Sold but can’t find a house? For many the pandemic focused buyers minds on living the good life. Free from smog, traffic and pollution the countryside and coast beckoned. Lighting up would be purchasers’ medial orbitofrontal cortex, with the promise of more space and greenery. What they didn’t bargain on, was they weren’t alone. The coastal path can be rocky and many suffered a stubbed toe or two. Morals were discarded as purchasers pleaded, gazumped and harassed for their vision of paradise.
As prices rise and stock dwindles, many find themselves in rented accommodation. So what will happen to those still searching for their dream home with their home contents languishing in storage?
Staying positive can be hard but there are benefits to this situation. Which may, in time, prove more valuable than any current financial loss.
Get to know the area
Like a first date, you could have your head turned only to realise after your second, that they aren’t the one. Many buyers only saw their new home for 15 minutes, Malcolm Gladwell ‘Blink’ or not, when it comes to bricks and mortar it’s good to have time to really ‘know’ if it is the one. Living where you want to be, enables you to decipher the good from the bad streets. The advantages and pitfalls of each hamlet.
Discovering commute times and gridlock in the country
For those who dream of living near the beach. There is often one way in and one way out. Meaning, traffic can be worse than any motorway tailback, especially when the sun is out. For rural locations, don’t laugh, but tractors are real, large and slow. The art of the overtake on winding country roads takes years to develop. So factor in contingency time during harvesting.
Analyse life now you are living it
Now you are here, it’s good to re-evaluate what you presumed you wanted having lived in the city. Many idealised rural life, only to feel cut off. The jump being too severe. In some cases being on the outskirts of a town or within it, enables home owners to access amenities previously taken for granted, whilst still gaining a bigger house and garden.
Adjust search perimeter
Not finding the property you want? Be an intrepid explorer, start discovering neighbour towns and counties to find out if they suit better.
Build relationships and understand the community
Once in, get to know people, join a gym, a club, talk to parents. You will learn more about an area this way than you ever will via an Estate Agent or property portal.
Schools
The extra time enables you to find the right school to suit your kids. Not just what’s available. Once in, you will then be able to focus your search on accessibility before work.
So turn that frown upside down, having ‘sold but can’t find a house’ isn’t the end of the world. Headlines are doom ridden but movement only comes from a positive attitude…and a buying agent
