Summer property slump

[Karbea]

we are basically homeless, living in my inlaws place as our propert fell through.

An agent today said that he is waiting for the summer slump to end, any ideas when, I'm losing the will to live, I want a home :(

I think it traditionally improves mid september when the kids are back at school

That's because it is actually a Property Slump. Not just a summer one. IMHO.

Hmm difficult to say especially given such dire economic times! Nos of houses on market here have gone right down over last few weeks although personally, I wouldn't think about selling this year or next unless I absolutely had to move! I know a few people desperate to put their houses on market and sell up. They are waiting till Sept as don't want stress of houses on market over summer.

I think it depends where you are in the country to be honest?

We are in beaconsfield bucks. I'm tempted to put notes through people's doors, but my dh doesn't thinks it's worth it

There is definitely such a thing as a summer slump - true, times are also hard, but there's a summer slump every year.

This time last year (in fact, exactly, to the day) we put our house on the market and found there was nothing at all coming up for sale. I have a good friend who manages an estate agents and she said it would be queit until mid september. Then a house came up on September 8th, which we viewed and we managed to sell ours in November so completed at the end of Janaury. We now live in that house, one year later.

Hold your nerve!

Karbea - TBH I wouldn't go with notes through people's doors. You might come across time wasters who just want to test the market and are not serious about selling. (We've been stung by time-wasters recently, via traditional EA way.)

Karbea, we are just about to exchange on a house we found through leafleting. It's got to be worth a shot.

What did you actually say on the leaflet? Dh is pretty much anti this approach...

I just put:

• what kind of house we were looking for (e.g., min number of beds, garden requirements etc) and why we were doing a leaflet drop (e.g., we were not having much luck with the estate agent route).

• That we were serious family buyers, not developers.

• That we had finance arranged and could provide evidence of this at an appropriate stage.

-That we would welcome calls from anyone thinking of selling, either via agent or privately

-contact details (only mobile and email, not home phone or address).

I suspect my DP would have pooh-poohed the idea massively if I'd said I was going to do it, but I just decided to go and do it one day and told him when he came home I think