Our teams have been having a lot of conversations with potential home movers recently about what to do if they can’t find a house to move to, so we thought we’d take a look in this week’s blog.
It’s been the age-old question in property for as long as we can remember here at Hannells (which for some of us is quite a long time!) The real chicken and egg conundrum…’Should I get my house on the market first and then find somewhere, or should I find somewhere to move to and then get my home on the market?’
Well, the market may be extraordinary right now, but the advice remains the same…
Get your home on the market first. Even if you haven’t found your ideal next home, you can still get on the market and even accept an offer!
Although that might sound counter intuitive, in our experience, it really is the best way to proceed.
Let’s look at it like this, if a home comes on to the market that is exactly what you have been looking for, you’ll need to be able to make an offer and secure it as soon as you can, especially in the current market, where the best properties are attracting record numbers of viewings and offers.
So, getting your own home up and on the market puts you in a much stronger position to secure the home you really want, even if that home hasn’t come to the market yet.
‘But what if my home sells before I find one?’
Well, the first thing to remember is not to panic. When people panic, it can often lead to making an offer on the first property they see, which can lead to buyers’ remorse further down the line, which in turn can lead to a chain collapsing at a late stage when you have already spent a considerable amount of money on solicitors, surveys, and searches. It’s important to remember, that even in this market, where supply of stock is slightly lower than during a ‘normal market’ many great properties are still coming on and there are signs that the supply of new property is actually increasing.
Once you have received an offer on your own property, the best advice we can give is to be clear and upfront with your potential buyers. Let them know at an early stage that you have yet to find the right property and that you will only accept an offer from them under the proviso that you are allowed sufficient time to find your onward purchase. As long as all parties are aware at the beginning of proceedings, you will most often find that if your buyer is really the right one for you, they will be willing to wait for you to find a new home.
If you find that the person who has made you an offer is under pressure to move in a timescale that isn’t going to work for you, you can reject their offer and keep marketing your own home until the right purchaser comes along. On the other hand, if the potential purchaser is happy to wait for you to find a new home, you can accept their offer subject to you finding somewhere, meaning you and your buyer won’t have to instruct solicitors just yet, so no one is at risk of losing money if the deal fails to progress and you really can’t find a house to move to.
The second thing to do is to talk to your Estate Agent and indeed any other local agents in the area that you are looking in. A good Estate Agent isn’t just there to sell properties, they are able to help you find the property you are looking for too. Think of them as acting like a buyer’s agent. Once they know what you are looking for, they will be able to keep you up to date on new properties that might not be on the property portals yet and make sure you are top of the list when the right property comes on, or, better yet, actively interact with the owners of off market properties that fit your bill, you just never know, there might be someone who was thinking of selling their home, that just needed a little motivation to get moving!
At the end of the day, if you really have a want or need to move, action will beat inaction every time! As we are fond of saying here, nothing happens until someone does something!
If you need any advice at all about the current property market in your area, or are keen to get moving, just get in touch with your local branch! You can find your nearest Hannells team by clicking the link below:
https://hannells.co.uk/branch/
And to find out what to do when you have found your dream home, take a look at our previous blog post here.
