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? :)

It's 2 months since the offer. Reckon it's a bit late now.

I'm furious we've just found out now about extending the lease. I now realise they tried to tell us weeks ago, but made a mess of it. They wrote and said we'd have to renew the lease as it had "expired". I wrote back telling them to check their notes, as it hadn't expired!

When I found out I rang the solicitor for advice. They gave me none. Then I wrote back asking her to say to question the validity of this in relation to my flat with the other solicitors (I though then it didn't apply to us). Today I've found out it's standard practice, I wish I hadn't written that

I have the buyers phone number and we have texted each other occasionally (mostly at the beginning of the sale). I'm considering texting them to explain that the conveyancers are being useless but I'm on top of it, in case they think I'm being difficult - what do you think?

I'm starting to worry about loosing the sale as it's gone on so long/

Ahh but maybe they don't have family or friends living close who can sit them? If we'd have had kids when we moved up here, they would have had to come with us as we didn't know anyone.

On the plus side London people may re visit for another viewing. Enjoy your mould spraying. You'll get an on the spot viewing just as the fumes hit their peak.

Just had what I think is a blatant drive by. Parked virtually outside and took his little girl to play on the swings for 5 minutes (and it's getting dark). Got back in the car and drive off. There was a teenage couple snogging on the grass next to the park. Hope young love didn't put him off! Wondered if it was husband of teacher checking the park out... I am actually going insane .

Now TWO viewings! That has certainly perked me up on a wet evening, apart from the prospect of waking up early tomorrow to clean & tidy....

I would be deeply irritated by an agent helpfully suggesting I come back without kids but I wouldn't hold it against the vendor!
I've had to take kids in the past and it's obviously not ideal but if you have limited times when you have childcare and the vendor/agent has limited times when you can view, it's not always going to work out.

Good luck Marshmallow - are the viewings on the same day?

Yes, both tomorrow. One morning, one afternoon. We have to find something to do to keep us out of the house for 4 hours or so...

checking in.... only been on the market 2 weeks. Only had 3 viewers. None booked this weekend. :(
Feels like its going to take forever and we are only just beginning...

Another viewing (no.45) this pm DH DD DS and dogs out the way kitchen and bathroom scrubbed and cleaned vacuumed top to bottom dusted to death. Our EA now claims that we are not one of the immaculate move in do nothing houses and not a doer upper, we are in the middle, so maybe that is our problem - I can't do anything about making it immaculate - maybe I should trash it!!!! Just an idea?

Ha - that's not v useful advice - is it (unless he's identified areas that you need to improve)? I'm sure after 45 viewings trashing it might be fun - but you'd have to attach a fixer upper price tag? :(

That's an odd thing for the EA to say but good luck with viewing 45!

thanks!!!

16muddypaws, I fear that describes us, too. We are only on viewing 4 though. The viewers all seem bothered that we never had a shower put in, though the kitchen and WC are fairly recently done up.

When viewing a house (if it's any help...) I get very put off by houses that are immaculate but have gaudy wallpaper not to my taste. I don't want a fixer upper myself but I don't want to take down someone else's immaculate gaudy wallpaper either. What happened to making places plain to sell them..? Ours is plain apart from the kid's room...

I'm a hater of bold feature wallpaper and high gloss kitchens - both already look so dated (in fact anything too 'on trend' oh how I hate that phrase, as it will look naff in six months) - and certainly the former would be a real pisser to remove. I don't mind tiles so much (possibly because I like tiling).

Marykat could you put a shower attachment over the bath by changing the bath taps and putting a shower head bracket on the wall above - you could do this for under £80 and it would answer the 'how do you shower' question. It's what we've got as we've got a clawfoot tub and you really don't want a power shower pissing water all around the bath :)

It's funny isn't it how personal our likes and dislikes are? Some folks can be put off at the oddest things.

Ahhh I'm still scarred after removing seven layers of wallpaper off the walls in our house - it was like archaeology going back to the 60s and the first layer was, I'm sure, applied with bitumen. Absolute b*stard to remove. And the smell of wet wallpaper glue in the steam - gah.... still turns my stomach.

No.45 didn't seem very interested - didn't say a lot, she is a downsizer, in my opinion these people think everything they look at is too small!!! We don't have wallpaper in any of our rooms they're all painted neutral colours except our smallest bedroom which is painted light blue, it's our bathroom which lets us down I think - it has a champagne coloured suite and cork tiles on the floor - not our taste but never got round to doing it up really - kitchen is fully fitted in light oak with neutral tiles and flooring. Our EA has suggested we put price down after one more week if it hasn't sold - thinking of getting another EA to give us his opinion?

Tell me about it - downsizers (spoilt by years of hogging the biggest family homes long after their kids have fledged the nest, and having been able to buy houses when they were cheap) seem to count anything with less than 3 spare bedrooms as inappropriate for their needs. Even if they are on their own. Unbelievable.

It's your choice 16 but I think I would have lowered the price long before 45 viewings, it depends though how much you really want to move I guess. If you have even the slightest hint that the price is on the high side - I would drop it - given that as you say there is work needing doing on the house. Folks will be factoring in the cost of a new bathroom and that's not the cheapest room to update. Beware of getting another EA to value high just to get you on their books (there's lots out there buying business at initial valuation and then being very harsh in terms of telling vendors, once on their books for a few months, to cut, cut, cut) - it's no use being with another agent who doesn't manage to sell it. Maybe get another agent to assess a price that they reckon it will realistically sell at - rather than pitching it at the highest price possible to achieve (which might be the current EA's strategy)?

The "average FTB is 37" Nonsense. No company is collating any such data. How would you quantify it? You can't even define FTB accurately, never mind confirm whether this is a mean, modal or median average.

These sorts of shock statistics are made up by journalists trying to keep their jobs and the freaks on Housepricecrash.

Every area and every type of property has its own target audience. FTBs aged 28 routinely buy £500k flats where I live; downsizers routinely sell for £250k where my mother lives. The important thing is to know who's looking, and respond accordingly. If you're concerned about timewasters and no-shows, just impose limited weekend viewings, as I said upthread.

Without help from Mum and Dad - the average age of a self funded FTB is 37. Sorry I should have stressed self funded! This isn't a figure made up by journalists but comes from data published by those mortgaging banks / building socs who keep and publish a monthly track of the data (Halifax and Nationwide) - admittedly this is only from their own pool of mortgages. Average as a term, in this context, I believe is used to mean arithmetic mean (not median or mode).

Don't shoot the messenger!!! But it does rather speak volumes doesn't it? Particularly with pension pots tightening and annuities falling, the number of self funded buyers is likely to increase IMHO.

I agree with the idea of limited weekend viewings for those bothered about no-shows, and in many parts of Scotland, Sunday is traditionally an open day for houses on the market where interested parties can just drop in without an appointment. Obviously, you'll not always be able to get feedback.

Here's a linky to the research if you don't believe me 1605,[http://www.independent.co.uk/money/mortgages/firsttime-buyers-life-begins-at-40-6265083.html]