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I hate selling houses (even more than buying them!)...

239 replies

Heathcliffscathy · 18/10/2004 19:29

we put our house in the market in sept and the first people thro the door offered us asking price...the sale fell thro last week (no reason given) so we have to restart the whole process having lost a (crucial) month...

the papers are all doom and gloom and we just really want to sell it (we can't live in it as it's in the countryside, originally we intended to move there, but it hasn't worked out, and we can't leave london, it's crippling us financially).

every day i wait for the agent to call,it's like when you really fancied someone and you had a sick feeling in your stomach waiting for the phone to ring...it's horrible...i know we probably won't sell before xmas and then there will be a massive crash and we are screwed...

no point to this post other than to express my tortured mind...argh, i hate it so much!

thanks for getting this far if you have...

OP posts:
Skate · 27/10/2004 22:17

Pamina3 - that's a lot of viewers! I bet it's frustrating to get them in but no sensible offers though. I think buyers are just going to start taking the pi** cos they think you are desperate! We are of course, but still need to make a certain amount out of the house to move to the next one so taking a stupid offer isn't an option is it?

I won't be 'giving' my house away.

OTOH, 2.5 years could see me take quite desperate measures!! I've never heard of a property hanging around that long!!

Skate · 27/10/2004 22:18

If I were you, I'd tell them to stuff it and wait till new year for a sensible offer. I think if interest rates and the market stay as stable now as they have the last couple of months, by Spring we'll be back to normal selling conditions.

pamina3 · 28/10/2004 09:26

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Skate · 28/10/2004 09:30

How rude!!!! Exactly! That's what's so hard about having viewers (not that I've had many!) but they always want to come in the evening and if you've got kids there couldn't be a worse time could there!? From 5.30 - 7.30 I'm doing tea for 2 ds's, bottle for ds3, baths for all, milk etc and then they are ready for bed so like you say, the bedrooms are out of bounds!!

Like you we need a certain amount for the next house, which we are moving to anyway in Jan so it's not like we CAN drop too low as we'll already have made the move and are 'committed'.

It'll be fine in new year/spring - I'm sure.

DillyDally · 28/10/2004 09:47

I am struggling with evil estate agents at present..my "for sale" sign has been ripped down three times now by a rival estate agent..I saw him do it the first time and followed him round to his office to see where he worked ..but I was not brave enough to confront him. Is there somewhere you can go to complain about their behaviour? Once was Ok but this is getting quite frustrating now.

SpringChicken · 28/10/2004 09:50

Keep going with the ridiculous offers.
Ours was on the market for £121500 - we first received an offer for £100000 which i told the Estate Agent in no uncertain terms to piss off!

We then received an offer from another couple for £115000,then £116000 and so on until we agreed at £119000.

The couple we were selling to have now messed us about too much so have found another buyer who is being so great - have already had their surveys done - really really keen!
The couple we were initially selling too were meant to be round on Saturday for a 2nd viewing at 10.00 - by 10.30 they weren't here so i rang estate agents and aparently the couple said "We are still going, were just running a bit late"! So why not bloosy ring .
Its just common courtesy - if your not going to be there on time, ring and let them know. Do they think we've got nothing better to be doing on a Saturday than sitting in waiting for them to arrive whenever it suits them .

Rant Over!

bonniej · 28/10/2004 09:52

where are you getting all your buyers from spring chicken? Seriously, I hope this sale goes through for you. It's such a stressful time even when you have found your buyer

bonniej · 28/10/2004 09:52

where are you getting all your buyers from spring chicken? Seriously, I hope this sale goes through for you. It's such a stressful time even when you have found your buyer

SpringChicken · 28/10/2004 09:57

Ours just appears to be a good area at the time being.
When we put the house up for sale i had said to DP that if nothing happened before end of Nov, i would take it off the market then put it on again in Jan completely expecting that to be the case - however, 10 days later it was sold.
Makes me worry though, because things appear to be going oh so smoothly and something is bound to go wrong - probably on moving day

crunchie · 28/10/2004 10:01

Can I ask a quick question to all you who are selling your houses. Do you have a contract with the estate agents? How long is it for? The reason I ask is that I have heard of people tied into contracts for 8 - 12 weeks with no veiwings, then the agent gets them to reduce their price and ties them in again. Is this what you guys find? When I sold my last flat I was in a huge hurry (didn't want to lose the house I had found) so I gave the agent 1 week to prove themselves. If they had had veiwings then I would have gone elsewhere. Also with mulitple agencies although you are paying a higher % they are then in competition to find a buyer which puts a bit of pressure on them. I managed to negotiate a great % for the agents, if they sold in 2 weeks they would get x%, if it took longer they would get y% (and I still didn't have a tied in contract)

I am not trying to sound patronising or anything but if I were selling now this is what I would do. The market is flat, therefore the agents should be more desparate for their comission rather than lazy. Their rates are negotiable.

