Should/can we offer on a house before both our places sell - what’s the done thing?

[rainydaysandmondaysagain]

DP and I are each selling houses in order to buy one together. DP has accepted an offer, mine is on the market (with a good amount of interest so far, thankfully). We’ve seen a house we love. The estate agent suggested we put an offer in (even though I’m not proceedable yet) just to be kept in the loop with that house, any other offers they get, etc. Obviously it works in their favour if we do that as they can tell other viewers that they’ve had an offer. Is it worth us doing it, from our own perspective? We really do love the house and would make an offer tomorrow if mine was sold. We’re serious about wanting it and we want the buyers to know that. But we don’t want to accidentally help them sell it to someone else! Not sure how this all works. Is there any world in which a seller would accept an offer from people in our position, and wait for mine to sell? Or is that wishful thinking?

I’ve always thought there’s no point even looking before we were in a position to proceed - you’re not a serious buyer and it leads to disappointment when you lose the house!

We did this and they accepted the offer but kept on the market until we had sold ours. It worked out as we got a relatively quick buyer.

We definitely are serious, we’ve sold one house and are doing everything we can to sell the other as quickly as possible. Not proceedable yet, but definitely serious.

You can offer but it doesn’t mean much if you’re not proceedable as they won’t take the house off the market. The agent can keep you in the loop whether you offer or not. So up to you- doesn’t make much difference either way.

I wouldn’t be taking your offer seriously, as you’d not be in any position to make it. I’d be carrying on with viewings.

How did you phrase it to them? We are happy to offer the asking price, and will be cash buyers once mine sells. Is it worth telling them this? I don’t know whether the estate agent will just advise them to say no regardless, until mine’s sold? They’ve been on the market for 3 months so far and haven’t had any offers - don’t know if that will make a difference.

Oh that’s interesting, ok so it does sound like the EA just wants to be able to tell other viewers that there’s been an offer then, potentially…

Surely it depends on the sellers circumstances. They may be happy to wait if their onward chain isn’t in a rush. Why not just offer and be honest and see what they say. No point in over thinking it. Why does it matter if your offer helps them sell it quicker or for more to someone else - they’ll be more likely to sell to someone else if you don’t make an offer!

You’re probably not going to follow this advice because you’ve already seen a house you love, but a ‘forked chain’ (where you need to sell two houses to buy one) is incredibly offputting to sellers. If you need to sell both houses to buy together then you should sell one first independently of any chain and move in together (putting stuff in storage if needed) or someone goes into rented.

Chains are bad enough without this kind of hassle. We had a viewing request from people in this situation and we said no, as we didn’t want to take the risk, that we would only have considered them if only one property needed to be in the chain, not two.

So unless the sellers do not need to buy another property, bear in mind you are not attractive buyers.

And for the love of god stop calling yourself cash buyers. You are NOT CASH BUYERS if you need to sell your property to fund your purchase and are creating a chain, let alone with a forked chain! You are only cash buyers if you have the money in the bank independently of any sale. You are mortgage-free buyers, not cash buyers.

An offer from a forked chain, with one house not sold, from people who claim to be cash buyers but don’t have the cash, is not how you get this house. Sorry.

I phased it truthfully. Told the estate agent that we had priced to sell and it worked out as we got an offer a couple of weeks later. We also offered asking price.

Being cash buyers will help.

Say mortgage free then :) honestly a good estate agent will guide you.

Personally I wouldnt accept an offer from buyers who were in 2 chains. It's hard enough getting 1 chain to complete let alone 2.

I appreciate the advice because we’ve never been in this position before so haven’t got the experience, but I’m not sure why you seem so angry 😅 I know it’s not ideal to be selling two houses but it is our situation and we can’t do anything about it but get on with it. I’m sorry for using the wrong term - I will use ‘mortgage free’ instead of cash buyer - I didn’t know, I’m not a naughty child, and you don’t need to shout 😅

We are in a chain with a forked chain. The forkers lied about it and it only came out when the chain was fully underway. They pretended to be first time buyers but one of them had to sell their house with their ex. Anyway, luckily their fork was a lot further ahead than ours and it completed a couple of weeks ago but it had the rest of the chain worried. Two chains is definitely more stressful than one, and one is bad enough.

If I was in your shoes, I’d be getting the houses sold first and moving into rented, or at least getting one of them sold. I wouldn’t be offering on that property unless they were desperate and the house had been on the market a good while.

That’s terrible - I’m glad it worked out for you, but I’d be furious if anyone in my chain was lying about anything!

If one house has sold, can you get a mortgage/bridging loan to cover the difference whilst your house sells?
If the house has been on the market for 3 months without an offer, then it's definitely worth approaching the EA!

We let our property to move into our next one.

you could do this. Removes the forked chain.

proceed With yours, let the other.

have to sell with in three years to reclaim back stamp duty.

its worth looking into, we have been a bit stretched stretched for two years (I no real savings)?it its but it is our forever home and o love it

DP can’t get a large enough mortgage without me on it, annoyingly.

It's worth a try. We've had an offer for full asking price on our house, but the buyer is still trying to sell his house. We were talking with him and he seems very keen on buying our house and has dropped the price on his house, to try to speed up his sale. We can't find anywhere we want to buy at the moment, even if a proceedable buyer made an offer for full asking today.

We're happy to have his interest and our EA will check in with him each week for an update. We're still marketing our house and I've got a couple of viewings booked in for today. As long as you're honest about your situation, I don't see the harm in having the conversation and are realistic about your expectations (the seller will keep listing the house and doing viewings etc). In a strong housing market, this approach probably won't work, but at the moment sellers are more likely to be open to hearing from buyers who aren't immediately proceedable (especially if you're willing to pay full asking).

If one house has sold can you proceed with a mortgage if needed, or sell and move into the remaining one? We did the former, his was sold as his ex had been there, we were in rented, my ex in my house, we bought with proceeds of his house sale plus a mortgage with a 2 year fix then paid off the mortgage when my house sold, which took 18 more months as the market had dropped out there

We’ve been thinking about this but it seems like such a difficult time to be a landlord, and the stamp duty would be SO high, I’m not sure we’d manage it, even knowing we were going to get it back eventually.

How far through the sale is DP'shouse?, is it an option to let his complete, put stuff in storage and live with you until you sell. At least that your just in a 'normal' chain - if there's such a thing!
As to people telling porkies, I think people say what's needed to secure a sale, our last house we offered on the basis it was chain free, at least half through they suddenly purchased a buy to let that they needed tying in with the sale, slowed everything down by months.

No point, in my opinion. You’re just giving the sellers information that benefits them- that someone is willing to pay £X amount for it, and that someone wants it so much they’ll make an offer when not procedable.

It also ties you down to a price that you might not want to stick with later. If your house takes three months to sell and this house is still on the market, you might want to offer less than you would now. Or house prices decrease/mortgage rates increase. And while you can reduce your offer later, that creates unnecessarily bad feeling compared to just not offering until you’re procedable.

This really articulates my concerns, thank you.

It would be really hard for us to all live together in my current house, otherwise we’d definitely do this.