Page 14 | A 'waiting for viewings and offers' support group?

TheWanderingUterus · 2016-11-17T13:24:23+00:00

Not quite ready for the 'in a chain' support group (please please don't let it be too long!), but we have just put our house up for sale and are waiting for viewings. Mostly cleaning and primping and procrastinating, with occasional adrenaline bursts when the phone rings. Anyone else in the same position wanting to share the angst?

Notanotherpawpatrol · 27/01/2017 17:49

I just phoned up the agent to confirm the open day was still going ahead tomorrow, only to find out they've only booked in one person I'm so not happy. They have given so many assurances that they have people lined up and wanting to view it and yet it feels like they are doing nothing.
This will be the 2nd viewing in 2 weeks and I just don't think it's good enough. I have a suspicion it's priced slightly too high, and I've broached this with the agents, but they say not. 2 viewings is just not good enough. (we did have a 3rd, bit they were a no show)

contractor6 · 27/01/2017 17:59

pawpatrol are you signed up exclusive with one agent? I wasn't happy with first one and changed, second was better and sent professional photographer, premium listing, mail shot etc. We had much more interest after that.

Notanotherpawpatrol · 27/01/2017 18:25

Yep, just one agent. We have premium listing, really good pictures etc etc. I just don't understand what they're doing other than that. We've been told they have over 300 people on their books who want a house in this area, houses are so quick to sell here, they go within days. We've not even had the for sale board go up yet.
I've questioned what's putting people off and been told 'theres nothing' I've asked if we're priced too high and been told not, but I can't help thinking we must be! I just told do we have 1 person coming tomorrow for the open house and he's really not happy either.

Cathster · 27/01/2017 18:44

That's frustrating pawpatrol, not really an open house if only one viewing!

Hopefully that one is all you need though.

We gave notice to our EA today. After telling us that we would expect an offer on Wednesday, they told us today that the wife isn't sure and wants to look elsewhere, and they can't afford it!! DH was raging. After a long line of misdemeanours this pushed us so we have told them we are cancelling our contract and called another EA to come and have a chat next week. Fingers crossed that they are more useful.

What makes other people decide what EA to go with?

Equimum · 27/01/2017 19:10

Pawpatrol, yes, we have viewed a few properties. We put the house on the market so quickly because of the one we saw last week. Sorry about your open day!

We now have three viewing booked in, so not a bad start.

Beckyb1 · 27/01/2017 20:00

Don't worry OB we've been up for sale since September, had 4 viewings and one ridiculous offer. Iv not had a single viewing since before xmas. Feeling really low and down that nobody likes our house.

trevortrevorslattery · 27/01/2017 20:15

contractor no but I should have said, the house we want to buy is empty as it's from a developer so no one lives there. They'd want to go as fast as poss to completion once we get a buyer. I thought that was "no chain" but our EA says not, boo

Equimum · 28/01/2017 09:48

Obviously we're probably a long way off getting any offers, but what is considered a reasonable offer nowadays? I know it will depend slightly on how much you need, but we keep being told that cheeky offers have been made on properties - what constitutes a cheeky offer?

I'm just interested as I'm not really sure what we should be considering a serious offer to be considered and what we should reject. We can drop a bit, if the house we have fallen for is still available, but not sure how much we should drop, if that makes sense. House on market at £280k which is roughly mid range for local area. Older property with larger than average floor space. TIA

Blackfellpony · 28/01/2017 10:36

Arrrgh we have found our dream home. The first one in a year we've seen and ours still isn't sold

They have 3 other viewings but not holding out much hope for us. Gutted!

drspouse · 28/01/2017 11:52

blackfell Good luck anyway! Can you make a really generous offer?

We think our offer is accepted, an email from the EA implied this but we aren't sure and no reply to our reply! Busy packing up the house today (stuff to storage for viewings) so we'll call later if no reply.

lampfromikea · 28/01/2017 11:55

Equimum I think that totally depends on what you would consider cheeky/insulting. Ours is on for 350k. We are willing to accept/negotiate to 15k below so any less than 330k would be a bit cheeky to us. Especially as we renovated the entire house less than 5 years ago, so there is little that needs doing to the property.

Friends of ours have a house on the market for £475k at the minute. They had an offer 2 weeks after putting it on for £425k. Knocking 50 grand off the price is definitely a bit cheeky to me.

Blackfellpony · 28/01/2017 13:57

Thank you drs. I am half tempted to offer above asking in the hope they will wait for us to sell but I doubt they would accept this
We can only try though!

drspouse · 28/01/2017 14:22

blackfell That is exactly what we're doing but we're in the lucky position of being able to raise the money otherwise.

