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.

[Movingtimes]

LLL has a lot to answer for Wirecat! I can't be doing with people who think that buying a house is an excuse to unleash their inner Gordon Gekko. Enjoy the decluttering. I'm getting fed up with keeping the house pristine for viewings but there is no doubt it is nicer to live in at the moment!

Doglover, good luck with your viewing tomorrow.

Anyone had any removal quotes lately? It's 10 years since we last moved and I can't remember how much it cost then, let alone what it should be now.

[PastaBeeandCheese]

Well we had the first agent come today and were pleasantly surprised by what they said. The woman seemed really enthusiastic about our house too which is good.

Now I'm all in a dither about my original plan of using an Internet agent.

She looked like a woman after my own heart as she admired my pull out spice rack......

[Turnipinatutu]

Pasta - I feel it makes a difference if the EA is enthusiastic about your house. Hopefully that will come across during viewings too!

[CuddyMum]

Movingtimes - the people who are buying our house initially offered £50k below - and then disappeared for ages (5 months) before coming back and upping their offer. People are very cheeky indeed.

After speaking with Countrywide we decided on the Homebuyers Report. In all honesty there wasn't much difference (apart from price) between that and the structural survey. We feel that the house we are buying has been very well maintained.

We ported our existing mortgage and have added another mortgage on top. Be prepared to be on the phone for a long time and have all your financial details (outgoings, salaries, credit card balances etc) with you. When you are ready to complete the full application they will quote for home insurance too - I asked my current insurer for a quote and it was a third of that quoted through Nationwide.

[QuackQuackChicken]

We've gone internet-based, using eMoov. So far they've been pretty good but I'll keep you posted. The sign went up last week and we should go on right move tomorrow.

The main local agent, i think rather arrogantly, stuck his card through the door yesterday with a photocopied note saying 'call me'. They must do it to everyone but they cost a fortune, and there's no way we're calling them.

[monkeytennismum]

Pasta thanks so much for the info re the misty window. Glazier came round today and I can't believe how reasonable it is to replace - should have done it ages ago! I am really pinning all my hopes on the incoming warm weather to bring out the buyers....

I have a general question regarding your For Sale signs - what are they attached to? Ours have been tied to our front wall pillars and both times has fallen down and taken the top of the pillars with it! We have no lawn so both me and the EA are unsure of what it can be attached to. HAve any of you had them 'nailed' to your house / wall?

[PastaBeeandCheese]

That's great monkeytennismum. It makes a big difference.

There is a house on my street that has the for sale board nailed onto the wall so it must be possible.

Fingers crossed the sun brings all the buyers out.

[springlamb]

Well hello all!
I decamped to Egypt (to recover from all the housework in the last couple of months) for a week or so, and returned to find you'd all moved on 6 pages!
Congratulations Cuddy, so pleased for you, and I do think you sound kind of 'emotionally invested' by this house, even though it's so different to what you initially imagined yourself buying. This is exactly my situation - I'd been looking at our purchase for a year on the internet and only viewed it as it was right at the bottom of our budget and I wanted to rule it out totally. I felt an immediate 'connection' with the place.
Our buyers had their survey done today, and I was surprised that they had just opted for the valuation survey - I think I might have gone a bit further as £335,000 is a lot of money!
I need to get moving with our own survey etc, but still having a little trouble adjusting from 36 degrees in Hurghada on Monday to 8 degrees here today!
Good luck to those still cleaning frantically!

[CuddyMum]

I love t'Egypt! Am jealous :)

Having removals quote tomorrow afternoon so I hope it's not gone up too much since last time we moved.

[Notyetthere]

Ooh springlamb welcome back! I love a bit of Hurghada too. Need a holiday so bad but we have been saving for our 1st home for almost 3yrs and no holiday that it is going to be the 1st thing we save for when we move in.

Re surveys- I would have wanted a full structural survey for the 1955 house we are buying but our finances could only stretch to home buyers report. We plan to be present at the house while the survey is taking place in the hope that surveyor will naturally talk to us more than what he will put in the report. It also gives us a chance to have a nose around the house since we only viewed it once before we made our offer.

Doglover good luck with the viewing.

Cuddymum NW quote for both life and home insurance were very high for us too. We are going to look else where for them. In fact on looking at my pension, if I die DH gets a very healthy lumpsum so that might also lower the amount we need to insure for.

