House buyers dragging their feet again. Is this normal now, or are we just unlucky?

[tverds]

Just a bit of a moan really, although I'd welcome some advice from anyone who's been through this recently!
We're now on our second attempt at selling our house. Our first buyers strung us along for three months before eventually pulling out, causing us to lose our onward purchase.
We put the house back on the market, priced it to sell and received multiple offers within three days. We deliberately chose the buyers who seemed to be in the most straightforward position. They're selling their house to a cash buyer, so we thought we'd have a relatively simple chain.

Fast-forward 10 days since accepting their offer and it's pretty much radio silence again. Our solicitors have already issued the draft contract pack, but the buyers haven't even booked a survey. The estate agents have sent them surveyor recommendations, but apparently nothing has happened.
Meanwhile, we've found another house, had our offer accepted and are desperate to get moving. We're currently doing an exhausting daily school run because our children have already started at their new school, so we're really keen to get this move completed.
I appreciate it's only been 10 days, and perhaps I'm being impatient after our previous experience, but I'm absolutely dreading another three months of being messed around, only for the whole thing to collapse again.
Is this just how house buying works these days? Are we being unreasonable expecting buyers to have booked a survey by now? Would you be chasing at this stage, or just leaving them to it?
I'm finding the complete lack of control over the whole process incredibly frustrating!

I'd tell them they can get all the searches etc from the previous buyers so I'd set a deadline of 4 weeks for exchange. That is plenty IMHO. Completion perfectly possible by Dec if they go along with that

It is going to be very normal for people to drag their feet, pull out or ask for reductions going forward IMO

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/investment/30-year-treasury-bond-yield-scales-to-highest-level-since-2002/ar-AA2db0Pe

If they are relying on sales proceeds to purchase the property then that's the dependency so they aren't cash buyers full-stop. "aren't necessarily" doesn't apply.

if they can buy the new property without having to sell their current property, then that does make them a cash buyer, because they have liquid assets elsewhere than held in the equity of their property. The reality is they won't actually liquidate stocks / shares / bonds etc which is what they think is "cash".

buyers and estate agents bend the facts in this definitionso much, they look like a pretzel. Then when you try to challenge them on the real facts, they do a disappearing act or get defensive.

my FWIW experience is there are 1 in 1,000,000 (OK made up number) people who will actually be willing and able to buy a property like they would a loaf of bread in the supermarket. Here, I've got the cash, I'm giving it to you and you're giving me the loaf of bread / house.

Take it with a huge skip load of salt, and decide if despite them not having the cash, are you willing to sell them your property.

I think you misunderstood what I was saying. Pp were saying they were cash buyers because they didn't need a mortgage. I was saying that not needing a mortgage doesn't necessarily make you a cash buyer as you might be relying on the proceeds of a sale to purchase, rather than borrowing the money.
The op doesn't say whether they are a cash buyer or not, just that they didn't need a mortgage.

@tverds I think you need to be really firm with your estate agent.
Offer accepted on the basis they were immediately proceedable but no action at all.
They need to confirm they are motivated and the actions in hand or you will remarket/revert to other offers.
Just don't take any nonsense and push daily if things aren't moving.
Most solicitors seem quite mediocre these days too so you will need to keep up the pressure on all fronts.
Good luck and fingers crossed for you.

Buyers know they don"t need to report for duty like this, they know many sellers have zero other offers or offers that are not proceedable.

I honestly think a lot of EA"s are treading water on rentals TBH, large numbers have gone bust in recent years, the staff are probably applying for other work in office time in many cases, they are not going to graft to sell a house, they know that price sells it nowadays.

OP in the kindest way you need to calm down. We had an offer accepted 5 days ago, if I get phone calls putting pressure on next week it will be a major red flag. I’m not arranging surveys until the chain is complete. We actually accepted an offer on ours 10 weeks ago, took us 2 months to find a house we liked. Our buyers haven’t arranged their surveys yet. I don’t understand why you’re flapping?

yes fwiw I do agree that not needing a mortgage doesn't make you a cash buyer. Sorry I've got a bee in my bonnet about it because our EA keeps trying to persuade us to agree to viewings with people who are not even on the market and the EA goes "oh but they're cash buyers". They're either desperately naive and will believe any old bunkum they're told by prospective purchasers, or they are putting their head in the sand and pretending people don't tell porkies!

We secured a cash buyer first day, June 19th over asking price, her daughter was her solicitor, I just knew it, she then managed to find a 1986 title deed within our garden belonging to a developer that wasn’t even listed to our road. We only bought two years ago no issues. 7 weeks of messing about, I pulled the plug on them, the Daughter then stated her mum wasn’t buying it anyway! She has managed to find our old survey and questioning us on it without ordering her own as if we were hiding stuff from her mum !? Very accusatory when we’ve done nothing wrong at all 🤬 We are now buying the land for 5k we thought we already owned 🤬 and a TP1 is currently about to be expedited .. our new buyer offered the same day we relisted Aug 10th she has now completed on her sale .. we are now 15 ish weeks in and only just got her valuation last week, down valued by 20k after waiting almost a month for a structural roof report we also didn’t need !? E.surv 🤦‍♀️ Her solicitor is refusing to start her searches until we have the TP1 back from land registry now and we are furious, also telling our buyer it could take 6 months! That’s utter rubbish as it will be 10 days once submitted hopefully next week. We are trying to relocate, our forward purchase is vacant and no chain, we have boxes in the front bedroom as the loft had to be cleared for a survey we didn’t need … husband working from home in the conservatory as we changed the office space upstairs back to a bedroom thinking the sale would be straightforward. This has been an utter nightmare 😭

Always ask for proof of funds - a bank/building society statement etc. Your estate agent should have done this as a part of due diligence. If they haven't they are negligent.