I'm in exactly the same position. I'm interested in a particular area, and suitable houses don't come up that often - perhaps 3 or 4 so far this year.
I have appointed an estate agent for my own property, the brochure is ready to go and I can be on the market at the drop of a phone call. I'm also mortgage approved.
I have found a suitable property and I'm bidding on it, without being on the market myself. I have access to sufficient funds to cover a deposit of 10%. However I've told the selling agent a little porkie, by indicating that I've got bridging in place. I think I'm going to have to come clean with him when I'm putting in my next bid and tell him that my bridging has fallen through. (I'm not the top bidder currently)
I have a couple of queries; firstly is this likely to cause a stink with the selling agent? After all, I'll be handing over a deposit of over 50K if I'm successful, and he'll get his pound of flesh, erm, I mean Fee, in due course.
Secondly is it possible to get bridging from my lender if I have 'Sale Agreed' only on my own property (which might take 2-3 weeks in the current market), rather than having contracts exchanged (which could take 8 weeks or more). I will be ringing my lender (EBS) first thing next week to ask them this, but if I knew one way or the other I'd sleep a bit easier this weekend.
The reason I ask is it could be possible to engineer the exchange of contracts in such a way that my sale goes through as quickly as possible, while the purchase drags on for a bit.
Of course I might be comprehensively out-bid next week, making all of this academic, but I'd still like to know.
Thanks for any advice you may have.