Movingtimes im sure you are realistic with your pricing but some sellers are not. we offered £190k for a house that had asking price of £225k. The last similar house on the same road had sold for 182k 5months before. The sold house had been modernised, new kitchen, boiler and bathroom. It did not have a drive though but I could not justify paying more than £35k extra for a drive, on a house that needed modernising( had not been touched for 20yrs) and trying to clean 20yrs of smoking indoors from the building's fabric. Another 5 similar houses in the road had sold for between £165k-£187k in the last 2yrs so I never really understood the justification for the asking price. Our offer of £198k stood rejected when we found the house that we are buying now. They have since dropped the asking price down to £210k and I still believe they will eventually sell for close to our rejected offer.

I have kept the rightmove updates coming in even though we have had our offer accepted for just in case vendor pulls out. Anybody still doing this? When we made the offer on the 1st house I was worried about having it accepted and then a better house could have come along just after exchange. The funny thing thing now is that the feeling of 'if something better comes along I will be disappointed' has completely vanished with this house. The 1st house needed so much work and I was nervous about the 2 massive oaks trees at bottom of garden with TPOs(I worship the sun alot). These are compromises we were willing to make after 3 viewings and convincing ourselves that it was the best we could get in our preffered area. We made an offer on the house we are buying now only after one viewing! Maybe we are fools but we shall wait for survey and solicitors searches before we think that.

[Movingtimes]

Notyetthere - I totally agree some vendors are unrealistic - we viewed a couple this week where the owners were completely deluded about what their houses were worth - but we are not. In fact we went on the market £15k lower than the price all three EAs we spoke to suggested we could get, purely to ensure a quicker sale. Buyers will be very lucky to get a house nearly as good in our area for the asking price let alone £50k below it.

Monkeytennismum - ours is nailed to the fence, but I have seen several attached directly to the front of the house so it must be possible.

[QuackQuackChicken]

Ours in on right move now. When I get to a proper computer, I'll stick it on my profile for a couple of days. My heart is pounding, please let it be not too stressful!

[CuddyMum]

I think it's a g

[CuddyMum]

Sorry - bloody phone. I do think it's a good idea to allow viewing whilst on holiday. One lot of cleaning and potentially a handful of viewers :)

Good luck QuackQuack.

[Movingtimes]

Agree with Cuddymum - you leave your house all nice and clean and empty for viewings and the EA shows people round, what's not to like? (Can you tell I'm fed up of making the house show home ready for one lot of viewers every few days?)

[Turnipinatutu]

Due to the lack of houses to view at the moment, I've just done something foolish .....I upped the search budget on RM by £300k and found loads of gorgeous houses (a bit too gorgeous) in my area! Making cheeky offers must be very tempting if the houses are just out of your reach! But I'd hate to be on the receiving end of that excuse.

[CuddyMum]

Turnip - we ended up upping our budget because there was nothing to buy. Saying that I always searched ALL of the house in the areas I was looking at, just out of interest (I am very nosey). I also scoured Zoopla to look at property history in the roads I liked to see what had been marketed previously and often you can see the old marketing details and pictures too.

[WireCatWhore]

Oh my god.
I've got too much to do.
I am overwhelmed.
I need to clear the 2nd bedroom today as there is a new carpet coming for it tomorrow.
It's a large room with loads of stuff in it. I am regretting thinking it needed a new carpet.

[QuackQuackChicken]

Wirecat, I'm there with you being overwhelmed. First viewing booked in for this evening! I'm going to have to dash home and straighten the house before 5pm. Please cats, do not be tearing chunks out of each other! You'd think you'd be allowed some kind of special dispensation for going home early on viewing days!

[CuddyMum]

I'm still feeling overwhelmed! I think I'll feel that way until we receive the mortgage offer and I when I know for sure that we will complete in time. Everything is up in the air right now and I feel like anything could fall through any day. It's nerve wracking.

[FreckledLeopard]

Hello fellow-sellers...Please can I join the thread? House has been on the market for two weeks, only one viewing and I'm already tearing my hair out.

I NEED to sell it. Really do. It's the first time I've ever sold a property and it's more stressful than I'd ever envisaged.

Hand-holding much appreciated....

[CuddyMum]

We will hold your hand!

Might have to start a new thread soon as we are nearly full :)

[doglover]

Hi FL! Welcome to the stressed-out brigade! Our viewers are coming in 2 hours and I'm FRANTICALLY stuffing things in cupboards, dusting and hoovering ................. well, I'm having a well-earned 5 min break as I type this! :) Good luck everyone!