Buying before selling - how did you make it work?

[okeedokee]

Hi,

I came across this older thread where quite a few people said they successfully had an offer accepted on their next home before selling their existing one, which I found really reassuring to read. https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/property/4912392-if-you-viewed-houses-before-yours-was-on-the-market

We’re hoping to upsize locally and are finding that the right houses for us only appears occasionally (1 - 2 months), whereas homes like ours sell quickly once listed (one open day, offers made and accepted days later). Because of that, we wanted secure a purchase first rather than selling and making our buyer wait indefinitely until we find the right place and are successful in our offer.

I asked the question on Reddit and though several people said they were in the same predicament (fast to sell, slow to buy), the overwhelming response was that sellers wouldn’t seriously consider an offer from someone who hasn’t already sold, which didn’t quite tally with the experiences people on the Mumsnet thread.

Many people on reddit suggested we rent, but I don’t think that’s practical as short-term rent quickly eats into our deposit (making us increasingly less competitive than we are now), and it would be difficult to find long-term rent as all local agents know we’re looking to buy. We also have a baby and the double move would be a stress, it’s hard to get a place at a nursery here so would also be anchored to looking in a very specific already.

So I’d really value hearing from anyone who has actually done buying before selling (or has any tips on how to do it).

• How were you able to have an offer accepted before your own home was on the market or under offer?
• How did you show the seller and estate agent that you were a proceedable/credible buyer?
• Did you have valuations, finances, solicitor etc lined up beforehand?
• Were there any particular hurdles or things you’d do differently next time?

Particularly interested in real experiences rather than theory if possible.

Thanks in advance for your responses.

We did it. We only made it work because we were able to borrow the deposit for the new house from family and because we had no outstanding mortgage on the old house. Luckily there was actually only a crossover of a few months where we owned the two houses in the end. I can't see how we could have done it any other way as the mortgage lenders would not have considered us able to afford the new mortgage if we still had another mortgage to pay at the same time.

We did it, but only because we were very prepared and realistic about the risks.
Before offering, we had:

• Two estate agent valuations done
• A clear idea of what ours would realistically sell for (not the hopeful price!)
• A mortgage agreement in principle for the new place
• A solicitor lined up
• Savings to cover stamp duty and fees without relying on sale proceeds immediately

When we made our offer, we were very upfront that our house wasn’t on the market yet, but we showed the agent the valuations and explained that we’d list immediately if our offer was accepted. We also priced ours slightly competitively to ensure a quick sale once listed. It probably helped that the sellers weren’t in a huge rush. I do think in a very hot market some sellers won’t consider you proceedable until you’re under offer — but it’s not impossible, especially if you can demonstrate you’re organised and serious. The biggest stress was the timing. You’re taking a gamble that your place will sell quickly and for what you expect. If I did it again, I’d line up photography and the listing details in advance so we could go live within days. It’s doable, but you need strong nerves and a clear backup plan.

Great tips!

We're getting valuations done now and then we'll get our aip, and our cash deposit (before selling ours) would still cover 10% of our likely offer, we'll start to research solicitor now. We are in a hot market in East London though, so it will be competitive.

I don't think we could line up photography and the listing details in advance as (to my knowledge) our EA would only go through that work once we were actually ready to put it on the market.

Would you say it would make a stronger offer to either A: say to the agent we're buying through that they can sell our home (so they get the commission and are in control of the chain) or already have chosen an EA (so we're a slight step ahead in the process)?

In my area you can view without having an offer on yours but the agents/vendors don't accept offers until you are proceedable, they just sit on them and use them as a tactic with other potential buyers.

I have an easy to sell house but it will still take months not days, the market where we are is very slow unless you list really cheaply. I put mine on a couple of weeks ago and I have three viewings booked, that's it. It was the same when I listed two years ago (we pulled out of purchase due to lots of issues). It took a couple of months of about one viewer every two weeks for it to sell.

