To expect people to look at the floorplans before they view the house?

[Spillage21]

In a nutshell, house is on the market. It's a traditional London Victorian terrace, it's clean, well maintained and neutrally decorated (yawn). The third bedroom is small (it's supposed to be an office, but is perfect for a baby) but has two reasonably sized double rooms.

But OMG the number of young professionals we've had who waft round, recoiling at the evidence of children, asking why it's not open plan and tell us they're just thinking of moving (so basically you're window shopping then?) and then come back saying the house is too small. What do they want? Have people just been watching too much Grand Designs? How much space does a young professional couple want/need? We're a family of four FFS and only moving cos DS is verging on teenagerhood and we need extra space.

Rant over...

People are far more likely to be straight up with an estate agent in my experience and tell them what it is they hate about your house, rather than coming up with a cop-out answer like we've not quite decided yet. I can also sympathise with the effort involved in viewings. When we last sold we had a 5 month old and 2 year old. We saw making the house immaculate as part of the deal of selling it. I agree that the price is key. If it's realistically priced, there will be more serious viewings.

I even suspect that our agent has sent ringers round to keep our business....

we dont want to drop it more as people will offer far under the price anyway...

Worth changing agents? Good luck

the problem is the market is so confusing no one has any idea what is a good price, day by day it changes, different talking heads come on and tell people to offer 15% or 20% under the asking price

so whats the point of having an asking price? it's only worth what someone will pay for it

I am confusing myself (sorry have had very little sleep due to said 8mth old)

Voodoo -that's true about offers coming in under the asking price, but if they don't offer at the price you're at now, then your house probably isn't worth what you think it is and won't sell anyway. It's paper money until it's cashed in. Your house is only worth what someone will pay for it.

ah, changing agents, like stick or twist with poker...

we would have to pay for the hip to change, and poss. change solicitors, then would a new agent do any better? at what point do you give the agent the boot? whilst changing it would be off the market,what if people are watching it and then we changed and theyd lose it? IYSWIM? am paralysed with confusion and desperation.

going to ring agent now am all fired up.... will ask them re; price. we are cheap compared to others locally though I am watching the competition carefully via rightmove

I think it is a really tricky one - if people are going to offer under then you want to keep the price up so that they don't offer too much under but at the same time you will get more serious buyers if you price it realistically (and that is for todays market and not taking into account what you have paid a few years back).

We put ours at 'priced to sell £217,500' compared to comparable houses in the area that were on for at least 15-20K more. We had an offer for 180K after about 6 weeks which we rejected, then after about 3 months a second couple offered 185K, then 195 and eventually 200 which we accepted. We really needed 205 but decided in the current market it was the best we would get. We were begining to get pissed off and were about to put it at 'fixed price 205' in the hope of getting serious buyers that would actually afford what we were asking as we were concerned that the only people coming were expecting to take 10-20% off the asking price and therefore might never be looking for the price we could accept.

Not sure what the right answer is to be honest but I think I'm with Grundle that if you have had no offers at all it is probably not worth what you think it is (and the other houses locally are probably completely deluded anyway so I would ignore what they are on for)

lol deluded. desperate. deluded. dull.

yeah............thought provoking

I don't think house would have to be off the market at all - just make sure second agent gets all details sorted and ready to go but doesn't market it until you are at the end of the notice period for your existing agent or you could be charged for multiple agency selling (a higher percentage of the sale price) if you sold in that period. Then get them to send out details / put online / call prospective viewers etc the day your contract with your existing agent expires.

You might well be right that it won't make much difference but at the same time it will bring your property back as a new one on rightmove (assuming you have an agent that markets on there) so there might be people that will see it who haven't already. Or it might remind people that viewed a while ago and are ready to compromise (perhaps the ones that wanted the 4 bedrooms / different area) to come back.

We would have changed agents if it had gone on this long. Ours were (and still are) fab and I wouldn't have been through any problems with them but just would have been doing everything poss to keep it up there

What is interesting, that DH noticed, is that people who are selling properties themselves are the most interested but the first time buyers are saying it's too small. Almost without exception.

We also have a lot of "well [sigh]...we'd really prefer Blackheath" (well I'd prefer to overlook Hampstead Heath, but hey).

Anyhoo, we're just seeing what happens and enjoying our unusually tidy home...

