The decluttering, cleaning, vacating, pandering, nailbiting antics of the stressed out house sellers

[Spirael]

Starting a new thread, since our old one was almost full!

Anyone suffering the stresses of trying to sell a house is welcome to join us; anyone here to tell us our houses are crap and/or overpriced is not.

Just accepted 215k and agreed to take the property of the market. Yey

It's like a totally different world in London! Congrats crystal, fingers crossed the rest of the sale progresses just as smoothly

Our property went on Rightmove today ....................... haven't heard anything from estate agents! I was kind of hoping that the phone would be buzzing with rich buyers in no chain who wanted to purchase OUR house very, very quickly!! Sigh. Ok. I was being somewhat optimistic!!

Bloody hell littlecrystal - result! Well done! It could only happen in London. Have you offered on the house you like?

We viewed the Victorian house. Lots of food for thought and I'm still taking it all in really. We do like the house but really wished the garden was larger. The family were really nice (but do people not go out anymore whilst viewings are taking place?) We were impressed with the restored sash windows and really surprised that you couldn't hear the road. No drafts either and it was bloody windy and freezing. I think we need to go back and look again. They have a second viewing on Sunday too. We're still scared of the Aga but it did make the kitchen very warm and welcoming. So different to our house with its laminate floors and gloss kitchen. Their kitchen was all old reclaimed this and that :)

CuddyMum you are just like me with the laminate flooring and gloss kitchen. I cannot wait to install some, plus gloss sliding wardrobes in my new 60s house. I am going to view the 2nd time on Saturday and then will decide what to offer - it is a bit of a project so it will be hard to estimate correctly.

Very exciting littlecrystal!

I forgot to say that I was brave enough to take the girls with me to the viewing. One liked it and the other said it was a dusty, crusty old person's house and "too Victorian"! It certainly wasn't dusty. I guess at 14 she's too young to think about character!

Wow littlecrystal... Congrats! Do you have a bit of good fortune left for us?

Alwayslate, I don't even know what travertine is... And a three hour commute does sound horrible. I'll tell my son about that; if we manage to move house he'll have a daily two hour commute to college.

Doglover- good luck!

Cuddymum... wouldn't count too much on the 14-year-old being to young to judge a house; it might just not be her taste. Personally I love the look of Victorian houses but I have lived in a Victorian style student house so there's always that little voice that says: cold cold COLD & horrible sash windows that either get stuck or slam down on your fingers...

I think I may have persuaded my partner to go with another estate agent as soon as we know whether the last viewer (who was put off by our current EA's misinformation) is still interested. Our current broccoli-brained EA says he has already contacted them with the correct information. We'll see. Any idea if we could sue them?

Hi everyone,

We have been away over easter but only had two viewings. Everyone has been very positive but not in a position to offer. One person wanted to buy a restaurant but if that falls through they will buy our house.

The house I want is still on the market so have fingers and toes firmly crossed.

sailorsgal, it's so frustrating isn't it, especially when people aren't able to offer?

Tau, I hope your EA can resurrect your viewer - what a donkey!

Good luck doglover. I wonder if people have gone away (somewhere hot) for Easter.

My 14 year old is half sloth and barely leaves her room anyway, so we just need to ensure that there's an aerial in her room so she can watch crap telly :)

Tau and others I wish you the best of fortune. I am indeed very lucky. People have asked "if you got offered on the first day, why didn't you push for asking price?" Well I don't want to push my luck, this is already more than I expected and I don't want to end up too greedy.

Cannot wait for my 2nd viewing of the house I am hoping to buy on Saturday. Planning to offer 91% of asking price. Fingers crossed as there aren't many other options.

Wow crystal! Amazing! Good luck for Saturday!

No news here. I'm assuming that's not good - they clearly aren't hammering my door down with an offer, but I guess they could be doing the 'sleep on it' thing. Or checking out kitchen designs and prices.

