Please can someone explain to me how you time it right to buy a house.

[absolutelydonothaveaclue]

Bear with me! We bought our house 40 years ago as first time buyers so have never had to buy when we have to sell IYKWIM.

We have come to the realisation that this house is too big and we need to downsize. We are mortgage free and have found a very nice house that ticks all the boxes for us, size, location, position for the sun, lovely garden, garage etc. it’s a 4 year old house so hopefully would be low maintenance, warm and low bills etc.

Trouble is, our house is lovely, we’ve spent a fortune over the years and it’s just as I want it. I don’t want to just buy anything and we are probably too fussy so there’s a very strong chance that this house we’ve seen will be sold before we can ever get ours on the market.

It seems that if we want to downsize we just have to be unfussy and have to just go if we sell ours but I don’t just want to go to anything. I’ll be heartbroken leaving our place as it is!

How do you time it? Put yours up for sale and if it sells say you will only sell if we can find a perfect house? Can you provisionally offer but say we need to sell first? I can’t see how people take the chance and move! What if you sell but can’t find anything or find something but can’t sell! We are too old to get another mortgage and don’t have £300k in the bank to buy and sell our house afterwards.

Am I missing something here? 😂😂😂

You get yours to market asap. You have no obligation to sell. You really need to get an offer on yours and be proceedable to make a serious offer on the house you've seen but view it anyway (if they will allow you to) If the house you like goes and you get the price you want for yours, move into rented until you see something else you want to buy. Then you are in an excellent position - chain free and cash buyer.

A colleague has had an offer on his flat (it's been up for a year) but the person who has offered has only just put theirs on the market so needs to sell theirs first. I was under the impression you needed to be sold to see other places for sale but our agent was more than happy for us to look at another of their properties two days after we put ours on the market so that doesn't seem to be a thing anymore.

If you price it right, you'll sell immediately. A friend of ours put their bungalow up on a Sunday (weird) and was sold by the following Friday. Another colleague put theirs up on the Monday, was sold by the Wednesday and had an offer accepted by the Saturday of the same week.

WRT what you can get, there probably will be an element of having to settle but it sounds like you're incredibly handy people so it probably wouldn't take you long to get your new property to exactly how you'd like it.

If you're mortgage free and cash buyers, you probably won't have any issues downsizing. We're taking ours off the market because we now can't afford what we need to move to our forever home with all the global political uncertainty. Good luck!

Thank you, big decision to be made then! The house we like is only 20k less than ours has been valued at so it’s not a monetary downsize really, more a practical move to a lower maintenance home. It’s a lot smaller though, being a newish build. We will need to have some serious sorting out of things and I’ll no longer be able to store multiple dinner services and loads of kitchen gadgets and just stuff!
Weve viewed the new house and it was lovely. I can’t say I was WOWED but my practical head thinks it will be the right thing to do, my heart maybe not. Ugh!!

@absolutelydonothaveaclue it's difficult.. ours is currently on the market but we're not sure we even want to move. We want to do one last move up before downsizing when we retire. Problem is we have everything we want in our house as we've done so much work on it. We've viewed a few (circa £200k more) but other than being on a nicer road/better plot/better garden, they are not ticking the boxes for me..in my area everything north of circa £500k has ground to a halt due to all the uncertainty so not many coming on the market and I think we will struggle to sell anyway but we're giving it a go. I've moved quite a few times and always think it's meant to be with houses, and if it's meant to be it will fall into place and the timings will work. Good luck!

Are you sure you want to do this?

it’s only slightly cheaper, and that will be eaten up in fees. Effectively you’ll be just swapping for a smaller place, with no financial benefit.

id want to be absolutely certain it was the right thing…

Tbh it doesn't sound like you want to move at all.

What exactly is driving the move?
Because it might be smaller but not much cheaper so not a very efficient downsize!!

Do you see your self happily living and pottering in new house and garden for what I can assume is the next 30 years?

Is someone else driving the move? Do you have children?

We aren’t sure, that’s the problem. Our house will need a new roof and garden makeover in the next few years. Another 20k on top of the many thousands we have spent over the last 5 years. A new house with no big jobs to do is very appealing.
A slightly smaller house but a better layout. It’ll be warmer and less cleaning, bills would probably be the same (or a little more) as the council tax is more and I suspect there’ll be an estate management fee.
The estate roads look unfinished which is annoying, there’d be a number of things I’d need to check with the house. There were signs of children in the next garden and without sounding mean I don’t really want screaming kids next door.
The person that showed us around didn’t know a thing about the house - she was just someone that the part exchange company use to allow you entry to the house (the sellers are part exchanging upwards on the same estate) The homeowners weren’t there.

Our children have moved out to their own homes. I don’t know, it just seems the practical and right thing to do. Otherwise this place will be a drain on our finances, it’s like the forth bridge. We start one place and by the time we finish something else needs doing.

Basically it just comes down to luck. If you see a house you want, get yours on the market ASAP and hope you get an offer quickly enough before the house you want sells to someone else.

Or get yours on the market, and hope that when you sell you are able to find a house you want to buy.

It’s one of the reasons so many house sales fall through. Many people sell and then can’t actually find a house they want to buy, so they pull out of the sale.

You just have to cross your fingers and hope the stars align for you.

Thinking it through, I do feel that this is a somewhat kneejerk reaction to our youngest moving out. They’ve only left in the last few weeks and the house feels so quiet. We’ve brought all our children up here, so many memories in each room. Such a hard decision to make whether to sell up and have a fresh start.

