Is anyone else having a misreable time trying to sell their house?

[Roseflower]

Our house has been on the market since June and trying to sell it - it's so depressing. Our one offer fell through and since then it just been no more offers.

Buyers (this month we have only had FTB) seem to be getting more and more unrealistic in what they expect for their money around here.

I hate everything about selling a house- the horrible estate agents, the constant calls from rival estate agents touting, the time waster people, rushing around like mad tidying up after dd for hours, giving up our plans to get ready for viewings, people saying nasty things about our family home... but worse in the uncertainity of it all.

Be good to know other people feel as down as me for some support. Or even better people who did feel like me but now things have turned out well!

If you have a decent camera take your own pictures (I have done this a few times). Make sure that front and back are photographed with the sun on them. Many agents miss this and photograph the house in overcast weather which makes buyers think that the sun never shines in your area. Even if the agent doesnt use them, discuss with him what you think should be shown.

You have every right to reject photographs or estate agent details. You are paying.

If you are getting viewers but no offers then there is possibly something wrong with the way the details tie up with the reality. This can be presentation (wrong furniture, smells, too personalised).

Is the way the estate agent shows the house working? Discuss with the agent, dont let them off the hook. Ask the difficult questions: does my house smell? is it tatty or messy? By introducing these topics it makes it much easier for the agent to say that perhaps the rooms seem a bit small. If the rooms arent in fact small, look at them with a buyer's eye to try to see the problem.

There may be a problem with the agent in that he is pressurising people to view who arent interested from the outset. I know that our agent would take viewers to the messy/tatty version of our last property then take them to see ours so that the potential buyer could see what was possible. It didnt bother us as the property was empty and this increased the possibility of finding an accidental buyer.

It's beautiful suntangirl (see why you have your name now!) but I agree that I'd want to see better pics of the kitchen and the bedrooms. Also I don't know if the zoopla details are what potential buyers see but I want a room plan - not necessarily a map but a list of what rooms there are, what sizes etc. I think they're really selling you short if that's all that's out there :(

2old4thislark - don't know how helpful this is to folk trying to sell their houses (except to warn them to think carefully about offers) - we had similar situation, 2 years ago we offered asking price for a house, survey came back and valued it at £20k less, so we changed our offer to 10k below what we'd offered (still 10k over valuation). Got turned down, so we walked away and bought our current house. Nearly 2 years later and other house is still on market, at 20k less than we offered. Bet they are bloody kicking themselves now.

Suntangirl - if I had the £ and wanted to live in Plymouth your flat looks lovely

all boils down to price IMHO!!
in reply to whoever aid it central London, outer London Surrey wherever went down just as much as anything else in the last crash

we're overdue the next....

re the Plymouth one i'm not trying to be rude honestly but who in Plymouth earns 100k (using the trad 3x salary multiplier) and do they really want to spend it all on buying an attic flat!!

really guys
if you had 300k you would spend it on a 2 bed attic flat in Plymouth ?

it does look nice but ....

I agree with the last poster - for that price I'd want a family house - the flat appeals to FTB and they tend not to earn 100k.

Lovely flat, lovely view but I'd put it at 180k tops.

I was down in the 100,000s too but at the lower end!

I agree with others that the price may be the problem.
From Zoopla it looks as if there are a lot of similar properties priced around the same level, so I can see why you/the agent placed it where you did, but there is clearly a lot of competition out there.
Have you looked at the other similar properties to work out if they look more appealing and how you can make yours stand out? It might well be that the only way to make it stand out is to price it lower than the others.

also I'm guessing people will pay money to get a great view when they feel rich but if there is a recession it is seen as the kind of luxury they can cut back on

Rose - there is a buyer for every house and every house has its market value

If the price is right, it will sell

Sorry to be brutal but its true.

You need to do some research yourself and put yourself in the buyer's shoes. We recently out ours on the market and I forced the estate agent to take £25k off the price for a quick sale and we got an offer in six days. The offer was £25k below the asking price, therefore £50k below the original valuation and we accepted it.

