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? :)

I can fault the > 6 months = 10/20% overpriced logic for this area. Around us there are hundreds of very, very similar properties and just not enough buyers for them all!

Even if all the sellers in the area slashed prices to material cost they won't all sell, because there simply aren't the same number of people who are willing/able to buy right now.

Doesn't mean all the houses are overpriced, in fact this area is dirt cheap in national comparison! Houses are eventually selling for within 10% of the asking price.

Different areas have different situations. But here the challenge is finding someone who prefers your particular layout/size/decor/facilities over the house up the street, the house on the next street, the house over the road and the house three doors down.

It makes me very :( to think people are might just be disregarding us because we've been trying to sell for 14 months. We bought before the peak, we've done huge amounts of work on the house, we're listed for 15% less than what we paid (and are the cheapest in our area by 5%) and we expect offers below that. If we're still overpriced, I guess we're never moving!

Mrs Overlooked is coming to second view tomorrow afternoon. If all is going well the EA will propose that we view their house.

Spirael - I totally feel for you. You have so much competition. Our problem is that we don't have any competition.

Spirael a savvy buyer will look at what you paid for it online via the Land Registry / Registers of Scotland. Once I note that the property is on for less than someone bought for - I always mentally move them to the 'sensible' / 'not being a greedy whatsit' camp! I'm sure others do too. Your situation sounds a nightmare :(

Cuddy fingers crossed you like it - that could be nice solution for everyone!

Problem we have is that they massively overbuilt flats in the boom around here. They still haven't sold them all so flat prices have gone through the floor - they can't give them away!

Those who want flats can get an empty, brand new one for peanuts. Meanwhile those in flats who want to now upsize to a small semi (i.e. my area) can't sell! So the bottom of the chain is missing, which means nothing is moving further up.

Not really sure what the solution is, or who to blame! The now bust property developers, perhaps? At the least, I don't think the fact that I can't sell is entirely my fault purely because I bought my house when I did.

Very true - at the time Kirsty and Phil and other property porn was all over the telly and the older generation kept reiterating 'you can't go wrong with bricks and mortar' which is pants - it was just in their interest to keep the bubble going as they stood to make the largest gains. Though I would say lots of people don't do enough research into the biggest financial decision of their lives. I am shocked by the number of my friends who think that their interest only mortgages are 'interest free' and the number of folks who were still piling into property after Lehmans and Northern Rock went bust just made no sense to me. It was all over the news.

IMHO the banks were to blame for not applying appropriate risk management to their lending and creating a massive credit bubble. Slightly less guilty but still guilty were those who were happy to sign up to ridiculous mortgages with no real thought of how they were going to repay if the financial climate worsened. Both me and DH were always taught to walk away from signing up to any mortgage we couldn't fund on one wage or if interest rates rose to 10%. If more folks had done this (we need more financial literacy in schools but I digress) the bubble would never have found willing victims to take on 10x salary interest only mortgages.

Can I join, please?

We have been on the market since June and thought we had sold 3 times. First one dropped out after the survey - despite the fact that we immediatlely dropped 10k to secure another property we had offered on and were able to provide a structural report showing that the issue her surveyor red-flagged was, in fact, a non-issue.

Next one was unable to get a mortgage - and it took our property being off the market 2 weeks for her to find this out . Then we got a cash-buyer - a Dad buying it for his daughter and her partner. We had an offer accepted ourselves and thought all was fine. We were due to exchange in the next couple of weeks but 10 days ago we received a call form the EA telling us the couple have split so the deal is off. I just find it so hard not to get bitter - they are 21 so not a huge surprise they have split but why go around in Never-never Land making offers on properties without taking it seriously? We have sat off the market for 2 months because of them.

Anyway, since we went back on we have had 6 viewings lined up and our EA has persuaded the other EA not to put the property we are trying to buy back on (part-exchange being sold by a building company, so no emotions involved).

First viewing (done by dh) went well but they had just started looking and dh didn't think they'd go for it. Next two (yesterday) were both a total waste of time - people clearly unimpressed by our wealth of original features - so why come and view the house? Woman this morning seemed very positive and kept saying 'wow!', insisted on swapping numbers as she doesn't trust EAs and asked whether we would sell some furniture as it goes with the house so well! Think that's promising but am trying not to get hopes up.