Seeing a house you love and then putting your house up sale as a response is the wrong way to do it. Especially in this slow housing market. Commit to the selling first - - decide you want to move, prepare your house for sale, put it up, etc. Then see houses during this process and hope you find something. In my opinion, if you don’t find something it’s better to rent for a while and see the sale of your own house through rather than pulling out and having to start the whole process again.

I think you need to find another house. By the time you’ve paid stamp duty etc it doesn’t sound like downsizing. The smaller house sounds over priced. A house only built 4 years ago also may not be great construction, and I wouldn’t be paying estate fees.

Id get yours on the market and keep looking.

You first need to decide whether you definitely want to sell or not. It sounds as if it would certainly be much more practical and less of a drain on finances but you both need to be clear in your minds that it is what you want. Secondly, you need to consider whether to find a house that makes more financial sense than the one you are considering currently. Why is a much smaller, second hand new build asking for only 20k less than you think you would get for yours? That doesn't make sense. I don't know which area you are in but the market for larger, more expensive houses is very poor in lots of places and prices are falling. If you do want to go ahead, would you consider selling and then renting. You would then be in a great position to buy without a chain, with cash in the bank and could afford to be picky in your choice of new home.

The estate of new builds is absolutely enormous and not finished yet, there is phase after phase and this was built in phase 1. I don’t know why it’s only 20k cheaper but maybe there is a premium on a newer build rather than my 70’s house.
Our garden needs a makeover, maybe it’s that. There are only 3 x 4 beds like ours in our street and people hardly ever move from the street so the estate agent when valuing had little to compare to. I had a figure of about the same in mind, maybe a little higher perhaps.
At the end of the day we are in south wales and there is always a cap on prices, people just don’t have the money around here to buy very expensive houses. Anyone with money +£350k would probably buy a new house. Estate agent thinks there’s a chance ours could go for more if there was a lot of interest but who knows.
This morning I am leaning towards leaving it at the moment, let the housing market settle a bit? Let us get truly used to being two again, maybe defer selling until next spring.
I just don’t want to be like my late grandparents who knew they should have moved to something smaller, never did and struggled to heat and maintain their large home well into their 90’s

I’m in exactly the same position as you except my youngest is still here but if I downsized, I could free up some money to help him with a deposit for a flat (he has saved a deposit and I could add to it).

it’s such a hard decision isn’t it. My house sounds like yours - a money pit - but I do love the garden and I love the area. It’s way too expensive once the kids have gone and I already resent paying the council tax/electricity/gas bills.

I’m actually doing some house visits today to see what I could get. Problem is we have to move area as there aren’t smaller houses where I live (would need to be a flat) so that’s a factor too so I’m viewing 3 houses in neighbouring areas this morning.

I think it’s v sensible to downsize and get a house with lower bills and maintenance. Will you have enough room for your kids to come and stay still?

People keep saying houses will come down. However I've been looking every carefully over the last 2 years. They arnt. They go on at a particular price and they stay because that's what the people downsizing want. The problem is that there are less people with that amount of disposable income to pay for these houses. And so what might have gone quickly previously now takes longer.
Be aware this is more likely to worsen over time.

Perhaps they have over priced the 4 yr old 'new build'. How does its price compare to the same ones on the estate that are actually new?
If I were you and wanting to downsize, I would get on with it as I can't see things getting better in another year. You don't sound certain about what you want yet though.

What struck me OP - which I appreciate wasn’t your original question - was you saying you were put off by the thought of neighbouring kids.

A new build estate is not the place for you - they are filled to the brim with young families. Don’t make any of your decision based on liking this house - it isn’t the perfect dream house. Decide first if now is the right time to move.

Perhaps prices aren't falling in your area but they are definitely being reduced in many areas. Rightmove has been full of reductions for the last 3+ years. I've seen a few houses reduced by up to 30-40%. I've seen a couple of new builds reduced by around 30% too. These are all houses at the top of the market for the areas. Of course, some sellers won't budge but others will if they need to sell.

You don’t want to leave your house right now so I would suggest you don’t!
There is a big difference between downsizing a few weeks after your youngest has left home and struggling in your 90s.
Just give it a little longer

Give it a bit longer and watch the market for options for potential purchase a bit more, to get a good sense of all the possibilities.

When you put your house up for sale, you can accept an offer and then keep looking for ages. Obviously it may not work for your buyer and they might pull out, but some are happy to wait for the right house. If you don’t find anything you want to buy after several months, then you can take yours back off the market.

The better you understand what your options are for the next house, and what you really want out of it, the better placed you’ll be to move quickly when the chance comes.

Sell and move into rented. That's what we did when we downsized. Then take your time to look around without feeling under pressure.

How old are you? If you are still 60s/70s and in otherwise good health then it makes more sense to take your time, do a lot of sums and work out the total cost/value of moving vs staying put.

If the new house is only about 20k less than anticipated price for your house, even at the prices you cite you will be heavily out of pocket - stamp duty, estate agent, solicitors, removals, surveys etc and remember you have little or no control over “estate fees” which can rise without warning.

Its a common problem - the cost of downsizing can be a lot more than the value of the move.

Before doing this I would look at your own house with a builder, discuss likely necessary works in the next ten years and price them up along with adaptations which would. make it workable into old age and reduce run costs. You may find its more cost effective to stay in the house you love rather than break the bank to downsize.