If you want to sell quickly, knock the price down and you will notice the increase in interest immediately

But take heart, we are buying in Ireland, where it typically takes 2-3 years to sell a house!!! June-September is not a long period and as long as you are getting vieiwngs, you just have to sit tight and wait

BTW I remember the stress of tidying up after babies and small Dcs for each viewing - it is worth it in the end xxx

My mum told me that when selling our first house, the people who bought it were the ones who dropped in on spec without making a booking, so she had no time to clear up and there was washing up all over the place. Strangely they bought the place.....

I don't think everybody sees themselves in Minamlist-ville, whatever it says on Location Location.Sometimes it's nice to see a house that looks as if actual people lived in it.

Ours had dropped about 30k in value since we bought in two years ago. Oh well - can't afford to move anyway, though would like to one day.

Sungirl, I agree about marketing your flat at young professionals - lovely though it is I wouldn't want to live there with a young family either. Do you have wine bars, resturants etc nearby? Is it an easy commute? (I see you're in Plymouth - are you in the centre where most people work or will they need to get a bus? - sorry, don't know Plymouth - or do peopel commute elsewhere?)

I also agree with more plants on the balcony. And I'd try to get some pics when it's blazing sunshine - I know your pics are in partial sun but I'd still go for brighter.

And I also agree about moving the bin!

Another general tip for people selling: check what is in flower in your garden when your pics are taken and update your details. If I look at some details in December and the pics have daffodils out in the garden, I know it's been on the market a fair while. I might think there is something wrong with it, and I might also think you'll be desperate enough to take a low offer. Ditto Autumn leaves or snow or frost.

I once sold a house in January when it was very miserable. I had pics of the garden in June out to show the viewer (it was an old cottage and I'd planted up a traditional cottage garden) and this helped to get the sale - I know this because when the buyer came back with her mum she asked me to get the pics out again to show her! If there is anything good about your property at a different time of year to the one you're trying to sell in then make sure your viewers know about it, and if you have pics get them included in the details.

sexonlegs- that'd be Thornden school, wouldn't it? and to be fair, though you say you have a 'fab house in a fab area' if it isn't in the 'fab catchment', you will struggle more to get families interested, esp as you obviously abut that catchment AND the sad fact is, though I don't know what your catchment IS, Thornden's presence does appear to have had the effect of making the immediate surrounding secondaries surprisingly 'under-achieving'.

We deliberately bought in catchment having rented in first (6 months) just to be sure we'd get DS1 in! Then, last July, after MONTHS of looking all over the catchment, we offered on a 4br estate house. We offered £1000 over the odds and we weren't in a chain but still there was a fair bit of mucking around til we moved in last November.

Houses have definitely held their value, though I wouldn't say they've gone up by much (neighbour put v. similar property on for £365k, lowered to £339k 2 months later and instantly got a 'sale' stc. That's about what we offered a year ago).

I am aware that sooner or later, the recession will bite even leafy Chandlers Ford. I know that somewhere along the line this house will sell for a lot less than we paid for it. It has to, really, as there's no one coming in on the bottom. As far as I'm concerned, I live with that because a) we have no mortgage thus can't go into neg. equity, b) houses became wildly, hopelessly overpriced and so many folks allowed common sense to fly out the window as they snapped them up (this place sold for £420K early 2007!) now are in shock that they can't sell them for what they 'need' to sell them for, and c) falling house prices means my DSs may not have to live here for the rest of their lives!

Finally, I like the attitude of suziehomemaker . The woman speaks enormous sense.

Suntangirl just wanted to say I love your flat and I think the retirement market might be worth considering.

My 70-year-old dad lives in something very similar, in a sought-after town, he paid more than double what you are asking, for a 3-bed (that was 3 years ago, obviously prices were very different).

If it has a lift, IMO sun-worshipping retirees would love it. These are the downsizers who are selling 4-bed houses with gardens they can't manage, so they have the money in the form of equity, even if it's less than it would have been a few years ago. Also, this market sees the fact that it's a flat with a contained space as a benefit, they don't assume that the more money you spend, the more rooms and space you want.

Good luck.

Our house won't sell either. We bought it in August 2007 on a 100% mortgage. The crash happened a week later .