Blackfellpony · 28/01/2017 15:59

Drs have you offered? We are 'unprocedable' but am tempted to try our luck and offer maybe asking them to give us a timeline to sell? Not sure if this is doable but we really need the house!

drspouse · 28/01/2017 16:07

Yes and it's been accepted except the vendors are overseas and have not officially replied!

Lilmisskittykat · 28/01/2017 16:09

An offer above asking is a good idea if you genuinely have the capital to offer over. Defiantly worth a go

drspouse · 28/01/2017 16:11

So just to give a bit more detail, we offered, they said "nice amount shame about your property not being on the market", we booked a valuation but then said "doh. we have equity in the BTL", we went to a mortgage broker and to our existing lender, the mortgage broker found us a great deal, and we sent the certificate of offer to the EA.

Blackfellpony · 28/01/2017 16:17

I wish we had some equity

We literally need to sell ours to release equity and to afford mortgage as the new mortgage will max us. Our budget was 285k and house is up for 230k so we could in theory go over but don't want to go too much over what the house is worth. It needs some updating so we need to keep some back for that.

I would be tempted to reduce ours drastically to sell, but if we get gazumped or something like that we could have sold ours in a rush for nothing. It's really hard to decide what to do for the best.

Estate agent said he has 4 more viewings lined up, not sure how true that is but if it's a scare tactic it's worked!

hooliodancer · 28/01/2017 16:49

So today we only had 2 viewings. The estate agent says they are madly busy but not with ours clearly!

One of them cancelled at the last minute (we had 2 do that last week too!)

The other viewing, they loved it. Said they were 'impressed'. But we often get very good feedback. We have only once had negative comments. They started to ask why we had had no offers in 5 weeks though!

I am tempted to lower the price as I don't want to lose the house we want to buy. We are already 25k less than a very similar house nearby. That house is smaller by 5 m2 and is semi detached whereas we are detached. So I think our price is already good.

We need a certain amount to be able to move and do what we want to do, so we can't go too low.

It's so bloody frustrating!

drspouse · 28/01/2017 18:49

hoolio at least you're not getting loads of negative feedback like my friend who is selling! She says they've had LOADS of viewings despite it being Christmas etc, but they've asked the EA not to show it to people for whom it's unsuitable (e.g. it's a dormer bungalow, one of the bedrooms is ground floor, one couple looked round who needed all the bedrooms on the same level).

drspouse · 28/01/2017 18:49

hoolio at least you're not getting loads of negative feedback like my friend who is selling! She says they've had LOADS of viewings despite it being Christmas etc, but they've asked the EA not to show it to people for whom it's unsuitable (e.g. it's a dormer bungalow, one of the bedrooms is ground floor, one couple looked round who needed all the bedrooms on the same level).

Equimum · 28/01/2017 20:08

Drspouse that sounds exciting. I hope things start to progress and you get to move to your new home quite quickly.

hoolio, that all sounds quite frustrating. Hopefully you'll get more viewers (& an offer) very soon.

Blackfell definstely ask if they'd consider an offer and hold it for a while. My friend did this at the end of November and the house they are after has been listed as SSTC ever since. She's still not sold, but the vendors are happy to wait.

lamp, thanks for that perspective. I think we'd realistically accept anything over £270 and might consider an offer at £265 if the house we want remains available. I keep hearing people say that an offer that more than £5k below asking price is unreasonable, but a friend turned down an offer in that basis last year, and ended up selling for nearly £20k under asking price six months later 🙁.

Feedback from outer first viewing was positive. They liked the (rare) off road parking, the space and the light, so we'll see if anything comes of it. We now have another four viewings booked for next week, so keeping everything crossed.

ccetsw · 28/01/2017 20:15

Just to say.............. YOU WILL GET THERE!!!!

Mine was on the market for nearly 9 months and had a couple of seriously insulting shitty offers. Was desperate to move and was so depressing... I even started to consider accepted one of the insulting offers but I just couldn't have afforded to move forward with it....... all of a sudden two people wanted mine at the same time and suddenly a flurry of offers and I got full asking.... found an amazing house that is just perfect for my little family... if I'd sold earlier the houses I was looking at were not a patch on what we have now..... THERE IS HOPE :)

But I do feel your pain

drspouse · 28/01/2017 20:54

15 charity bags and half a storage unit. Time for a glass of wine and Silent Witness.

HalleLouja · 28/01/2017 21:30

So today we saw a lovely house. It was fabulous.

But the buyer who put an offer £30k less than asking is still keen but won't pay what we want so EA is going to leave him. House is on for £525k and we want £520k but we don't know the max he is willing to pay. Think he's trying to get a bargain and can pay what we want but who knows. The house we like is top end of our budget so we really do need the money. We did stupidly say we might take less if we really liked the first house we saw today but we didn't like it.

Am not sure if he really wants it or just wants it cheap.