Sellers roll call part 2. Who is still on this treadmill?

[MovingThisYearHopefully]

I thought it was about time to start a new thread as this one is close to 1000 messages.

Who is still here & what is your story?

Heres me: I have been trying to move since April last year. Had a buyer, buyers lost their buyer in October & still haven't got a new one. We remarketed at a low price in November in order to continue buying the house we were at point of exchange with, but were unable to get enough to move on & lost the house in February.

Prices are definitely falling here in Surrey. Realistically we're looking to get 10% less than our original asking price, if we're lucky. Getting viewers has never been an issue, regardless of price. This process has been stressful beyond belief & almost split me & DH up. Surely our luck must change soon?

One thing that seems to be helping us get more interest than other properties is that we have now agreed to go chain free. Is this a possibility for any of you struggling? If offered significantly less than asking price then as far as I see it you are within your rights to say chain free was based on near to asking price & not affordable at a significant amount under! Worth considering perhaps?

[flamingofridays]

found you! :)

[Hasthemarketsplit]

I was until today, but have removed my Property while trying to decide what to do.

12 weeks on, with 1 viewing.

Agent has been asking me to drop price by 10% since week 3, two agents who viewed last week say my price is right, with perhaps a small tweak, but the marketing is poor. Friends and family have been nagging me for weeks about the quality of my photographs.

I really respect my agent, but will have to pay for new photos and he will expect me to drop my price by £50k before going back to market. I have also paid for Rightmove listings and Brochures up front and will only get that money back if he sells for me.

One of the other agents is offering me a better commision deal and will pay all my marketing / photo costs. They appear very succesful and have recently sold something very quickly for a friend, but they sell very few properties in my price range.

I don't have a clue what to do next !!

[Hasthemarketsplit]

Should say I am 1/2 way through reading the previous thread.

What a nightmare market this seems to be. I really feel for your experiences and am learning masses.

[TokyoSushi]

I'm here! After the big fall through yesterday, 1 viewing last night, really liked it, coming back for a second viewing tonight. 2 more viewings tomorrow night so all looking ok.

Except now I've started looking and the house that we were 90% down the road with, well I'm not that keen anymore and love another one, they say everything happens for a reason...

[TokyoSushi]

The house we were 90% on with buying I mean...

[Momzilla82]

15 weeks on the market. Perfectly lovely one bed flat which re let's every time no problem.

No viewings. Dropped price. Open house. 5 viewings arranged but then each and every one went awol/ cancelled/ drove by but didn't like the area/ left the country.

Destined to be an accidental landlord for another 10 years I think.

Really fed up.

[MovingThisYearHopefully]

Woo! Hi Flaming

I feel your pain Hasthemarketsplit. Pricing is so difficult at the moment. You're told one price & do your sums based on that, then things change & you're having to recalculate. Been there, done that! Unfortunately 1 viewing in 12 weeks does scream overpricing. Your best bet is to let the market refresh for a few weeks & start again with a new agent in the second week of September, once the kids have gone back to school. It always gets busier then. Pay close attention to your photographs, wording & floorplans, but price is the most important issue. Other agents are saying your price is fine because they want to take you on as a client. In a few weeks time they'll be saying the same as your last agent. Is there a particular amount you need to move on? Do bear in mind that if you have to reduce your price then you can look to negotiating hard on an ongoing purchase!

[MovingThisYearHopefully]

Sounds positive Tokyo. Everything crossed you can pick things up with a new buyer quickly.

Sounds so shit Momzilla82 Why on earth do people not do a street view before booking to view inside?

[flamingofridays]

hasthemarketsplit your agent sounds crap! I would never use one that you had to pay anything up front, they're getting your money for nothing. find one who you pay when they sell it.. Good pictures might make all the difference!

momzilla oh no I hope you get some luck soon!

[Auntpetunia2015]

Still here only hopped on st the end of the last one. House been on market 4 weeks this week in a suburb north of Liverpool. Property had until now been hitting right move and showing sold or under offer next day. Agent valued at £210 which I thought was a joke but one in next road had sold for that and wasn’t extended and wasn’t in the sunny side of the road. So went with it. 4 viewings first two weeks no offers so reduced for £200 had 1 viewing since and an offer of interest of £175, who hasn’t sold his yet so told to go away. And now we wait. I’m chain free and desperate to move as dd starts college in new area in September but it’s commutable so will do that if necessary. I have a property I’ve owned a while In new area which is just being upgraded once it’s done we may move out and leave house empty .

[BeauticianNotMagician81]

Hi all. We are 4 weeks in and no viewings. We need to move to Leicestershire for schooling and are just on the outskirts currently. We only bought our house last year on a low offer as it was absolutely disgusting. Luckily we could see beyond the shit (literally). There was excrement on the walls, the cream carpets were black and thick dog hair everywhere. We've lovingly turned it around and are gutted we need to leave. Especially having just finished the garden. We are going to reduce the price next month to get more viewings as we know we are priced quite a bit higher than what we bought for. Although house prices in the area have gone up substantially just lately. I think it's due to a school bus being added into the much desired school across county and also some much needed amenities getting the go ahead.