I'm a sucker for Victorian places. Have never battled with an aga though. And tbh, this neck of the woods wasn't even invented until a hundred years ago, and even then they just put up wooden shacks. So everything is new, or mid century pre-fab. It's very different. Once a house gets to a certain age, folk buy the land rather than the house, and then knock down and rebuild. I do miss brick!!

We have an offer. $49,000 below asking, and we had deliberately priced to sell in the first place (it's $100k below what the EA first suggested we list at). That means it is a full $104,000 less than we paid for the place four years or so ago.

Oh, and not only that, they want possession on 15th August (about twice as long as it normally takes to complete here) and, (I am faintly hysterical about this one) they have written a condition into the offer that they can show the place to their daughter, and if she doesn't like it, they won't buy it.

So effectively, they are asking us to lose $100k, put off moving, and they get the option to walk at some indeterminate point in the future if they see something they like better (I mean, if their dd doesn't like it, what am I thinking?)

Surely if they were even remotely serious and not just having a piss-taking punt at getting a bargain (with the option of dropping it if something better comes along) then they would make sure all of their family liked it before they put in an offer? And make a sensible offer? Especially if they have no intention of moving in a hurry?

What planet am I living on?!

Our EA is somewhere between mortified and a teensy bit hysterical. We have an appointment with her at 9am, and the offer is on the table until 6pm.

Half of me is saying 'do one, nutters' but a teensy voice in the back of my head is saying 'omg, what if that's the only offer we get and we turn it down?!'

It works a little differently here and we get to counter the offer (so effectively the paperwork goes back and forth with a bit of bartering until we either agree, or one side or the other pulls out of the process. We can agree conditions which have to be met within 14 days.)

There is no way on this sweet earth I am taking my house off the market for two weeks in order to give it away with a free theoretical $100k so that the mystery child takes two weeks to decide if she likes it or not.

Ffs. And dh is in Vancouver.

And the fricking dog barfed an entire vat of shit-filled vomit all over the dining room. I am about to murder the dog walker - who clearly let her munch her way around the park. I had to get dd2 outside because it triggered her gag reflex, and then reclean and steam clean the floor again this afternoon.

I suppose at least it was after the viewing.

Ouch that's not much of an offer. Hope you can negotiate something better or another offer comes your way.

Alwayslate, of course I am hardly an expert, but if I were in your place I would not accept the offer. Personally, I don't think you need to. Those people are clearly not ready to commit to buying your house.
I'd tell those people that they are welcome to have a look with their daughter if your house is still on the market by then, and if they are still interest in buying it they can make a sensible offer at that time.
I don't think you have anything to lose - they are basically saying that you should close all your options and exclude other interested parties so they can keep their options open... surely they can't be serious?
I'd like to pull that trick on the house we would like to buy!

morning. been a bit quiet here so not posted on the thread for a while. We have had our searches done on our purchase, mortgage paperwork has been sent off and we have signed both the sale and purchase contracts now. No idea what happens next as we have still not had a survey done on the purchase house.
Our buyers keep asking questions that sound practical and I am answering all calls and emails as soon as they come in.
What happens next? Maybe I should contact mortgage people to see where things are.
Have got two removal companies coming to quote in the next week or so and purchased a steam cleaner to help me tidy and also to clean in the new house.
Off to do some tidying and chuck some more stuff away, I love doing that!

I just called another bank, the latest one of which our EA has said that they would absolutely NOT provide a mortgage on our house. And surprise surprise... that bank sees no issues with providing a mortgage on our house. Just like the other bank of which the EA had said they wouldn't.
I wonder what the hell our EA has been saying to those banks???? And, more importantly, to our potential viewer?

I think he has told them that our house is of mundic block construction. Yesterday I spoke to him on the phone, and tried to explain to him for the umpteenth time that the results of the test actually mean that NO mundic activity was found at all in our house, to which he said: Thank you for your lesson and then he said something about trying to contact the viewer again, and he ended the call. Now I am not particularly good at 'reading between the lines' and he wasn't rude or anything - but it seemed to me that he was being at best patronizing and at worst sarcastic.