Hope you manage to sell voodoo - I certainly know its a really stressful time. And we only had a few months of it. Good luck

Spillage I know what you mean about first time buyers being a bit clueless about what they can actually afford but maybe when they have seen enough they will realise that they can't have what they want, that its almost always goign to be a compromise whether thats on space, area, something else, and then come back and make an offer? Stick at it and good luck

argh! Its the nosy parkering (near) neighbours asking for viewings that really make me sick. Have had three since our house was put up for sale (none of whom have subsequently put their own houses up for sale). Refused a viewing recently from another (again house not up for sale!).

thats really wierd bonneville!!! Honestly? Do they have nothing better to do?

Seems not oh and dont get me started on the women who come (usually on Sunday afternoons) with their mothers - not their partners who presumably are going to have to live in the house. I wouldnt dream of going on a viewing without dp.

See I would go without dh if he was away - at least I could rule out houses that I didn't like and only bother taking him to see ones I was interested in.

Actually we've done this the other way round a lot as dh is much more picky than me so we waste less time. I can look after boys and then if he saw something interesting we could arrange a babysitter to go back together

voodoo - i know its horribly stressful but i think you need to take the comments less seriously. unless they are things you can fix eg the kitchen cupboards are falling off the wall or there is a leaking roof.

you cant make your house bigger so you just have to smile politely and wish them well in their search. they may not buy but you never know - their neighbour/relative/friend might start looking tomorrow and yours might just be the house for them

so be charming to them all and resist the urge to say " oh piss off you bloody time wasters" until they are well out of earshot

Kristina this is what would get to me though. i would MUCH prefer specific things esp from those who said it needs too much work. then we could have had a shot at figuring out what we shoudl try and get done before selling rather than factoring stuff that needed doing into the asking price!

also i did the same as alice - DH woudl view on his own at lunchtimes them i woudl go seperately if he thought it was a possibility. who want to view a house accompanied by several small kids???

Oh I hated it when the owners were there for viewings! I much prefer dealing with the agents direct. When asked point blank what I thought about houses that I didn't feel comfortable about for some reason or another I would just give a generic answer to avoid hurting their feelings. We ran out of time and ended up having to rent again, so will have to go through it again.

But EAs can be the pits, both for buying and renting. Looking for a detached house, does NOT mean a semi-detached will be ok. Off-street parking, does not mean resident permits for street parking. Etc, etc..... Sheesh!

Renting, with 1 1/2 year old child at the time, and they are showing us houses with great big ponds/lakes in areas that can't be made out of bounds without keeping DS locked inside all the time. Um, hello? Are you completely mental????? We need to rent, we cant' exactly make structural changes here!!!!! They even showed us a house on a main road which had no rear garden, only a big front garden with a very patchy hedge and no fence that would never have kept our DS in!!!! And the owners were showing me the lovely playhouse in the front garden that my DS would just adore playing in... (Mind you this was a main road that took us 5 solid minutes before we could exit the driveway at 2.00 pm so VERY busy!!!)

It's all so annoying, isn't it? I hated it when estate agents pressurised me into viewing of houses I had discounted when I looked at the floor plans. I was bullied into pointless viewings twice but refused after that. Fortunately no owners there either time.

I do think you have to accept the vague viewers, though, as people do need to look at several houses before they get a clear idea of what they want. I was open with the estate agents when I started looking that I was still in the vague stage.

I tried to tell my estate agents that I didn't want hundreds of viewings to be impressed but was happy with fewer serious viewings due to small children and the horror of tidying up for two hours before each one. I wanted to cry when people cancelled at the last moment or just didn't turn up.

Definitely agree being out when they come is the best bet!

bonneville DH and I ALWAYS viewed alone and only went together if it was for a second viewing. Househunting is a hateful chore, no point in both of us having a wasted afternoon unless its a possibility (which they often werent due to deceptive details of agents'interpretation of locations)

The first EA we were with sent round hundreds of viewers, none of whom were interested. We got the "don't like this area" as well. We had 4 small children and it was a major PITA trying to keep tidy.

The last straw was when the EA rang early Saturday morning and wanted to send someone straight round. We were all still in bed (kids asleep) and the place was too much of a tip to just whizz round so I said no. Got an earful from the Agent that if we were "serious about selling...". This was after months of being on the market. I said that if they were seriously interested they could come later on. As they didn't I was glad I hadn't got everyone up.

New EA only sent 3 viewers round, over the space of about a month. The third couple bought it.