Buyers around here hope for the mythical cash buyer above everyone else because so many chains collapse, so if the kind of property you're after is likely to be appealing to a downsizing boomer you're pretty screwed (as we find out pretty often as we seem to have similar requirements).

I think it’s fairly normal with a time limit to find a buyer for your own property (and potentially- the vendor may chose not to take the property off the market whilst you do this)

the market is slow at the moment, I wouldn’t have any concerns.

if any dilbert estate agent “refuses” to let you view just tell them you’re a cash buyer.

We got a bridging loan from the bank (OK this was over 20 years ago). That paid off the mortgage on our old house until we sold. It was a fairly common thing back then. Not so sure about now.

We had a saleable property both times, made a good offer, and were upfront. We were looking in a small area for the "right" house, so it was pretty obvious why we were selling only after we'd bought. Used the same agent to sell our house, which meant they knew what we were selling and how long it might take.

Second time we got the basic Homebuyers Survey done on our house (we're in Scotland, so the vendor needs to get one before they can sell) the day we offered, which shows vendors you're serious and informed.

Vendors were nervous, but ours sold chain free within a couple weeks, which is what we thought would happen.

Hi, we’re just about to offer an a property and we haven’t got ours on the market for the same reasons as you. We aren’t desperate to move and were expecting to wait another 12 months, but we’ve seen a property we really like now. Whilst I can’t say the vendor will accept our offer (can update next week!), she is keen to sell and has already had to reduce her price once. The estate agent has hinted that they are struggling to get interest and seemed very unconcerned by our not being on the market as she remarked ours would sell fast and we reassured that we’d been in touch with estate agents to get the ball running. I am a little worried ours won’t in fact sell as I think we’re still dining out on the reputation of our area in a better market, but fingers crossed. We are also offering 30k under asking, so not expecting the vendor to accept, but worth a go!

Good luck with the offer! And yes please update when (hopefully) it all goes through. I'm in an area where there'll probably be multiple offers on the house we'll want to buy next so and it might be hard to make the winning bid if we're competing against people who have already sold their house (never mind cash/chain free buyers)

Our friends want to buy but hadn’t marketed their home. They now find it’s £50,000 less than they thought to shift it. Good area and schools but nothing much selling. Be very careful!

@OhDear111 ours may be more difficult to sell than I’m hoping too, but the vendor is struggling to sell the house we’re offering on, so we’re all
in the same boat. Worst that happens is that it falls through I guess but I’m thinking positively 😊

@okeedokee I’ll update!

I meant to add, the estate agent showed them the property they want to buy, but the owners declined an offer. They would rather wait for someone proceedable, hence the price of theirs now being competitive. As there’s several similar houses on the market with similar prices, it will be what buyers prefer as they are geographically close to each other. Many vendors want you to have sold to be q serious buyer.

I think it must depend where you live. We’ve just bought a house and not a single agent would even show us a house unless we were proceedable.

I think it depends on the property. When we were buying last time we wouldn’t have been able to view unless proceedable, sold etc. however, the market has changed and the vendors is struggling to sell and get any interest in the property so the estate agent didn’t seem to give a monkeys that we hadn’t yet sold as she also felt ours would sell quickly and is clearly struggling to get interest. So I think there’s a lot of variables.

We did.
We were after a very particular type house and not many were in our budget (when I say not many, I mean we found 2 at the same time in over a year of looking). We’d only bought the house we had at the time a year ago and it had an open day for viewings and 4 offers over asking price that day, so I was very confident we would sell quickly, but was conscious that it would be a ‘how long is a piece of string’ situation as when or if we would find a suitable house that we could afford.

Our now current house had been on the market for a while and had the price reduced into our budget. We initially offered asking price and they said they wouldn’t accept until we’d sold. We offered some more money and asked for a 2 week grace period to sell our house.

They agreed, we had buyers within a week and it all worked out.

It was a very nail biting time!! But I was absolutely desperate to have this house.

