Support thread for house sellers

[Spirael]

Just what it says on the tin, really! I'm sure there must be other stressed house sellers out there? Hopefully we can band together and get some small joy of (hopefully?) seeing our houses sell so we can get a move on!

This is a thread of hand holding and mutual support for the EA dealings, weeks of silence, frantic house tidying, no-show viewings, silly offers and tough decisions. This is not for house bashing and price slating. There are plenty of other threads for that!

I've been trying to sell for a year now. Had a surge of viewings earlier in the summer making the right noises, but all has gone quiet for the last few weeks.

However, we have a viewing booked for later this afternoon from someone who has sold their house and is able to proceed - wanting to move before Christmas. Currently swinging between pessimistic and optimistic, while trying not to look at the house we want to buy!

Anyone else out there? :)

Oh I hope your neighbours shut up!

My worst viewing ever was when my son came home halfway through after a paintball party. He was covered in mud and attempted to stroll through the house! I had to leave the viewers to it while I convinced him he needed to be hosed down outside. Did not go well!

Either being late or just not showing up for a viewing is so damn rude if you ask me. We luckily never had it (we have the opposite problem up here, lots of older Orcadians just like to show up on your doorstep with no appointment - which can also be a nightmare!) but it would have made me so livid. Good luck ladies.

I'd be happy if someone just turned up after all the cleaning I've been doing and I'd pretend that our house was always this tidy :)

Quick update. She turned up very apologetic with her DC. I think it went really well. DH got back before her and neighbours children got so close to throttling each other she'd shoved them back in the car and driven off again.

Lots of bedroom allocation and we showed her some old photos on the wall and she said oh I'll have to buy one of those .... on outside of house and put that up again. So mentally I think she was working it all through. Or just being gushingly polite.

I've rebuilt DD's cot and turned her room back into a nursery from the bedroom we'd staged it as.

V.large wine in order. I had to decant a bottle to put with glasses on the table earlier.

I'm having wine envy - it's rubbish selling your house when you're updiffed and can't reward your self with large glasses of wine after every viewing

Well done on the positive viewing Misfor! They do say that for a viewing to turn into a sale - the viewer has to be able to imagine themselves living their life in the house - (also why it's a good idea to let them have a few mins to wander round the house unaccompanied) and it sounds like yours was doing just that!

That sounds positive Misfor - best of luck. Our 6.30 lady yesterday was talking about knocking the dining room and kitchen together and imagining herself here too so hopefully it's a good sign.

6.30 couple from yesterday just drove down the street and turned around (we are at the bottom of a close) - probably checking to see if anyone is in the park.

That's got to be a good sign you're high on their list. Is there anyone in the park?

No, there's never anyone in the park at night (thankfully).

Woo hoo - a drive by is a very positive sign! I guess they are checking out your neighbourhood at night. This strikes me as v positive.

Well I've not got another viewer coming at 6.30 on Monday. That's five in four days! Surely someone must want to buy.

Sounds promising, CuddyMum! Are they able to proceed?

No feedback from our viewing yesterday yet, I expect we'll find out on Monday how that went. We have another two viewings booked though, one for Monday afternoon and another for Tuesday afternoon - so need to leave the house tidy on both days.

The Tuesday afternoon is mildly laughable, however... It's Scottish Lady. Apparently she decided she does want to see our house after all so is driving back down. Sounds like the other one fell through, to me. Karma, perhaps?

Don't know anything about tomorrow's viewer as husband took the call and didn't ask - doh! I normally liaise with the EA and grill them. I wonder what happened with Scottish lady? It sounds like things are picking up in your area too Spirael. Best of luck with next week's viewings and I hope you get some feedback from Saturday's viewing on Monday.

Nothing here yet... Will probably call the EA at lunchtime for any feedback or at least their impressions on how it went. Had to leave the house tidy again this morning, got todays viewers going round at 3:30pm.

1 3/4 hours is a long time, Toomuchtea! Hopefully that means they're seriously interested. :)

X post... That's good for the offer, but bad that they still need to get their house on the market and sell first. Especially given that there's only a few more weeks left before the market theoretically dies down even further over the winter!

Hopefully they'll manage to move quickly and have their selling be more like Woodlands experience than mine. So then they can proceed with buying your house!

Great news about your offer Toomuchtea. May it be the first of many. Or at least, several.

We're viewing a house tomorrow
It's a doer-upper and we can do it as a cash purchase. DH is incredibly gung-ho about the whole 'doing-up that house/selling this house thing'. I don't think he's read enough Mumsnet threads to have a proper grasp of how hideous the whole process can be
Fingers crossed we don't like it!

All quiet here. I recon our women will offer its just when and how much! It was very positive when she left.

Great to here of another offer coming in on the thread, it's all movement in the market, but why do so many people offer before they're even on the market?

Lol at the doer upper quails house.

A stoat got all but one of my quails about a week back, if I'm being practical it's one less thing to move - nature is cruel.

I meant I'm quailing at the prospect, not that it's a quail house

TBH though about 20% of my reason for wanting to move is to make room for more chickens (and I would love quails, they're so cute).

MissM - you might offer before going on the market so you would know in principle what the seller is prepared to accept. It's all very up-in-the-air if you offer when you can't proceed though - no seller with any sense would take a house off the market or consider themselves in any way bound by accepting an offer from someone in that situation.

Yeah offers from those not yet on the market scared me, to the point where we refused them point blank. You have no way of telling if they are a realistic seller or if they are going to be marketing their property at a daft price and therefore sitting on the market for years. Tell them thanks very much for the offer, but you won't be withdrawing the house from the market until they are proceedable.

toomuch great news. A couple like that put in an offer on ours when they were not on the market a few months ago. Despite a couple more offers coming along they are now the buyers as the only ones to have sold! Hope same happens for you.