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.

[CuddyMum]

You're both nearly there Marshmallow and Spirael! You'll both be in for Christmas and can relax and enjoy :)

Rival house pics are rubbish and the EA they are using never does floor plans and nice brochures but he has a ridiculously low fee and no shop window etc. They bought three years ago at only £10k less so not as cheap as I thought and they won't make any profit at all but then neither will I. Husband just wants to take ours off now but I still want to move and we can't do that if we're not for sale. Feeling confused at the moment and miffed at the lack of feedback.

[Pootles2010]

Wow Spirael, sounds chaotic! Moving in right direction though hey.

The guy who came yesterday said he didn't want to pay over the stamp duty barrier, which is fair enough. Unfortunately, we need 133 absolute minimum, otherwise we won't have the 10k equity which we need to pay the deposit for the mortgage. There are two houses on our little cul de sac exactly same as ours that went for 135 and 138 within last couple of months though, so i'm hopeful!

[YellowWellies]

I guess the other folks just want to move more Cuddy there could be a shit reason for a low price - divorce, job loss, bankruptcy so don't send them too many evils!!! It is a fecker for you and a real make or break moment I guess. Do you chase the market down (if there's sells it will set a new floor for prices in your area that would influence mortgage valuations on your property when you get an offer) or do you cut the price, or do you take it off the market? Oh god hon, not what you need before Christmas.

I'm now feeling like a traitor as I'm cheering the fact that the house we want to buy hasn't gone to closing and isn't under offer yet. I want that market to grind to a halt and yours to speed up Cuddy

Spirael

[CuddyMum]

My gut feel is that if we don't start getting proper feedback that we should just call it a day. I'll see what my EA says when she is back on Wednesday. I've often wondered if you can auction a "normal" house - does anyone know?

[marshmallowpies]

We have exchanged on the house we're buying and about to exchange on mine, waiting to hear that deposits have gone through! Was not expecting that till tomorrow so had to ring up and get buildings insurance ASAP.

Spirael we should be moving a week today, packers come on Monday. Wish I could say I'd gone down a dress size too but it sadly wouldn't be accurate...

[ArbitraryUsername]

You can auction a normal house. It doesn't have to be a wreck or a repossession. But the prices achieved at auction are often quite low.

[Spirael]

ARGH!! Apparently we're moving on Friday. THIS FRIDAY. We have no removals, utilities or floors. [runs round like a headless chicken]

[CuddyMum]

Oh my!!

[Pootles2010]

Ooooh Spirael thats exciting! Very jealous! Goes home to calm house with no boxes

Can't believe thats just suddenly been decided though! Do you think removals will be able to sort themselves out in time? Good job you did that mail re-direct, thats one tick off the list at least...

[CuddyMum]

Spirael - how will you move your furniture? Still exciting to be in before Christmas .

I had some feedback earlier via email from the EAs. Nottingham people like it but are not quite in the "very good position" that they said they were - they haven't actually sold... Perhaps their good position was feet up on the sofa, mince pie in one hand and a Bailey's in the other .

Now, I've heard this "we're interested but not sold" line a number of times now so am not holding my breath. Am not sure whether they will have seen the competition house come on Rightmove and wonder if they will come and have a look at that too (as you would). I have said that if we do finally get an offer that we would rent to avoid a chain situation and I know we would exchange quickly (based on when we bought).

[marshmallowpies]

Spirael there must be other removal people glad to take on a job at short notice at this time of year, admittedly they may charge a pretty penny for it...hope you can work something out!

Luckily we'd booked the removal people already, DH has done post redirection, and today I've done buildings insurance, council tax, BT and water. Electric and gas still to go...but think I might end up on hold for hours to get that sorted...

[Spirael]

Phewf, we have removals! That was my main worry, but a small local company have given me a good price to move everything. Their reviews are good, so hopefully that'll work out ok. :)

Utilities should be ok, but right now they can't find our new address on the system. They're going to investigate and get back to me once they've verified our new house exists!

