Is it possible...

vokelo

to wait until you've found the house you want before selling your own?

We bought a house we're only moderately happy with a couple of years ago. Recently we saw our "dream" house on daft. However, from reading here I believe you need to have your own house sale agreed before bidding on another? If that's the case it doesn't seem feasible to wait for the house you want before deciding to sell up?

PSFarrell

I was in the same position...From my experience you would need to at least have your home listed and AIP to be taken seriously...

Frankie19

The first time buyers and cash buyers will always be favoured over someone in a chain or needs to sell. That said if you are the highest bidder you would be considered. I have however seen cash buyers who are under the highest bid being chosen as the risk is minimal of the sale falling through so it really depends on the sellers circumstances.

Del2005

If you have the cash or can get a mortgage without selling then it's possible. If you need the equity from your current property, no chance.

DownByTheGarden

We werent entertained when we started bidding first. But as soon as our house was on the market they all accepted bids from us. The bid was accepted then and we went sale agreed on our own house a few weeks later.

Former Former Former

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058298902/is-it-possible

I believe you need to have your own house sale agreed before bidding on another

Absolutely not.

herbalplants

It is very hard to time the market. You found your dream house but it could take months to organise and sell yours. So yes you need to have yours on the market first.

vokelo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120670210#Comment_120670210

I don't mean legally, or by any other formal rule, what I mean is that realistically nobody in the current market would entertain a bid from someone who needs to sell their own house first, and hasn't even got it on the market yet?

As I understand it, if someone wants to move house then they need to put theirs on the market first and then find the house they want to buy in a very limited amount of time. What we'd like to do is stay where we are until we see a house we really want, which could be months or maybe even years. Not sure how feasible that is though.

DownByTheGarden

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120670483#Comment_120670483

Do what we ended up doing. Have yours ready to go on the market. Have EA lined up, photographs etc done. HAve your EA waiting for your go ahead to pull the trigger.

Then when you start bidding on other houses tell the EAS when you are bidding that your house is going on the market the day after you get a bid accepted. Give them your EAs number to check.

Thats what we ended up doing because we just werent entertained before we had the house all lined up ready to go on the market. Only problem is that you better be sure the house you are bidding on is the one you want and the bid is accepted because once yours goes on the market its on it.

vokelo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120670567#Comment_120670567

Thanks for that. Did you need to show a valuation or some other kind of evidence to prove you'd be able to afford the house you were bidding on?

zg3409

Typically the auctioneer will take your bid but not recommend to the seller to go ahead and sell the house to you.

Even if your house was for sale, and sale agreed, the auctioneer will recommend a first time buyer or cash buyer over someone that has to complete a sale of their house.

Auctioneers will often use your bid to drive up the price of the house, but not actually intend selling to you even if you are highest bidder.

The reason is your sale may take 6+months and then fall through for any sort of legal financial , I lost my job type problems or small no planning on extension or porch etc. Often just getting your house ready to sell can take 2 months, getting a buyer lined up 2 months then the legal process 6 months. Your buyer may have a house to sell too, meaning you can have a chain with 2, 3, 4 houses any if which can break the chain .

In my case I became homeless through choice selling my old home, going fully through and not having any house lined up to buy. In the end it worked out and I was a cash buyer with no chain which helped seal the deal. I needed to rent for unknown months which only turned out to be 2 months but could have been 1+ years.

Kurooi

Few options:

1. Sell your house before purchasing a new one. Easy route, but probably quite disruptive and difficult on your life.
2. Sell your house as you are purchasing a new one, we call this a "chain" where your contract for sale and purchase are locked into each other. This is normally how people trade up but the issue is estate agents/buyers will often consider cash or FTB bids before yours. They will see the condition on your mortgage approval, which they ask for when you put a bid down.
3. Keep your current house, and buy a new one. 2 mortgages. Quite difficult to convince a bank to give you another mortgage but it's possible, and your bids at new houses won't suffer. EA won't even see that you own another property, not that they care.

Chopinlist66

Sell your house as you are purchasing a new one, we call this a "chain" where your contract for sale and purchase are locked into each other. This is normally how people trade up but the issue is estate agents/buyers will often consider cash or FTB bids before yours.

This is what happened to us today. We have gone sale agreed, we were the highest bidders on a property, but the vendors decided to go with FTBs as we had not closed the sale on our house. To say we are gutted, is an understatement.

It's vicious out there atm.

C3PO

In my experience most EAs insist on you being at least “Sale Agreed” before they will accept a bid. And even then they are likely to recommend a cash buyer to the vendor if the price difference is relatively small.

brookers

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058298902/is-it-possible

We looked at a house recently that was really nice, I guess we were just putting our toe in the water. the house we looked at is more spacious than the house we live in. I told the agent we didn't have any money and still needed to get things done with our house, finish off stuff, get retention etc. I must have got 10 emails asking me if we were still interested in the house we viewed, he said our house could be on the market in the week, retention finishing off etc all minor. Even when the more spacious lovely house was nearing sale agreed I still got an email saying one last chance for you guys to buy.

6ix

Having been in the market recently, I can confirm what most people have said. If it's a popular area or house, you won't be considered unless you have your own sale agreed, or at least on the market.

Even then, if the sellers are planning to buy elsewhere, they'll almost always choose a cash/chain free buyer, it's just less risky. We were sale agreed on our own house and had situations where we offered significantly above the highest bidder but it was no good, the sellers didn't want a chain.

If you see it from their perspective, it's understandable, as they'll be perceived as risky when they go to buy, and the extra cash just isn't worth it for them.

You might have better luck if it's an executor sale, or a landlord selling up - in that case money talks.

DownByTheGarden

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120670614#Comment_120670614

Yes. also needed mortgage amoutn approved by the bank and a letter saying i was mortgage approved for the amount i was bidding. Then they called my own EA and he went through when mine was going on the market and that he had viewings lined up for the following week. Then they accepted our bid and ours went on the market. All it was was proof that I was in the act of selling and not just throwing random bids out that I couldnt back up when it came to getting my own house on the market.

Something else I just remebered too, We had a buyer for our own house in a couple of weeks of our bid being accepted on the new house. We had a number of bids on ours from cash buyers to trader uppers. They were all asked to submit final bids since we needed to be sold within 3 weeks as a condition of our bid being accepted. We went with the second highest bid on our house as they were a cash buyer. Glad we didnt go with the highest as a year later they still hadnt sold their house because they had legal issues on it. Our neighbor was related to them and came in to the house one night asking us to accept their bid and about a year later met my wife and mentioned they were having awful problems selling their house so a good thing we didnt accept thier bid.

LunaLoo

We did exactly that last year. We had bought a right now house, and had planned on living there for 5-10yrs. But covid changed a few things then unexpectedly we came across our dream forever home. We got onto bank immediately for Ai, we viewed it a second time and there was an asking price offer from a cash buyer. So we put in one slightly higher bid that was going to be our only offer. We told agent we would have no issue selling our home.

Offer was accepted, we put our home on market following weeand after one open viewing there was a bidding war. We accepted offer 8 days after it went on market and are now happyily in our forever home.

So it is possible

SteelyDanJalapeno

When you do find the house of your dreams, will you then accept bids on your house from people who are relying on selling their house 1st, if they haven't even advertised it?