I now have a gold dust job an hour from home and, while I don't mind the commuting at all, if we do get pregnant it's going to be a nightmare. No family live near us and DH goes half an hour in the opposite direction. So we took out a £25k loan to pay off the negative equity and sell the house in January (house prices haven't gone down that much in Cambridge), and thought we would rent in the new place.

Four months and ten viewings later, not a single cheeky offer. The house next door sold for £180k and we still owe £204 on ours, plus an early repayment charge, and we wouldn't have been able to afford all the fees on top. So we took it off and we're stuck here forever.

When I was 5 (1987) my mum bought a flat when she divorced my dad, for £25k. We were stuck there until I was 16, when she sold it for £15k and just broke even on the mortgage. My whole life I've been stuck in bloody negative equity!

Sorry to be doom and gloom, but house prices are falling again. We're stuck on 6.69% for 2 more years so the mortgage is astronomical. I reckon we'll be here at least 5 years, maybe more. I bet we have quadruplets and we'll have four kids in a tiny 2-bed with a 5 foot square kitchen. Argh!

Oooh Ampere! How did you guess??

How old is your ds1? Is he at Thornden now?

We need to get dd2 in to Scantabout Primary which is why we need to move in the first instance, and of course Thornden is the attraction.

The prices really have not been affected much at all have they in CF.

Dh went back to the agents with a sum of what we want - 8k more than they have offered, so will hopefully hear back this afternoon.

Feel sick with nerves.

£204k, obviously, not £204!

everyone - i did say this was the old listing. we have a new listing starting on wed with new posher estate agent.

florencerose - if you don't think plymouth folk can afford this how do you think we do? this area is luxury apartment world! also worth mentioning this place is at least £20/30k cheaper than the azure development next door which house the most expensive property in the city (elton john bought on of the penthouses for a relative) fwiw its a penthouse, not an 'attic'

itake the bin point on board - dh is v proud of those bins but i will have a word! its true the kitchen is a weird layout and somewhat awkward.

we have had lots of retired couples viewing but they balk at the big steps to get up on to the balcony.

the location is right in the city centre at one end of the hoeand is cnetral to everything - hence i'm only just taking my driving test - there was no need!

nottirednow - then i'm guessing you wouldnt look at penthouses at all then! balcony is very safe i have friends toddlers out there often plus dd but i doubt anyone with kids will view anyway. shower is giant wetroom built in to the bedroom behind a curved wall but neither agent has managed to photogrpah this :-(

the balcony plant thing gives me a headache. last year i had lots out there but as we were selling this year i thought i should calm down. i went for white geraniums and lavender hoping it would just look chic. i struggle out there because of the sea spray - not much can withstand it out there and or becomes very ragged in the storms

allarmbells - yes it has a lift

sungirltan, I wouldn't worry about the lack of balcony plants. I think you're right, decluttered looks good on the balcony. I think the first balcony picture looks fab (fantastic view, lighting perfect IMO) - would go for a straighter horizon on the second one, though.

I think I'd also have the photo of the front elevation from straight on, if possible, and without the bit of field (unless it's a really nice green space, in which case would be worth getting a longer view of it).

hey vesela - thanks for that - i don't understand what you mean by front elevation though?

and while I like the bins, I think they have the effect of making the kitchen look smaller in the photo, because they're quite big (you're expecting to see smaller bins, so you resize the kitchen in your mind).

sorry, front elevation = the front view of the building.

Not read all the threads but it has to be realistically priced. IMO anyone in the property market just now is talking the market up and valuing houses at much more that they are worth (in Scotland). We still have Home Reports here and it all seems like a stitch up between Estate Agents and Surveyors. Go with YOUR instincts as to how much it is worth. I did this with my flat. The estate agent and surveyor valued it much higher (with subsequent higher cost of home report - funny huh!) and no takers. I dropped to fixed price at what I thought was more realistic and had 7 viewers in a week with a firm written offer. Fingers crossed that it's all going to go through without any more hitches. The estate agent didn't want me to drop my price. In doing so, I've totally devalued an entire area of Glasgow but a house is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it!