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.

So would I.

Why don’t you leaflet yourself…?

We did this when we lost the house we were due to buy because the sellers withdrew it from the market.
Same as you, we didn’t want to lose our buyer. In our head we had already moved our lives into that area.

So we hand wrote 48 letters and delivered them to houses across 4 adjoining streets to the house we lost.
We had 2 expressions of interest back (plus a number of people wishing us well), and bought one of them.
Since we’ve been here we’ve been on the receiving end of similar leaflets, but they’ve always been typed. If you’re going to do it I would definitely hand write them, do your research beforehand from Zoopla old sales listings to see floor plans etc and target individual houses on that basis. It only takes one

It's not a bad strategy but I don't think it's ideal if you've got an offer in and certainly if you've got first time or cash buyers waiting on you because it's time consuming. You'd have to wait a certain amount of time for responses, and if you do get a response, that person hasn't thought about moving enough to actually have a house on the market so that's going to be a slow process whilst they get it valued and officially on the market so you can buy it and they have to sit and start thinking where they might want to live and what type of house they want and start looking themselves.

What would you have done if nobody expressed interest? Or the asking price was more than you anticipated. That's the other issue if you've got an offer in but decide it has to be that exact area, you could have been sat months or even years waiting for a house on one of those 4 streets to be put on the market.

The house didn’t ever go to market. It was a private sale.

And we didn’t stop scouring the rest of the market in the meantime.

I think your attitude is a bit defeatist. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.

Also I was giving this as an example of being pro-active. Not just waiting to see what Rightmove serves up; but trying to make things happen. It was designed to reassure our buyers that we were doing everything we could.
Slightly baffled by your attitude.

Why are you baffled? You said you had a buyer, then had a a house fall through that you tried to buy and then you decided to letter drop 4 streets because that was where you'd wanted to live, you didn't say you were looking at any other areas or still viewing other houses. That's why to me it felt an unusual stance to do that with a buyer say waiting! Fair enough if you were still looking elsewhere but you said you were only interest in those 4 streets.

It's not about defeatist, when I sold my house I couldn't afford to slow the process right down and lose my FT buyers. You said you only wanted to live on those four streets so perhaps rewrite your comment!

And you can't just knock on a door and pay for someone's house, yes ok you might not bother with estate agents but you still have to deal with property being valued, going through solicitors and mortgage companies.

Did you have the estate agent lined up and all the photos and details ready to go online? It took about two weeks to get valuations, choose and estate agent and for them to get the property ready to market.

Where did I say we only wanted to live on those four streets?

Renting really isn't an option - yet. We stand to lose too much. I can't even see anything on rightmove we could rent for much less than our mortgage and I'm looking within a wide area as we don't have schools to consider, and only one work location.

I've looked at 8 houses so far and have 3 more lined up, but some of them we were clutching at straws. We are prepared to add a single storey extension, or a garden office, and have dropped our requirements for the house overall if the area is what we want and the plot is good. We're not being fussy.

Exactly! That took us about 3 weeks! Letting people view without houses on the market or under offer isn't reducing the chances of selling, I had about 15 people view our house and only two of which were viewing houses without an offer in on their own and one was annoying because they'd lied to the agent that they were proceedable and then admitted at the viewing they weren't. Most people don't view houses until they are in a position to offer. This person obviously took a good 4 to 5 weeks to get on the market and get an offer and it was just good luck that they took an offer in two weeks as they could have lost the house on any given day to somebody else.

You days that your heart was already in to moving to where you'd just had a property fall through and that's why you asked people in 4 streets whether they would sell to you! You stated you were only interested in that area! You didn't state that you were actively looking anywhere else! I cannot keep repeating this to you!

Just ask the buyers clearly what is their situation. As ftb I am assuming they are renting. They might have time before contact renewal or not. Then go from there.

I accept that I didn’t say we were actively looking anywhere else.
However I did not say we were “only” interested in those four streets - I’m afraid you have (wrongly) implied that.

Yes you did, you said your heart was in that location and that's why you letter dropped it! That can only be read one way and that's the way you wrote it! That would have concerned me if I had an offer in your house and that's the one and only reason that I said it wasn't an ideal stance to take when you have a buyer waiting. You've admitted you didn't state important things so move on.

8 weeks if fair imho. After that if still no news of house having been identified I'd be showing to others.

We found our house in January. We didn't move in until July. We were happy to wait because we found what we wanted. And although we bought it as our first home, we've been here over twenty years and will probably only move out into a retirement bungalow or flat!

I was once in a chain that took 6 months, started in September 1994. We had first time buyers who were in rented accommodation. The property we were buying were waiting for their sellers to move into a new build that had been delayed. We all waited patiently, I had my daughter during this time in the November by emergency section, then re admitted to the hospital with an infection in the wound, that took 5 days. I look back now and think how the hell did I cope. New baby, Xmas and moving house the following March. Our estate agents were brilliant and kept the sale going and wouldn’t allow anyone to contact me directly due to a very stressful birth.

Realistically a lot depends on how long your buyer is willing to wait, have your agents asked them this question? If your property is the house of their dreams and there isn’t much choice out there, then they might be willing and patient to hang on 🤗

Put yourself in your buyers shoes how long would you wait. If they are renting there paying out dead money that you say you can’t or won’t do. I think you should just tell the agent your struggling to find a new home so let the buyers know they might be best looking elsewhere and if they really want your house they will wait but it’s unfair to string them all along. At the end of the day you are in your home and you are the ones selling but you’re not willing to compromise so you lose your buyers that’s your problem not theirs.

Going into rent is the only solution , but understand why you may be reluctant to do this and it's not a cheap option (double removal costs etc). Unfortunately your buyers will probably continue to look to see what else is on the market and if they see something they prefer may well pull out. BUT, lucky you to be in a position where you have a buyer.

If you put the proceeds from your house sale into a high interest account (I'm currently getting 4.75% with instant access) then at least you will be making some money that can go towards covering your rent.

Agree. We did this for a couple of years while looking after my 96-year old Dad. But do make sure you keep a record of the movement of your money from the house sale and keep it separate from other money (from income/any other savings) if you can. When we bought another house (after my Dad's death) we had terrible time with solicitors who need to check for 'money laundering'. It's not enough to produce a statement showing what you got for your house sale - you have to provide all the tracking of when and where you move money in and out of accounts (which you'll need to do to get maximum interest as the rates keep changing).

Agree with what you are saying. As soon as you view a house when it 1st comes on the market they are not going to accept a lower offer than asking price as it’s too soon before reality sinks in. There are still too many houses overpriced when they first go on the market!!!

Reading with interest. We accepted offer last week, actively out looking for onward property now (we made this clear when accepting the offer we would not be moving into rental). Sadly the property really wanted has gone off market - rang estate agents to see if sellers would consider but a firm no.

All quite stressful but trying to keep optimistic!