Also don't take the house off teh market, I first bought my flat in November (moved in by Christmas) and the 2nd house was on teh market 6 months (however had just gone to multiple agents hence the rush) It made no difference to me teh length of time it was on the market and new people come into the market all teh time.

Good Luck

bonniej · 28/10/2004 10:06

I'm not tied in to any agents and have so far swapped three times in the last four months. Still hasn't done any good though All the agents in my area have had properties on their books for ages and they are all saying the same things. There just don't seem to be many buyers around at the moment.

Skate · 28/10/2004 10:08

Crunchie - yes I've thought of that. We've got 2 agents but we still pay 1.5% but they split it between them. I wonder if this makes them more lazy about ours because they know they won't make as much commission on it as if they had it all to themselves??

Also thought about offering to pay stamp duty - do you think that would help? Ours is on for £277,500. Mind you, since we need a certain amount we'd have to take the asking price then pay stamp duty which is no different to someone just making a lower offer. I suppose psychologically they might feel they are getting a better deal.

I'm not doing to do anything desperate unless we are still struggling in March because I want to see what the new year brings first. It is traditionally the busiest time for selling houses.

Mind you, ds1 pulled the curtains down, plus rail, in lounge last night so we'll probably have people want to look round this weekend before we've fixed it!

pamina3 · 28/10/2004 13:25

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

muddaofsuburbia · 28/10/2004 13:32

We've only found one agent who will negotiate their fees. Everyone else refuses to budge below 2%. We're changing agents today assuming their valuation is favourable. They won't match our current fee (1.3%) but will do 1.5%. We can't afford any more than that anyway.

2 weeks notice with our current agent so I'm hoping they'll pull their finger out and make an effort before they lose our dosh.

But we're moving in 3 weeks regardless - hurrah!!

spod75 · 28/10/2004 14:11

We've had 1 viewer and 1 no-show up until now...

and today the agent rings and we've got 2 more in the next few days. Picture mad clean up of everything.

Was quite happy 'till I looked on the calendar and discovered that next week is when we can give the estate agent notice from our tie-in.

Cynic...moi???

sweetkitty · 02/11/2004 17:29

me whinging again

Friday night viewing at 7 didn't show

Today viewing at 1 couple showed up quick look round asked us about dropping the asking price (what we would be looking for etc) we remained all professional and said contact the estate agent they said they were going straight round there

Phoned agent later they actually didn't want a flat (why come and see it then?)

Another viewing at 7 this evening please wish me luck?

LIZS · 02/11/2004 18:16

Good luck. No shows and lack of genuine interest really p* me off.

JoolsToo · 02/11/2004 18:28

sweetkitty - good luck - Skates still had no viewers !

Kaz33 · 02/11/2004 18:50

One more viewing - not going well, think I've decided that nothing is going to happen until the spring... At least if it does then I will be pleasantly suprised..

Hulababy · 02/11/2004 20:28

We have a viewer coming on Thursday evening. It is actually a client of DH's, but he has gone through agent as well. We will see.

Gumdrop · 03/11/2004 13:45

Have faith MN'ers - our sale /purchase finally took place last week = almost exactly 6m after house went on market. So now we are slowly unpacking the boxes of cr*p I was too lily livered to dump before we moved.

Good luck!

pamina3 · 03/11/2004 13:49

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

HarrassedDad · 03/11/2004 14:27

Had two viewings of our house on Saturday and afterwards one couple rang the agent and left an answerphone message to say they would call him on Monday to make an offer! But they didn't call him on Monday. So the agent called them and unfortunately they said that they had read a newspaper article on the Sunday predicting a 30% drop in house prices, and they had decided to stay in rented and not to buy.

Anyone else had any luck?

muddaofsuburbia · 03/11/2004 14:30

Still no offers. We've had our first ever negative feedback though - our latest viewers didn't like the fact that you have to walk through the lounge to get to the kitchen. Hmm.. not much we can do about that! Everyone else loves the house, but still no offers - not even a fiver!!

Moving out anyway 2 weeks today and counting!

sweetkitty · 03/11/2004 14:38

Viewer last night didn't seem too keen said he may come back on Saturday to have a look during the day the view of the Thames is a big selling point.

Oh well January not too far away.............