Our agent is beyond useless. I do not want to hand them over our hard earned cash. So I'm kind of not bothered about selling before our contract ends. We will then be going with an online agent.

We are going for a new build but where is the question. It just depends on what's available when/if we sell. We have fallen in love with some houses in a village near where we wanted anyway. They aren't ready until next year but we can't reserve anything until sold. We also love a nice big new build right by the children's school but I've a feeling it will have gone by the time we sell.

[notknotweed1]

Hello!

A few weeks ago we were almost at the point of exchange on a property - and the seller was buying ours so it was a nice neat little non-chain (more like a circle.) and then we discovered Japanese Knotweed and a WW2 air raid shelter in the garden, right where we needed to build an office, so we had to pull out.

Just gone back on the market with a new agent this week and have 2 viewings booked in for this weekend. When we were up for sale in May/June we had 2 offers (not including the seller who we went with) out of 6 viewers so hoping we'll get something quickly - there are a few houses we're interested in that I really don't want to lose out on.

I'm feeling positive, but this whole process is a pain in the arse!

[flamingofridays]

beautician if you have seen any new builds you like, you could enquire about part ex'ing your house? My mum and step dad did that not so long back.

[BeauticianNotMagician81]

Flamingo we will be using help to buy and unfortunately as far as I can tell we can't use part exchange as well

[flamingofridays]

oh I didn't realise you could use help to buy if you had a property previously!

[BeauticianNotMagician81]

Flamingo yes help to buy is available to everyone. It just means being able to afford a house in the areas we need. Such a shame as here we could now easily afford to get a substantially bigger house (if we needed it) at a fraction of the price of the area we need

[jgm]

Just checking in to the new thread, no updates from me - on the market since early June, price lowered mid July.

[MovingThisYearHopefully]

We had an agent like yours Beautician. Thought anyone would be better, so we ended up going with an online agent. The local property expert (or comedian as I like to call them) was actually an old friend. They made many promises that we'd get sold & not lose the house we were buying. None of which materialised. 5 months on & £1200 down we cut our losses. We had many viewings with them because we priced low to sell. The problem was her lack of communication or negotiation skills to enable us to get the amount we needed to proceed. It was very frustrating. I think the online agent is great in a fast moving market, but not in a slow market which needs a strong proactive EA on the case. That is something you don't get with online EA. Be very wary, thats all I'm saying. Now is not the time to be shelling out money with no guaranteed results!

Sorry to hear about the Knotweed, notknotweed1. Although I have to admit the WW2 air raid shelter sounds really cool. My kids would love that. Is it really insurmountable? I know knotweed is hard to get rid of, but not impossible. With a big enough reduction & professionals on the case could you not get around this, especially if you love the house?

[jgm]

I called to view a property today and the agent can’t fit me in until next Wednesday (it’s the agent doing the viewings). This is the same agent that i had to call three times to view another house. If I end up changing agents I know who I won’t be going with!

[Moonie12]

I have been following this thread to understand the other side as we are FTBs. We are finding that a lot of property is IMO overpriced. We have found EAs to be very attentive to us with getting feedback and introducing properties etc which would suggest that there aren’t too many buyers around. The other thing we have found is that typical FTB properties (where we are this is mainly HTB flats) are just not selling for the price people need to be able to move onto the next property. So all the chains are just stuck because prices are too high for FTBs to enter the market and then no one else can move on. We are actually looking for a house so not a typical FTB property and even with a large deposit and two good salaries we can’t get anything decent for the money so can’t enter the market. But of course it’s all relative as sellers want a price to pay for the next place!

Surely prices are now just too high that nothing is moving? We are finding that there is hardly anything coming onto the market either.

[jgm]

Interesting comments Moonie12, we are upsizing and need to sell at a certain price to be able to afford the next step - if the next step houses were cheaper we'd be happy to reduce ours down.

[Lilmisskittykat]

I absolutely agree with moonies comments.

That's kinda where we find ourselves, and can understand the need to find the money to move on but in the same respect we cannot afford to fund someone else's move to a bigger better house.

Its definitely a sticking point at the moment.

[twinkydink]

@Moonie that is exactly what our agent said! All the FTB properties are not selling which then means the next properties up can't sell! I guess it's a bit chicken and egg though, who drops the price first? Surely it has to come from the top to filter it's way down?

@not can I ask what the issue is with an air raid shelter? We have one in our property and it has not been mentioned once! We've only been in there once and I quite like having it there. Just wondered why it would cause a problem?

We are back on the market after our buyers buyer pulled out. Two viewings booked in and we have agreed to only do viewings to people who are proceedable as otherwise we may as well just wait around for our previous buyers to find new buyers! im guessing this will mean less viewings but will hopefully minimise time wasters!

[curiositycreature]

Hello 👋🏻 posting to link back in!

No update from me... on market since 31/05, waiting out 12 weeks with shitty EA and hopefully can relist with better agent in September.

I'll probably post for feedback closer to the end of the 12 weeks because I want to get the best from that initial posting email alert to buyers. Gotta nail the photos!

[curiositycreature]

Moonie any chance you're in Southampton and want to buy my house? 😉 it's perfect for a FTB!!