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? :)

Things do suddenly seem to be moving, a lot of the For Sale signs around me seem to be shifting to Sold. Might be a sign of slight recovery?

Keeping my fingers crossed for more interest for you, CuddyMum. I'd love your house! If you could move it to Yorkshire, I'd sell my kidneys and buy it.

Well, we have our buyers surveyor coming around tomorrow. Guess I'd better tidy my house a bit tonight after slobbing around all weekend! We don't think there should be any problems, age related concerns aside, as we've not had any indication of horrors such as subsidence, damp, etc. Fingers crossed the surveyor doesn't turn up anything!

One more day until we find out whether or not we are proceeding with the house we've offered on. The bank are probably considering the offers at this very moment! [chews nails]

Good luck with the survey - that's the nerve wracking bit but at least your buyer is on the ball. All the best for tomorrow too :)

I've been told the survey will take two hours, so it doesn't sound like it's one of the super fast ones! But doesn't sound like it's one of the ridiculously in depth ones either. As long as it just brings up the issues ours did when we moved in (minus the stuff we've since fixed), hopefully there'll be nothing to worry about. :)

Less than 24 hours to wait now for our answer on our offer, hopefully. I just want to know, one way or the other, so I can start moving forward again and get things organised!

24 hours is nothing compared to 14 months... But I hate waiting!! [stamps feet]

Good luck Spirael with your survey & waiting on your offer...the people who made an offer on my place want to move fast (timescale based on when their rental contract comes to an end) so I am hoping we can progress things for them quickly.

We went to see 2 properties tonight - one a 'definite possible', the other a money pit which could be made into our dream home IF we had a spare £100k to throw at it. So with a 6 month old baby in tow we are going to pass on that, reluctantly.

Another 'definite possible' on a nearby street I'm hoping we'll be able to see tomorrow.

Neither of them are in a 'perfect' location (one is well placed for a good local school but a lot further from the nearest shops than our current house, the other is closer to shops & a local park we really love, but less convenient for schools/train station) - but neither of those things are deal-breakers. Lots of things to ponder anyway.

We scrubbed our house from top to bottom on Monday morning in readiness for the viewing. They came, they saw, said they loved it, went and we never heard from them again :( I wonder why I bother sometimes.

The EA said that apparently the only thing they didn't like was that we didn't know whether the house we wanted to buy was chain-free. Well, as we haven't had a viewing in six months until this week how could we even view anything? It's not how it works round here. They came from London, expecting the market to be just the same here as it is there ie still moving quickly and assumed we already had a house lined up to buy. We gave up viewing stuff months ago, in despair, thinking what was the point in getting someone else's hopes up when there was no hope at all.

So, we're back to sitting on the market, waiting for another viewer to come along in perhaps six months' time. Or give up.

Argh... Still waiting. Apparently the two offers were 'ridiculously similar' and the bank are currently deliberating over which one to go with.

So I guess we're basically on a coin flip as to whether or not we get the house, unless our rivals are in an exceptionally good position. (No chain/cash buyers/etc) The implications I've been getting though are that we're both in chains.

I may not find out until the end of the week, apparently. [sobs]

Surveyor is currently surveying. He hasn't mentioned anything hugely wrong or sucked his teeth yet, so hopefully all is ok. Might grill him before I let him leave, just to give me some peace of mind!

Sorry to hear your viewers disappeared, DuchessofMalfi. :( Might be worth telling people you like a chain free property and/or are planning to go into rented? They can't technically hold you to it, after all!

Hope you find somewhere to love, marshmallowpies! :)

Duchess that's such a pain. It's as bad as job interviews when you don't get feedback, isn't it? Even polite neutral feedback is better than nothing...if someone said 'it's a nice house but not really for us' that'd be better than them disappearing.

Duchess - I feel your pain :(

Marshmallow - good luck with your house hunting

Spirael - everything crossed for you. I really hope you get the house.

I've just had a call from the EA to say that a viewer who came back in July wants to come back tomorrow. They rejected us initially as they have a million children and although we have enough bedrooms they were unsure of the downstairs space (which I understood). Anyway, they stopped house hunting as there was a death in the family. So another cleaning session in the morning. I was feeling smug as I haven't cleaned up since Saturday and am now in panic mode!

83% of asking price! I'd bite their hands if I were you before they change their minds.

Quick question regarding feedback - we've looked at 5 houses recently and only once has the EA rung afterwards for feedback. I'm happy to give feedback but would prefer to give to to the EA than on the spot to the vendor (who showed us round in 4 of the houses). I had assumed that the EA should solicit feedback ut do they expect me to ring them to give it? We're moving to a slow-moving area where houses stay on the market for months and viewings are relatively rare. Or are they not taking us seriously as potential buyers?

I'm not surprised you didn't accept Toomuchtea. Hopefully they will increase their offer.

Our EA actively rings the viewer for feedback the day after. Often the calls are not returned.

83% of asking price isn't that great an offer, even in the current climate. You might accept it after a long time on the market, or if it was absolutely vital that you sold quickly, but holding out for more seems sensible enough.

I know Toomuchtea you face the risk of the other interested party not coming back.

But I wouldn't consider an offer that low because I know I wouldn't get that off another house in the area.

Duchess - very sorry to hear. Interesting though, as our viewers today wanted to know if we had somewhere to go or were in a chain. We said (truthfully) we had looked at places, about half in chains and half either empty or retired people going into caravans or something like that. I'm not getting my heart set on any particular property before we have an offer. It's harder if you have already decided what you want to buy... we are still quite far behind most on this thread, still not had that many viewings. About 11. No offers yet.

Graven - most EAs phone us back but if a house we've seen strikes a particular chord we have phoned the EA to express interest (though can't offer til we've sold. Stopped looking for now). . I would think definitely feedback to EA not the vendor. That's what the EA is for!

Do people really make offers before they have an offer their own place? I wouldn't do that but we have spent a couple of days viewing houses to see what we can get in the area where we want to go. If an offer came in on ours, I'd go for second look on the one we like best a the moment or see more houses right away. Though I have heard there are a zillion steps along the way where buyers or sellers can pull out.

We finally got our feedback this morning. The EA rang to say he'd heard from them that it wasn't the right one for them because we haven't got a separate dining room. All they needed to do was put the dividing wall back up - we made it open plan as we didn't want a separate dining room. EA wasn't impressed with their excuse. So back to the waiting game, then.

How disappointing Duchess especially when they would have known from the details that you didn't have a separate dining room and that it could easily be reinstated.

Our viewer was here for an hour, which seems to be the norm now. I'm not overly convinced that anything will come of this viewing as the house hasn't got bigger since she last viewed. I suspect that there is nothing else suitable and she is just ruling us out.