I am so so so fed up and stressed out.
Three days wasted with stressing and spending hours correct the idiot EA's errors, and we probably lost a potential buyer too thanks to him, and than he is acting in a belittling way to me as well. Estate agents are supposed to help you sell your property, not hinder you, insult you and make things extremely difficult!

Called the EA to tell them the latest result of our own research, which is basically only confirming what we said all along, but the person concerned isn't in. The lady on the phone will try to get him to call back.

It's a good thing that their office is so far away or I'd probably be in there making a big loud fuss....

Yes, we are going with another agent. Today if I get my way! Yesterday even.
But my partner wants to wait a bit to see if that buyer will be 'resurrected' (as cuddymum called it). Guess that makes sense.

Augusta - I think we are at a similar stage. I believe we are awaiting any enquiries now.

Tau - get started with a local agent. My current agent tries to belittle me too. I used to deal with the assistant manager only but she left recently.

Off for a second viewing this afternoon on the Victorian house, armed with a list of practical questions and a sensible head on :)

Oo, good luck cuddy. Relax and see what you think. No point going for it if it isn't right.

Tau those are my instincts too. They really are taking the absolute piss, and want it entirely their own way to buy or not as they please, at a price far below fair market value.

And having worked out the numbers, if we accepted their paltry 'offer', we wouldn't even be able to afford the legal fees without putting less than 20% down on the new place, which would mean much higher insurance and a higher mortgage rate.

So, essentially, if we were foolish enough to accept, we would be making it impossible to move without signing ourselves up for an interest rate hike for the next 25 years. Pah.

I'm going to tell them to bring their dd back if they wish (if someone else hasn't made an offer in the interim) and then make a sensible offer if they want to.

I can sort of see the humour in it - and I can picture that they are just trying it on to see if they can get an absolute steal, but we just don't have that sort of financial buffer... The problem with living in a vacation town is that buyers who are just looking for a weekend home forget that some of us are scraping together funds to pay a mortgage on our one family home - the one they are looking at picking up - not chucking a few pennies at the little people to see if they can score a good deal. $50k might just be a number they write on the cheque, but it means a heck of a lot in terms of additional borrowing and higher rates for us.

If that offer is as good as it gets, we won't be going anywhere.

Tau, new agent. He sounds horrific. Supercilious twat. I think I might be inclined to write a letter and mail it to the manager, carefully detailing his obvious deficiencies in knowledge, but also pointing out that it was his attitude that caused you to change agencies.

Hold out for a better offer alwayslate plus they sound very demanding (a bit like my buyers). Some people want it all!

We've reviewed the Victorian house. It was really warm and calm (and didn't smell of anything). We were there ages. The vendors were there but it was actually useful to chat and ask questions. There may actually be room for the chickens I keep promising myself! I'm still a bit scared of the sash windows but am "warming" to the Aga. I could just see us in the kitchen all the time. We'd probably never go in the dining room! The house was lovely and warm and there were no fires or radiators on. I've had our heating on all day and it's still not warm.

Agent came round today to take photos and sign agreement. Just looked and we are up on their website already in draft form (looks good, can I keep it & move the house ) and apparently we'll be on rightmove by Monday.

Had another lot of viewers this afternoon. My instinct is that he liked it but she didn't, so not too hopeful.

Always - they really are taking the piss aren't they. I'm sure you'll get a better one.

Cuddy - we love our Victorian house. I'd never choose modern now as it would feel too claustrophobic.

Augusta - steam cleaner is on my list too. Which one did you get?

Cuddy - we have an Edwardian house (that everybody thinks is Victorian) and we love ours too - it's size, ceiling height & large windows are spoiling our search for our new place.

Will you be looking for an older property then wonky?

Moving times - we had a lot of he loved it and she didn't (and vice versa).

Now the question is, do I need a steam cleaner too?

We are looking for older properties preferably edwardian or victorian but the area we're relocating too hasn't got many of them. It's either mainly cottages or new builds. I think were spoilt from living in a city with a lot of choice moving to a more rural area with less on the market.