Monday 8 June 2015

Moving matters: When is the right time to buy a house?

Soon to be on the market...
I am just about NOT raiding the biscuit box, I think I may have a lower lip tremble and I have this sort of pricking feeling behind my eyes.
I AM being VERY brave.
My offer for a new home has been turned down virtually flat and needless to say I am feeling pretty cut up about it.
The thing is though, as I was told by a very knowledgeable Estate Agent friend (he sells houses I could never afford in a million years in London): "The only way to buy a house is to sell a house first."
I got turned down flat despite going £30,000 over the asking price because my house is yet to go on the market.
"To be honest," said the local estate agent big wig, "you are just not in a position to proceed and in my great experience you may not get an offer on your house for  six months even if it was on the market today."
Personally I was rather affronted at that - seemingly implying that I had obviously got my home on the market for way too much and that I would land up being very silly when trying to sell. In fact I got the feeling he didn't think I was serious about the property or indeed that I was a buyer worth his time and effort.
Can I blame him? There is no evidence whatsoever that I am serious. My home hasn't even made it to Rightmove let alone OnTheMarket or indeed the local papers.
Yet I am selling. Honest - even though I am not desperately happy about it (but that's another story).
The national estate agents have been selected to market and sell our home and we've signed on the dotted line, the photographs have been taken, the description has been written, the lawyers have been engaged and I have just been e-mailed the floor plans.
My home will be there for all and sundry to see by Wednesday.
And yet without having it under offer  I feel that no one is ever going to think I am deadly serious about buying.
So the thing is, do I wait until I have sold my property then look? Or do I carry on in the hope that  everything will fit like a jigsaw?
Cash is king - as they say but did you know only 38% have been sold cash in the past quarter of the year and it does not look to increase according to statistics by Nationwide. So that means that 62% of home buyers are just like me....
That is of course unless I sell my home first then I too will be that most vaunted of buyers, the estate Agent's dream - a cash buyer...
Wonder how I will be treated then? Wonder if that will be the right time to buy?

Go on you know you want to...

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