We had another one this pm but the woman had come without her partner and said they'd already seen one they like but she has lined up another 10 viewings 'just to be sure'! Dh and I both think 'total time wasters'. Why piss around with people like that?

If we sell at £95k (on at £100k) we will lose 5K plus whatever we've spent on it - about another £6k. We don't care as long as we can still move up but startingt o feel we're doomed. will be on edge next week now waiting for feedback and we have another viewing lined up Tues.

CuddyMum, Toomuchtea and YellowWellies

Thank you for taking the time to reply to my post...your kind thoughts about my situation were appreciated...as was the reassurance about being realistic in relation to the value of the house.

There was a similar house round the corner from dad, same postcode, where the old lady died just a few weeks before dad. So it has been on the market around 8 weeks and has an 'under offer' sign now and I am aware that the sale will complete very soon.
This 2 bedroomed house had a HR value of £100,000 and is on market at overs over £97,000...it is also stated to need 'internal upgrading'.

Dad's house has an extra bedroom, looks over the park rather than the main rd and also has an extra large plot of ground due to being an end property.
His will also need 'internal upgrading' - although it has double glazing and gas central heating.

The estate agent suggested £115,000 might be a realistic final price to accept but again we will wait and see - just want it sold.....very hard when there is an emotional attachment to the house that is only being sold due to bereavement.

I will be making arrangements this week to start the ball rolling on the valuation process. When the estate agent came out a couple of months ago to give us a rough value of the house - for estate/probate purposes - he said not to worry about decorating/replacing kitchen etc because people will want to put their own bathrooms etc in. All he suggested we do was repair the hole in the livingroom roof where my dad fell through from the loft!! And tackle the overgrown garden where weeds were as tall as the house in places!!

Dad was stubborn and wouldn't accept any help in the garden...so since mum died 5 years ago it turned into a jungle.

So the roof is now fixed, garden had a makeover and we also pulled up the carpet and hardboard in the bathroom...dad was missing the toilet and the floor was minging. It now has fresh hardboard down...wasn't going to bother getting a new carpet.

Sorry this is so long again!!

Thought you might enjoy this...it was in our local paper today...
House seller hoping comedy video will attract some serious offers

That is fab bentneckwine, the house is lovely too! The Courier is also our local paper.

Can I join thread please?

We,ve been on the market for two weeks now, just one viewer but they have put in a note of interest (Scottish System). They've been on holiday for a week but keeping everything crossed we'll hear from them this week.

Trying to keep the place tidy with a 2 and a 3 year old is a right carry on!

Bentneck - it sounds like you have worked extremely hard and I hope the house sells quickly.

Toomuchtea - how did the second viewing go?

Our second viewer was here for ages - we came back after an hour and turned around as they were still in the house. Went back again and they were still there. Gave up and went to the pub with the dog (for a latte). We did a drive by of their house and DH said it was too small but if they like ours it could be a temporary solution...

Sounds like good news with your second viewing, CuddyMum! What will the situation be if you decide you don't like their house, though? Will you have to wait for them to sell to someone else before you can proceed?

Hope things go smoothly for you bentneckwine1. Also hope things go quickly and smoothly for everyone who's joined us lately! My area does seem to be particularly and unusually troublesome, so don't be too frightened by the lengths of time I'm quoting - it seems to be an exception.

Can't view the video at work, will try and watch it later once I'm home.

I ended up doing an impromtu replacement of the bathroom light fitting and repainting the bathroom ceiling over the weekend. Partially because I was convinced it was unsafe, but also because at least when doing stuff like that it feels like I'm trying to do something to help the house sell! :(

Anyway, it's not like I have anything else I can do in my free time, in my designer minimalist house that's devoid of actual possessions! Besides, the toddler seems to playing with screwdrivers and hammers....

But, still no more interest... Might call the EA later and cry whine at them!

(Just back from weekend away looking at schools at houses. Lots to catch up on here. )

Re stamp duty, the EA said that we might have to drop to just below £250k. They suggested starting at £275k. There is very little in this area for anywhere near that low. Small houses £800k+, flats in houses well over 300.

