Hi All

DH and I have conflicting ideas on how to move house - yes I know that sounds a bit wierd but its true.

DH has finally agreed with me that we need to move as the area has gone down hill and the house is too small now we have LO. So I have started looking for a house which seems reasonable enough to me however DH has other ideas.

He wants to wait till Christmas; pack up all the stuff we don't really have to have (yes I know we need to minimalise to sell but keep reading), put the house up for sale, once it has sold move into one of his parents rental properties and then start looking for a new house.

Now I can't see the point in that; why would I move into a rental property or sell my house if I haven't found somewhere I want to live?

I can see that we would be able to move on a house quicker if we had the money in the bank from the sale of ours but I just don't think its necessary.

What do you think?

Edit to say sorry I forgot to take the CL badge off - I am not used to having it there! Sorry again

Love

Hi,

I guess it could put you in a better position as a buyer as there wouldn't be a chain so it would remove one layer of stress.

We have our house on the market now and we're going to move into a rental before buying our new place - although we are moving to a new area so we want to sound the place out before we buy so maybe a little different.

Hi

We would be sticking to the same town but just another better area of it. I am pretty confident I know the areas well though. I can understand moving to rental accom if you are moving somewhere new until you get your bearings though.

Its annoying as I have seen a few houses I would like to view but DH says no as he doesn't want to even start sorting ours out until Xmas.

Love

I understand where you're both coming from but I really don't understand why he wants to wait til Christmas. I think I would probably agree with you tbh, why move twice if you don't have to? Just because the parents have rental houses doesn't mean it's good for you to be renters afterall! I don't think I'd want to move twice if I had any children - it's bad enough thinking about it with two rabbits, lol.

Hope you sort it out, I mean thousands of people every year negotiate moving within a chain so there's no reason to add unnecessary steps is there?

i can see both your points of view, but given the time of year I think something that's a bit in between would probably make more sense!

I can't see why you'd want to move twice when you could just move once. And I definitely don't understand why you would do a big clear out now and then wait another three months before putting it on the market! The only reason to rent would be if you managed to sell your house but couldn't find something you wanted to move into, in which case it makes total sense to continue with the sale and move into rented while you find somewhere, so you don't lose your buyers.

On the other hand, the market is very slow in most (but not) all areas at the moment and in many areas it is taking months (or even years!) to sell a property. Even in a good market property sales tend to drop off from the middle of October until the new year, because, unless they HAVE to move, generally people start thinking about Christmas and want to have the certainty of knowing where they are going to be at Christmas and don't want to be moving house a few days before or after. So even in good times there just aren't many people looking at houses at this time of year - and for that reason at this stage I would probably wait to put my house on the market in January as things start to pick up again.

So although there's no harm in looking at properties to consider buying, unless you are prepared to get your house on the market now (and risk it already being a bit stale come the new year when more people start to look) you could find yourself disappointed if it sells in the meantime. You can certainly put an offer in on a house before you have sold your own, and if it is accepted that does give you a better idea of what kind of offer you could afford to accept when selling your current one. However, many vendors won't take their house off the market and will continue to market it if the person who's offered has not yet sold their own. In fact, some vendors won't even show their house to people who haven't sold yet, never mind people whose house isn't yet on the market. In my view getting your house on the market is the signal to an estate agent (and a vendor) that you are potentially serious about moving - if you are looking at houses without even having yours on the market, you are going to be some way off moving and this doesn't tend to go down that well.

HTH

Jo x