Our Experience Buying and Selling A Home So Far

It's been a year now since we decided to sell our beloved first home and move. Currently, we're still in the process of buying and selling and our completion date is still unknown. Our journey hasn't been the easiest and the worst part about it is, that we don't know how far from completion we are.

Today, I've decided to finally share the story on how our buying and selling experience has been so far. I ummed and ahhed about writing this so many times, leaving it in my drafts for months because it's quite a personal experience. But after looking for stories similar to my own to relate to and not being able to find any, I wrote this in the hope that sharing what our experience has been like so far might help anyone else who happens to fall in the same position one day.

Just a disclaimer though: moving isn't always as stressful as many make it out to be. Our experience as first-time buyers was amazing and exciting and you can read all about our first-time buyer story here, but this time around we're in a pretty unique situation. I won't be writing about it all in detail, just the basics and how we're feeling about it all.

So, when did you sell?

Last spring, when we decided to move, the housing market was a little slow and so it took a while to sell the house. We had so many people come to view it and they all loved the house, but parking was often a deal-breaker for people despite the fact that there's always parking by the house. It was really frustrating but after seven months of viewings, we sold the house and were able to take our search for our next place more seriously.

We'd been looking at houses online for a while and around the time of the sale, we found the perfect house that ticked all our boxes and ended up securing an accepted offer on it. It all felt like it was falling into place at the time and it was nice to finally get the ball rolling and start to think about moving!

The buying and selling process

After selling the house and having an offer accepted on a new house, we started all the usual procedures. We got ourselves a solicitor, surveyed the house and made sure that everything was in order with our mortgage company via a mortgage advisor.

The person buying our house did all the same things too. Everything was running smoothly and we were close to completing all the paperwork when we hit a big bump in the road that halted the process and lost us the sale of our current home.

When putting in an offer on the new house, we were told that applications were being processed to fix an issue with the official paperwork of the house. It was a clear mistake in the title plans and it just needed correcting and was told that it wouldn't take long at all - a month at the latest.

Unfortunately for us, we thought that it was just that simple and that it'd be changed in time to move around Christmas but in February, after waiting three frustrating months, we found out the application hadn't been made yet and only had after we'd thrown a little fuss about it.

It was around this time that the buyer for our house ended up pulling out of the purchase for personal reasons and since she hadn't bought the house yet, she decided to not go ahead with the move. We didn't blame her but knowing how long it took to sell the house it left us back at square one and with a chance of losing the house we'd already become pretty emotionally attached to.

I couldn't believe all this was happening because an application to change a couple of minor issues was taking so long to complete. It was emotionally draining and fear set in fast knowing how long it took to sell the house last time.

Putting the house back up for sale

Within the day of the buyer pulling out of the sale, we'd put our house back up for sale and our estate agent did the amazing job of getting viewing after viewing booked in for the week ahead. We went home and prepared our half-packed house for viewings and the idea of going through all this again was heartbreaking.

Luckily for us, the heartbreak didn't last long and it took just four days to sell our house again. This was a huge weight off our shoulders as we knew this would give us time to sort things our with our purchase.

What now?

Now? Well. We're still waiting for the issue to be fixed but unfortunately, it's completely out of our hands. There's not much we can do to move it along and trust me, I've tried. Until it's sorted, we can't buy the house and at the time of posting this, we have been waiting seven long, ridiculous and frustrating months for this.

Despite all this, John and I both know this move is going to be worth it. When you find the right house, you know it's the right house and this one tick all our boxes and more.

Right now, we have half of our belongings in boxes and are just waiting for that call to say that everything is ready to go. We've had signs that it might be soon and I hope so because I don't know how much longer we can wait.

The person buying our house this time is also okay with waiting for now especially with everything going on. They really want to move in but they understand the situation which we're really grateful for.

Has lockdown and the virus affected moving?

To put it simply: yes. Lockdown has slowed down any chance of the application being processed any quicker drastically and if things had been normal, we'd suspect things would be done by now.

On top of that, with so many people having been furloughed or working from home, the whole process has slowed down and it's difficult to get a hold of a lot of people because everyone's situation has changed.

How we're feeling about it all

Every other day I have someone asking me how the house move is going and my heart sinks everytime I'm reminded that we haven't moved in yet. We're both so emotionally invested in the house and with everything that has happened over the last year and a half, we need this move more than ever.

Not having an update or knowing what is going on is so frustrating and we get headaches thinking about ways we might be able to speed things up. Everything has been the same since November and it feels like the longest waiting game in history.

I'm a really patient and optimistic person but this whole process has been stressful, upsetting and left me feeling deflated. I'm ready to expect the worst at all times and because so much has happened that has stopped us moving, I get over-emotional about it. Despite that, I can't help but somehow stay optimistic at the same time. I'm hopeful that everything will work out and I'll be writing blog posts about moving before you know it.

Every part of this process has had its ups and downs and compared to our experience as first-time buyers, it has been completely different. I now know what people mean when they say moving is stressful and I still can't believe how different it's been this time around. Our experience hasn't been the best but it'll all be worth it when moving day comes along.

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If you're a homeowner, comment or link your buying and selling stories. What was it like for you? Was or fun and exciting or stressful and frustrating? Let's talk!