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Original poster

Is anyone else trying to sell a house and feels like poking themselves in the eye with a sharp stick?

283 replies

Pinkjenny · 04/05/2011 14:37

House has been on the market since July. We have changed estate agents, which obviously made no difference as it's not a new instruction. Am sick of it all, sick of the pointless viewers, sick of the useless feedback, sick of always being pipped at the post, sick of the market, sick of my house.

OP posts:
GnomeDePlume · 12/05/2011 08:35

MoreBeta sorry I called your partner DH!

My feel with big developer staging is that when you see the show home you know that isnt what you are buying. You see the show home and then you get taken along to see the actual houses for sale in various stages of completion. We only ever have one house to sell so the potential buyer needs to see what they are buying.

All this of course is only my opinion!

If you are selling what was your own home what was it that made you want to buy it? So long as it wasnt something mad can a potential buyer see that same thing?

QueentessentialExcel · 12/05/2011 10:09

GnomeDePlume, I would love to have your job!
(highjack - I remember you on my thread about the horrible demanding tenants a few years ago, who totally trashed the place, costing us more than 8k, plus what insurance paid out, which was more in the 5 figure bracket)

Fimbo · 12/05/2011 10:13

Where do you put all the furniture you have stripped out and where do you sleep???

GnomeDePlume · 12/05/2011 10:38

Queen sadly it isnt a full time job or at least not a full time salary! DH does most of the actual work, I get to do tiling, painting, buying and planning.

Fimbo if you are living in the house then you cant strip out completely. That is for property development rather than selling what was your home (note the past tense, while you are selling it isnt your home just a place you are living in right now).

Thin out your furniture. In a bedroom you would normally have 1 wardrobe, 1 chest of drawers, 1 bed. Unless the bedroom is very big more than that will look cluttered. Clear stuff off the backs of doors so that doors can be opened properly. For the photographs all surfaces should be clear. Even tastefully arranged ornaments can look like clutter in the pictures. For the viewings then setting out as Mathanxiety described above is ideal. When selling our first house we had 'house viewing' fluffy towels. These were never used except for display purposes! (toothbrushes etc were hidden).

Excess stuff can be packed away, put into storage, ready for the big move. I always say that showing and living are not the same!

Fimbo · 12/05/2011 10:56

Ah ok. I am a minimalist anyway. Really don't do clutter at all.

MoreBeta · 12/05/2011 12:21

Gnome - we have never owned our own home. We always rented for the last 25 years but have lived in lots of rented houses so I know what you mean by emphasisng the thing that made us like a house.

The thing is we have an opportunity to buy what is really a sort of group of dwellings rather than one house. We will live in some but will have to do up the rest to sell off so that is why me and DW were having the conversation.

Grin at "'house viewing' fluffy towels". There is another top tip.

QueentessentialExcel · 12/05/2011 12:52

I dont need a full time job Gnome, two part time ones will do me well! Grin
I am so keen on property, I think I will find work with an estate agent when we return to London.

Honneybunny · 12/05/2011 14:28
  • decluttering CHECK
  • new lick of paint CHECK
  • tidy the garden CHECK
  • discounting the asking price CHECK
  • fresh bread and coffee CHECK
  • rearranged the furniture to make the rooms look bigger and more inviting CHECK

If we have done all the obvious, why is our house not selling? We are getting the viewings, but not the offers.
It is a good thing we don't have to move and love living here.... although we have seen a lovely house that we would like to make an offer on.

mathanxiety · 12/05/2011 14:40

Viewings but no offers = asking price is probably at least 5% too high.

Honneybunny · 12/05/2011 14:41

sure, which is why we dropped our asking price by 5% last week.
am i just wanting this to happen too quickly?

Housemare · 12/05/2011 14:49

Surely if people like a house and are coming to view and think it is 5% over, they will just offer at 5% less? Hmm

mathanxiety · 12/05/2011 14:53

'At least' 5% -- it could be more.

Honneybunny · 12/05/2011 14:55

Housemare: That's what i thought as well, but the EA seems to think that the drop in price is going to make all the difference. We'll see if he is right.
I think what stings most is the fact that I love my home but none of the people viewing it seem to Sad. Well, actually "none" is not true, as we have had a potential buyer from day one, but they need to sell theirs first.

mathanxiety · 12/05/2011 14:55

But if you've just dropped it, give it a while before considering another drop, and see if the pace of viewings continues in the meantime.

