Anyone else struggling to sell a house at the moment?

[MrsJohnDeere]

No sign of this much talked of property boom where we are.

House on the market since July. No offers. Put the price down. Now thinking of changing agents but not sure if that would help at all.

Fed up. Please tell me I'm not the only one!

The thing is we're not really that rural. We're in a tiny village but only 5-10 mins drive from town. All the people who've viewed have been from London (we're an hour or so outside) and don't know the area at all. I have the impression that they've just come for a day out rather than being serious buyers!

Feedback like that is frustrating. I always give totally honest feedback on houses - garden too small, too much road noise, etstate agent claimed a property was detached and it wasn't (had that twice recently) etc.

My house I was selling completed yesterday. But, at the beginning of the process, I had very few viewings and the agent was fairly useless at giving me an indication of why the place wasn't selling. I dropped the price and still got nowhere.

So - I decided to take the house off the market and use a Home Staging service to 'dress' the house (Clarify Interiors, based in Oxfordshire). It cost £3000, but it was money well spent. Following the staging, I had way more viewings and an offer within two weeks of it going back on the market.

My house was empty at the time I was trying to sell - it had had tenants in, so obviously the staging helped. But I think a lot of people really can't visualise how nice a place could be, or have limited imagination (I know I do). So to have the place turned almost into a show home made such a difference.

PM me if you want any more info.

That is an interesting idea, thank you.

I would change your estate agent.

I know which estate agent is best at selling which type of property locally. The estate agents that sells the most properties locally actually under prices the properties by several thousands of pounds (there was a £45,000 difference between their sale price for my house and the next lowest price) so I would purchase a property advertised with them but not sell mine through them.

I also know which ones are better at marketing rural properties (I know you are not really rural being a few minutes from the town) so it would be pointless me selling my property through them, and the ones which sell lots of appartments/flats.

Its definately worth telephoning round and asking them how many flats they sell and how many rural properties etc just to give you an idea of whether your agent has the right client base for your type of property. Its also worth considering using several agents rather than just 1 to market your property.

The biggest problem I have with my property is that although its a 1st time buyer property our little town has just started a massive new build project where over 2500 new houses are being built. The majority of them are 1st time buyer price along with the 'help to buy' scheme in place. I really do need to sell my house but its 40 years old, and not in brand new pick your own kitchen/bathroom with designer landscaping condition. I dont think I have much chance of selling mine despites its reasonable price.

Have given notice to our estate agent.

EAs sometimes can give bad advice - we're hopefully completing on our first house this week and the viewing process has been an education.

There was a 3-bed detached I kept on eyeing up, and when they dropped the price by 10k I decided we should view it. We loved it, but it turned out that the third bedroom (which they didn't have a photo of) was just too small for us. We gave feedback, told them it was at the top of our budget and we felt it was still overpriced.

Two weeks later they put the price back up by 10k.

I know for a fact that the same developer is selling houses with the same blueprint off-plan and brand new for 25k under their asking price, and it is literally 4 miles down the road.

What is sensible about that? Bad advice.

how does it work if you use lots of agents to sell? Does the agent who gets the offer get paid the percentage fee? I haven't sold a house before and although I spoke to 3 agents all gave me the impression that you pick one and that's it. Am I being a bit naive?