as one came up for sale that was suitable they took it.

So would I, sorry. It really does seem to be a buyers market atm. We’re under offer and our youngest is buying his first home. He only looked at chain free properties to avoid such problems.

Just checking, you put your place up for sale without looking for places to buy first? You started looking when you got an offer?

In this area, there's not much point in looking before you put your house up for sale, as most of the estate agents won't allow viewings unless you already have an offer. And houses go very quickly round here. So anything you looked at online before marketing your property will be gone by the time you can view it.

Well, the market is better now than it was umpteen years ago when we were between selling and buying. But it's still an unknown. We could move out and the market could change or we find a house that takes ages to get through conveyancing.

It depends a bit on your buyer's situation. If they are quite happy where they are living now, they'll be able to wait longer. If houses are hard to sell in their area they might want to hang on to you. Must admit I would start to think of putting the house back on the market after 6 weeks with no progress made on my buyer's side. I'd wonder if they were serious about moving, and whether the house that they are looking for actually exists!

This is normal- a lot of agents wont let you view a property unless you have an offer.

We waited 9 months before giving up and offering on something else. Then the 2nd property we had an offer accepted on we waited 4 months and they also couldn't find anything so we pulled out on that and found a new build so we could finally move and not rely on others. Our buyers waited almost 2 years in total during this whole process. We were all very much done with it!

Not in my market! They're desperate for viewings and happy to show me around.

Times have changed since 2022.

I wouldn't wait. I'd expect you to be making the arrangements to move out of your home as soon as the paperwork could be sorted and contracts exchanged.

Where you go is your problem. I've bought your house and want to complete on it as quickly as possible. Either move into rented or with friends if you haven't find somewhere to buy for yourselves.

If I discovered at this point (6 weeks in?) that you still hadn't made plans to move/found somewhere I'd actively be viewing other houses.

As someone who has sold and gone into rental property before i wouldn't do it again. Trying to rent with a dog was a nightmare not to mention the hassle of moving twice plus wasting money on rent. I believe it's even more difficult nowadays to find a rental.

I'm planning on moving at some point and I have this worry. I've decided though i ain't moving out till I have a house to move to. I know that means I might lose a buyer (or two or three) but I've decided I'd rather do this than go into rentals.

Moving twice costs a fortune and as I don't have a mortgage paying rent just hacks me off. It's a flippin nightmare though.

Last time the rental property was really noisy (flat with someone clumping about above me) and it drove me mad. This put me under excess pressure to 'find somewhere' and I ended up buying a house that I probably wouldn't have picked if I wasn't under pressure to move.

Unless you can afford to keep your house plus buy another one at your leisure the whole thing is one big hassle.

This was the case last year when I moved, although I don't doubt it varies by market.

If my house was on the market I would tell my agent to not allow viewings from anyone who wasn't proceed-able.

Where we are nobody will let you do viewings until your house is on the market and you can definitely forget about putting offers if you are not proceedable.

Our buyers waited 8 months from offer accepted to moving in, bless them!

We took a month to find a property once we accepted, that was going well then fell through just before exchange. We then had 3 months to find and complete on another property before their mortgage offer expired, and lucked out by finding something that hadn't been put on the open market yet and was dealt with, with no estate agent for the seller.

We completed about 3 days before our buyers mortgage offer expired. None of it was our fault and we kept them updated throughout and we are very grateful that they were patient and understanding.

It probably helped that our property was relatively unique for the area we lived in, and was exactly what they wanted in the area they wanted. Plus, they got a good deal on their mortgage offer, and by the time our initial seller had pulled out, if our buyer had pulled out and had to sort another mortgage, they would have ended up with a worse interest rate and unlikely to have found something as suitable for them.

So for us it was a lot of luck!

Yes, exactly the same with us. Our buyers were FTBs living with family and were happy to stay where they were for the perfect property. We could not even view a property until we were on the market and you cannot offer until you are able to proceed.

That said, we were all over rightmove before our property was listed and was able to start viewing others once we were on the market.

I also told our EA that I wanted anyone who viewed ours to be able to prove that they were proceedable. To many time-wasters (such as our initial seller!).

To answer your question, I think it really depends on how much your buyer wants your house. I would try and speak to the agent to understand what their position is and their level of patience because they are not only waiting for you but also for the chain to complete which could take months. In our case the chain completed in 2 weeks so I guess we were lucky. Our buyer ended up spending 5 months between offer accepted and exchange.

How long is a piece of string? Completely depends on their current housing situation, how much they want your house, how many other reasonable alternatives there are for them etc.

Love the way people are just suggesting "go into rented" like it's that easy (not to mention affordable) - can guarantee this is almost always advice from people who haven't rented themselves in the last decade, if ever, and have no concept of how hard it is to even get a rented property in many places. competition for anywhere halfwhere decent is intense and without any recent references and clearly not planning on staying for long, op will be at the bottom of the ideal tenant list for most landlords.

Thats even before you consider the absolute faff and additional costs of moving twice within a few months.

Yes it's an option but there's a reason most people don't do it when moving, because its an absolute ball ache.

I'd be offering to drop the price if the buyers started moaning before renting myself -would almost definitely be cheaper and much less faff.