Well the danger is that people in the chain pull out, or get better offers, so the whole thing collapses. That's why everyone has to move quickly.

Yes we could get another offer, if we'd had any other interest in our house, which we haven't. I think the housing market is cooling off a lot, and high interest rates probably have a lot to do with that. Prices are certainly going down.

But fingers crossed, things will hopefully start progressing early part of next week.

I've known a few people who've had similar issues when in a purchase chain. People are unreliable by default for many reasons, but that's the same with anything really. I rent so have never been in this situation myself and never want to, but I can imagine it's really stressful and frustrating. Hope things progress for you Andrew, and that it doesn't take too long.

People do want to sell their house for a fair amount, but some are just greedy. Like our buyers who are downsizing. They've sold their house for over £300k more than ours, and they quibble about £20k. That's a lot of money to us, and impacts what we can buy.

But I suppose you never know peoples' overall financial situation, and going through an estate agent, you don't know what conversations are being had with the other party.