For floors... Still don't know. The bank won't order them until we've exchanged, and until they're ordered we don't know which ones are/aren't in stock and if/when they'll be able to fit them.

We haven't exchanged yet, but I believe everything is in process. Bit of a manic hiccup this morning where they needed our insurance quote for the new house, but we're transferring our existing policy. Hopefully that's now sorted. [crosses fingers]

At least with removals sorted, I can relax a bit. Floors are annoying, but not the end of the world. I might try and start feeling a bit less stressed and a bit more excited... Only two more nights and then I'll hopefully be living in my dream forever home!

I've never had an ensuite before, I'm really looking forward to having one. And my new hob has a wok point! Excited about using that too. Little things.

[Spirael]

[bangs head against wall] May have spoken too soon... The bank are now claiming they've never received the valuation so are not releasing the funds. I thought they had to have the valuation before the mortgage offer?!

Either way, no funds, no exchange, no move.

DH on the case this time, but argh!

[suzilywoozily]

Afternoon all,

Could I join your gang?? House went up yesterday and I am already nailbiting. I started the post 'Is this a cheeky offer??' so could do with a refuge where people aren't going to tell me my house is overpriced!

Hope things are going well for all of you.

[CuddyMum]

Hello Suzily - welcome! I did read your other thread and can't believe they viewed four times! The most I've had is three times. The cleaning up is the worst part - it takes me a good 5 hours.

Noone here will tell you your house is overpriced :).

[Spirael]

This whole thing is a rollercoaster ride. Ok, so it turns out our bank had contracted some surveyors who had contracted a valuator to go out and value our property and none of them actually bothered talking to one another.

DH shouted at some people and suddenly our valuation has been discovered and passed to the bank via email. Should be logged on their system for the morning, that should should be the last thing we need in order to exchange. 24 hours before we're due to move.

I have 24 hours then to try and get through three different companies to sign off getting our carpets laid and arrange with the shop to get someone out to fit them tomorrow or Friday morning. Not holding out much hope that'll happen, to be honest!

So I'll need to move and leave all my possessions in boxes so I can move them all around the house, tetris style, next week so they can come and put flooring in every room. Until then, we're on floorboards and concrete.

[goes greyer]

[Spirael]

Sorry, that was another exceptionally long and whingy post. I'll try and stop complaining.

Hi suzily, welcome to the madness inducing antics of moving house! Sounds like you've got interest straight off the bat at least, so hopefully it won't take you too long to get an acceptable offer!

[Pootles2010]

Don't apologise it does all sound a bit stressful! Hoping they've got it all sorted out this morning?!

[Pootles2010]

Actually - would you all mind having a little look at our house on Rightmove if you get a minute?

here I'm not sure if we need pictures re-doing. He took them on a really dingy cloudy day, and I think it makes our house look worse than it is - what do you think?

Also thought about trying to smarten up the living room a bit - paint it a lighter shade, buy new cushions maybe, do you think it would be worth it?! Estate agent thinks not, but seeing as we've had one viewing so far I'm not sure i trust him...

[confusedperson]

Pootles, here is my personal opinion: 1) It does look like the pictures were taken on a dark day - a lighter day would certainly be helpful, perhaps cheaper than repainting darker walls :) 2) the house looks somehow exposed - front garden without a fence/gate, overlooked back garden, no curtains.. I would atleast change that heavy curtain in your lounge to some light transparent day curtain.
Otherwise, a tidy neat house, well done.

[Pootles2010]

Thank you confused! I really do need honest opinons - very helpful thank you! There isn't really anywhere to put a fence/gate, hard to explain but no one one else in our estate has one, you just get your two parking spaces, then a bit of gravel, then your front door really.

Agree about the garden - its a bugger, as in the summer those trees are in leaf and you can't really see the houses, and the garden looks lovely! Can't really see what i can do about that in short term though?

Thank you for curtains idea -will def look at that!