Sorry, I'm a noob at this game
I'm not sure I understand how I'd be 'putting pressure' on myself.
I'll give a little more background... our house is in negative equity. We have a bit of savings, which we plan to use to cover the negative equity and a deposit on a new home.
We took the remaining amount left on our mortgage and subtracted our (savings minus deposit). This gives us the minimum amount we can afford to sell our house for. That minimum amount is about 25% less than the asking price for similar houses in the area, so I feel there's a good chance we'll sell.
If we can't sell for that amount... we can't sell. We'll have to sit tight and save up what we can to offset any further drop in the price of the house.
But, if we DO sell... then we know how much we can afford. We'll basically have bought ourselves out of negative equity, with enough left for a deposit.
By the way, our mortgage approval letter was waiting for me when I got home last night! It's subject to selling, though.
My initial plan (before reading the advice here!) was to make an offer on the basis that I know what I can afford IF my house sells at greater than or equal to our minimum amount.
What am I missing?