Questions now are? how long do we wait til we take the initiative to make the drop? We?ve only been on the market for 3 weeks. Had 9 viewers so far. Saw a house we liked over the weekend that needs a good deal of work but is well under our budget. We could afford to drop to £250k on our sale (or £249k if it must) and still get this house and have enough to fix it up. What would you do?

Also, buyers often want to drop the price after the survey. So do we drop to £249 just to get an offer in? But what if they then want to drop more? I would be very reluctant to drop more. A flat sold in this building for £330 recently though it had 3 or 4 bedrooms (we have 2).

Some houses we saw had gone off the market for the summer and back on. It amazes me how this society functions when the entire months of August and December seem to be a total write-off for a lot of people in all sorts of jobs or businesses. But I am glad to hear that not everyone takes those months entirely off.

We had two more viewers last Tuesday (46 & 47) no. 47 brought his wife back on Friday and we accepted an offer on Saturday - a bit less than we hoped for, but we never dropped our asking price in 3 1/2 months so it's the best we could hope for! I know it's early days and can't get too excited until everything is signed and sealed but I am feeling I can breathe a little sigh of relief and I know that next week when it's DDs 12th birthday that we are not going to get interrupted by people wanting to view the house and having to tidy away birthday cards every time they want to look - I'm just about to hang washing out in the garden too - result!!:)

Good news Muddypaws. Have you had any feedback yet Toomuchtea? I haven't heard anything yet.

Aaah!! We have a viewing - tonight at 6:45pm. The house is a tip and we don't get home until 6pm!

Apparently the viewer is an elderly woman accompanied by her son. They had been proceeding with a different property, but the survey showed up subsidence so they've pulled out. They now need somewhere else ASAP - hence the mad panic urgent viewings.

Aaah!!

Great news about your offer, 16muddypaws!

Thanks everybody!! It's still very early days and I will be still keeping an eye on these posts - it's been encouraging knowing that I'm not the only one in this position of not being able to sell!!

Just spoke to my EA to see how she felt the viewing went. They were a bit odd and critical. They had the EA running up and down the top floor to see if there was any noise etc. They said they would be in touch first thing but the EA has heard nothing. She's tried all their contact numbers but nothing. Am not holding my breath.

Good luck with the viewing Spirael - this could be the one!

Also it may not have helped when their little girls were moaning that they wouldn't be able to walk to school with their friends!

Congrats muddypaws & fingers crossed it all works out for you soon!

Feedback so far from Saturday's viewings: 1 couple liked the house but it was 'too similar' to where they currently live, the other liked it a lot but they still have a property to sell timewasters.

2 more viewings tomorrow, though, one just before lunch & one at 4.30, which means I have to get self & DD (6 months) out of the house for a good long while, it's a hassle going out for 20 minutes with a buggy and then coming back and going out again. So drawing up a list of errands & shopping to do tomorrow and hope it doesn't rain.

Well done Muddypaws and good luck Marsmallow.

16 amazing news. The day when you first get to hang yer smalls out on the line or the rads without fear of having to bundle it away for an impromtu viewing is indeed a fab one. We are now living like total slatterns and will do until we move!

Spirael is it mean to hope that your elderly viewer is myopic (and m'eh her son's a bloke so he won't notice mess!!!) and you can just bundle stuff into cupboards? I can vouch for toomuchteas bin bag approach. I keep finding carrier bags of junk I'd shoved out of the way for a last minute viewing dumped in odd places like the blanket box, car boot or laundry bin . Good luck with speed cleaning - never fun :(

Marykat I'm really not sure - my general view is 'there is no time like the present' if you want a quick sale and want to avoid the old 'catch a falling knife' conundrum but given your concerns re surveys etc your EA might suggest otherwise. Glad to hear that dropping your price still gives you options for a new place for yourselves. I think that's what we all hope for isn't it? - that if we have to take a hit - we can pass on that reduction up and down the chain so that on a net basis - all's fair! No one really thinks that high housing costs are a good thing other than mortgage brokers and bankers I guess!

toomuch Gracieloo is unlikely to have a closing date just yet if she's only had one note of interest (they're usually triggered by 2+ notes). It might be that if one offer is acceptable the EA decides against holding a closing date too IYSWIM?