Sloping gardens

The house hunt is not going well. The market is ridiculous right now. I'm hearing of houses going £80 - 100k over asking in my area. One of my colleagues has offered more than £30k over four times and not even been in with a chance. And I haven't even found a house I want to offer on, and fully expect that when I do, it will be grabbed by a cash buyer in a position to throw an extra £50k more than I can stretch to.

I don't even feel I can move into normal rented accommodation because the competition is also fierce there (literally having to hand over cash holding deposits at the viewing before anyone else can, so no luck if you aren't the first viewer to try that on the day) and landlords are demanding 12-month tenancy agreements, which is no good when you are trying to buy a house.

I can only hope that things become a bit less frantic if the stamp duty holiday finally ends in June, but I'm really concerned they may extend it again. Even if it does end, it's going to take a long time for the market to settle down again, and there's every chance that prices could still continue to rise throughout 2021. I'm so disheartened.