ARRRGH - rant about buying (not selling!)

[Kopparbergkate]

So stressed - if one more person tells me that the right house is just around the corner or that we lost the last one cus fate has something better for us I might SCREAM.

We HAVE to move - DH's job is relocating. Our house is sold and completion is in 2 months - relocation company will pay for us to go into rental for 6 months once we complete but I don't want to have to move twice if I can help it. We know what we're looking for (not unreasonable wish list) which we can afford - lucky I know.

In the past 8 months we've offered on 4 houses:
1 Ours was highest offer but lower offeror could move faster so ours rejected. Fair enough.
2 Ours wasn't highest offer; we offered what the house was worth to us, it was quite a compromise house. Higher offer accepted. Fair enough.
3 Offer accepted. 24 hours later I get call that vendor has changed his mind about retiring and house is withdrawn from market. Sort of fair enough - though wish vendor had thought it through.
4 Offer accepted. We withdraw offer when vendor announces he wants a £10k non-refundable deposit before he'll even let our surveyor in. That house has now been sold to someone else (don't know if they did the non-refundable deposit thing but do know they bought for less than we offered).

Nothing more has come onto the market since.

I read the stuff in the papers about it being a "buyers market" and just want to weep... we have CASH and it still doesn't seem to be "our market". Have we just been really unlucky? Please can somebody just stroke my hair and tell me its all going to be ok (without the Godawful platitudes above!) and also tell me that moving twice in 6 months with a 2.4 old DD WON'T be a nightmare cus it looks like thats what we'll be doing

stroke, stroke, have a chocolate bar, very unlucky. dont worry about moving twice, put as much as you can in storage, see it as bit of decluttering excercise. 2.4 old will love you forever and see it as a 6 month holiday (well i am trying!!)

and there is one mumsnetter who will no doubt tell you that if you wait the market will fall even further and you will save a packet... with which you can buy even more chocolate...

There there .

Moving twice won't be the worst thing - rent something fully furnished and put your stuff in storage (the company will probably pay for that), then all you have to do is unpack clothes, toys and absolutely key items.

And then... you'll find out how much of your stuff you really love (ie you miss it when you don't have it ) and how much you can bin, making room for all lovely new things. .

It's horrible isn't it? We lived out of our car more or less for three weeks when we last moved. Hell on earth.

Oh god. I've been battling with the relocation co for WEEKS that if/when we go into rental we want to go into unfurnished so a) toddler doesn't wreck someone else's stuff and b)our stuff isn't musty/damaged by being in storage - have I fucked that up as well?

Starting to pray for death/divorce/debt (a la kirtsty and phil) in target area and then feeling guilty for wishing that on people

Thank you hugely for replies and chocolate though - makes me feel less alone! Can't imagine living in car for 3 weeks...

What area are you moving to? Come and buy my house, I'm in the South East

Moving (hollow laugh) to south Hampshire. Still nothing on right move... I'm sure most of the traffic on that site in the last fortnight is me as I get increasingly more desperate!

I feel for you. We sold in august last year and still stuck in rental. Not having a set place we have been through various counties (I can write a relocation book), then settled on Rugby where we have been renting (I advise having a garage, I stored all my extra stuff there at no extra cost). Now we are looking at Oxford. I thought that EA would bite our hands off but they have never been helpful and sellers have been difficult. They are people who want to retire in style and wouldn't even take 10 per cent off the inflated asking prices. Smaller houses are going quite cheaply in comparison. There is a huge gap which is totally unrealistic and everybody is playing games.