@manifestationmama What our friends wish to buy was listed in October. They have been ultra slow getting theirs on the market and it’s a bit marmite. Large slightly scrappy garden but no downstairs cloakroom or utility snd same layout as designed in the early 60s. Loo separate from bathroom with no sink! Yuk!! The houses worth more have all been extended and most have really nice gardens. It’s well decorated but they are having to find a price difference of £150,000 to get a bungalow that’s now competitively priced but has had minor damage due to tree roots.

People always believe their house will sell but with so many new houses available and plenty of others to choose from that do have a downstairs cloakroom and utility plus better kitchens, it’s not guaranteed to sell. The price drop is frightening in the last year though.

@OhDear111 gosh sounds like a tricky situation for your friends! It’s definitely a slow market in our area, but that is true of our onward purchase too. Feeling cautiously optimistic here but I’m realistic 😊

@manifestationmama It seems the extended ones on their estate sell. The cost of extensions has made the unaltered ones lose value. The extensions many have done are £80,000 plus and many have added a bedroom. It seems the original ones are now struggling because all the new homes have better interiors although less garden. It’s all a bit nerve wracking for them as they need a bungalow,

Why not simply get an offer on yours? You can tell the agent and buyer you are looking so they don’t hassle you. You don’t have to pay fees until sale is complete. This is very normal for agents. You will be able to negotiate a much better price if you are procedable

It must vary by location/market. I'd be very surprised by any agent who would advise a seller to take a property off the market based on an offer from a buyer who hasn't sold yet. Why would they? They'd keep doing viewings and accept the first proceedable buyer surely? I wouldn't take my house off the market if you weren't ready.

DD completed last week in this very situation. Once she knew she wanted to move she made her house sale ready. Declutterred, touched up paint work, made the garden immaculate.

She had just done this when THE house came back up for sale following a fallen through sale. She was allowed to view but the agent wouldn’t accept a formal offer until hers sold.

Over the course of a very stressful 3 weeks she dressed her house for pictures, listed the property, did 12 viewings, received 4 offers, accepted one from a lovely lady in a great position and was finally able to have her offer accepted.

She’s now in her dream home. Took five months from start to finish and a lot of ups and downs along the way.

Yes we could. Though I think we would need to find somewhere before exchange (not completion). The issue is the discrepancy between how quick it might be to sell our place (weeks) and how long it might take to find the perfect new home (6+ months) and that might put buyers off as they'd have to wait so long with no fixed date when our house would become theirs.

I think if I was selling my house I would weigh up several things: the offer price, the buyers financial strength (their deposit/AIP/LTV), their flexibility on completion dates, and the saleability of a buyers current property if they hadn't put it on the market yet. If our EA felt that the buyer had very saleable property and realistic expectations for the price, I would consider it. I would also put a deadline on it and say their offer is accepted contingent that they sold there's X weeks.

@okeedokeethat is what we’re going for. The estate agent that we’d instruct tomorrow if offer accepted has said he’s happy to write us a formal letter detailing how quickly he thinks it’ll sell in order to strengthen our offer. We’ve got a conveyancer lined up that we’ve used before and a DIP ready. However; if the vendor doesn’t accept our offer then that’s totally fair enough. If she gives us a timeframe in which to get it sold that’s fine, if she wants more money and someone already sold, that’s also fine. Like you we don’t want to sell and then be unable to find, that’s happened before in our last house and it was awful messing everyone about, but there simply wasn’t anything for us to buy.

We did similar to this. However the risk was our house took months to sell, despite us thinking it would sell within weeks. We ended up losing the house as sellers didnt want to wait any longer. So we stayed on the market, found another house (even better than the first we offered on) and we did similar things. Explained our house hadn’t sold yet but wanted to make an offer. They accepted, we sold within 2 weeks of our offer being accepted (also changed agents as they were an issue). And now we have just exchanged - So it is possible! Just depends on the sellers conditions on whether or not they are in a rush or are willing to wait…