Housemare · 12/05/2011 15:02

What I do is this: If I see a house I fancy above my price range I phone up the EA and ask how flexible the vendors are. Then I view if the answer is favourable and offer what I think it's worth.

It isn't rocket science and I REALLY don;t think dropping by 10K makes a blind bit of difference, in all honesty.

View a house, if you like it offer what you can afford/think it's worth.

FannyPriceless · 12/05/2011 15:26

To give you and insight into what buyers are thinking at the moment - we are viewing a huge variation around our price bracket. We are not regarding any asking price as fixed in stone. If we see the right house, we will offer what we think it's worth (based on how it compares with sold prices on other property in the area) and what we can afford. If it's refused we will leave the offer on the table.

We viewed a property this week which has been on market for 6 months and just been dropped by £20k and rephrased as an 'offers over' figure. In our opinion still not worth the asking price as there is a lot of updating work needed. The agent asked me for feed back and I told her we thought it should go for more like £40k under the new asking price. She didn't seem surprised by this.

But... what we are seeing is that properties which do match our wish list exactly are moving quickly. There was one this week that went under offer within days, before I even got around to booking a viewing. That snapped me out of my smug 'oh it's a buyer's market' view pretty smartly!

narmada · 12/05/2011 15:28

fannypriceless absolutely exactly the same experience from me. We, like you, are viewing a wide variety of properties at different prices. We're in greater London FWIW.

mathanxiety · 12/05/2011 15:31

If a house remains stubbornly on the market and the price seems to be coming down only very little over time, then I think it is obvious that making an offer that is not somewhere near the asking price will be a waste of time.

GnomeDePlume · 12/05/2011 15:31

MoreBeta that sounds like a really interesting project, I hope it goes well for you.

Queen the more dedicated estate agents the better!

GnomeDePlume · 12/05/2011 15:44

Honney a few other thoughts to add to the mix.

  • Who is the estate agent getting to view? Are they genuine viewers or are they being conned into viewing your house when it isnt appropriate. Good estate agents dont do this but there are a few fly ones who do just to look busy.
  • How do the details compare with your house? Are the details inviting or overselling? There is a bungalow near me which has been on the market for the time we have bought, rennovated and sold a different bungalow. On paper this other bungalow is priced just right but in practice it is right next to a convenience store with kids hanging around. Problem is that you cant see this store from the details.
  • Is your house typical of the neighbourhood houses or is it being let down by the neighbourhood? One thing we do is a litter pick (and if there is no one around to see I also get the weedkiller out to kill off weeds on the pavement).
FannyPriceless · 12/05/2011 15:45

I don't know math. My view is you should always try your luck as you never know if the timing might be right as the vendor's situation changes over time. e.g. sudden pressure from relatives to sell, change in business circumstances, suddenly found dream house and don't want to lose it, etc. But I am cheeky like that.

I really do sympathise with all of you selling. We went through hell selling our last place and it is only now (over 3 years later) that we have got over the trauma and decided to buy again. Good luck to you all.

Boosaphena · 12/05/2011 16:52

Can I also borrow stick please?
We've been on market 4 months and had 1 viewing who said we were too 'rural' She could have seen that from bloody google maps and saved me the effort of getting my hopes up and tidying.
We need to move because I am bloody lonely, my daughter goes to school 12 miles away and i cant stand the drive (45 mins each way). We planned on having moved from here 2 years after buying, but the market crashed so werent able.
My house is in prime commuter belt area, 4 min walk to stn and 56 mins into london, BUT its so niche, and is so rural we only have neighbours, a pub and a station.
These were reasons we loved it at 1st, but then i had children and stopped commuting and now i am going out of my mind.
we have changed agent, and dropped price but no go. I just feel so desperate i dont know what to do.

Original poster
Pinkjenny · 12/05/2011 16:55

They 'liked it but they've got more to see.' No more feedback than that. Is it me? Are my expectations too high? Surely the EA is capable of a more meaningful discussion than whether they 'liked' it or not.

OP posts:
tyler80 · 12/05/2011 17:00

Pinkjenny sometimes though as a buyer it's hard to give any more meaningful feedback, I'm sure everybody has viewed houses which were nice enough and ticked the right boxes but didn't have any sort of gut feeling about.

mathanxiety · 12/05/2011 17:03

That response is a polite no.