Listings, viewings and offers thread 2!

[drspouse]

We've filled up the old one! (maybe someone on a mobile device could add a post with this link though?)

This all sounds v familiar. My heart wants a period cottage with low ceilings, exposed beams and a fireplace. My head (and my tall DP's!!) wants a house with enough space for our lifestyle where we won't have to spend £££ in renovations/upkeep and throw out half our furniture because it won't fit.

Need to sell first though. Viewing number 12 was at lunchtime and 13,14 and 15 are booked for later this week. Hoping this is the week we get an offer because I'm thoroughly fed up of cleaning.

Feedback from today's viewing already - a BTL investor wants to buy it and convert to HMO. I'd be gutted if that's our only offer its a lovely family home .

Had our contracts to sign today and have been sent off and now waiting on our mortgage valuation etc. Starting to get excited. When do you think we should start packing? I don't want to jinx things but also don't wanna find myself having to pack for 5 people in a day...
Hoping you all get offers and interest soon. Hold out some hope. It took a long time here!!

Our sign went up today - no viewers as yet

Well, if you don't count the woman who knocked on my door. She said thus house was her mum's years and years ago and she's always wanted it back - apparently tried to buy it when we did but her DH didn't want to. He's passed away now so she said she was interested but it's about 25% more than when we bought it so it may be expensive for her.

I let her have a nosy around though - luckily it wasn't too bad but certainly not viewing ready

Out of interest, what would the position be if she did happen to want to proceed(which is probably unlikely!)? Would I still be liable for the EA fee if it's sold directly? I know it's all down to the contract but what's the standard terms for this?

Yes you would I'm afraid as she knew it was for sale due to their advertising.

Oh bugger! Never mind.

Dragon our EA contract has a clause in it which asks if there are any existing expressions of interest from potential buyers. If so then you list their details as an addendum to the contract (which we did) and the clause states that if these people buy the property then the EA will only charge a small fee (think it's about £170) towards marketing costs. However if you haven't specifically listed any details then you'll be liable for the full EA fee.

Still no news here. We're on Zoopla as well and can see that approx. 20 people per day are looking at the listing (so hopefully it's more on RM as that's the busier site). But still no phone calls or viewings! I am sitting on my hands at the moment because my instinct is to ring the agent and wail down the phone at them but rationally I know that there's no point - because they will ring me the second that someone gets in touch.

Good luck everyone. fortheloveofscience I completely feel your pain. We had viewing 15 today, 16 and 17 in next 2 days. All the cleaning!

Viewers came back with £125 and we asked the EA to let them know we really need £240 in order to clear mortgage etc. - they have said firmly they cannot make that much.
Which, as someone else says, really begs the question "why view"?

drspouse - I've had multiple EAs try to push us to look at properties that are outside of what we said we can/want to spend. Just yesterday I called about a house that's on for 280k and the EA tried very, very hard to get me to go look at another house that's up for 310k. I told her this was outside our budget and she said 'they're very, very motivated - they would absolutely take an offer'. I looked at it online and they just (last week) dropped the price by 50k already. I can't imagine the vendors would want to look at an offer another 30k less (so a total of 80k below their original ask) and I daresay they'd be horrified if they heard her say this!

Also - we got our AIP almost 3 months ago and have been looking in that price range; we went back to renew it and were told it had dropped by 10k (nothing's changed at our end, so this is the same lender who has for some reason changed their own formulae or whatever and is now willing to lend less). So now, a couple of houses that we viewed actually wouldn't be in our range any more - luckily we hadn't put offers in on them or we'd have had a nasty surprise when we submitted the full mortgage application.

So i think sometimes a) EAs convince people to view houses because they think they'll either be able to convince the buyer to come up, and/or the vendor to come down and b) sometimes people think they are looking in their price range but their price range has changed without them knowing!

And c)some folks are just greedy/cheeky and think they'll get themselves a bargain....

@drspouse - £125!!! I would be mortified to offer that on a house! That's pretty much half your asking price! I mean yeah sometimes people view things slightly out of their budget, but £115,000 out of budget!!!!

Oops sorry £225K

There are 2 possible properties (very little on the market) and we view one tomorrow the the other is Saturday after next as it's open day only. Unfortunately that's our favourite and it turns out the vendor has put a reservation on a new build so keen to move - so why make people wait 3 weeks from going on the market. I'm so frustrated, I just want to view their house! We're in a strong position but ea was calling me yesterday so he could update our buyers as to whether we'd found anything! Argh so fed up. If they're keen to move and we're keen to buy why bloody wait?!

225k is a little closer at least but disappointing.

Our viewers from last week have also decided they want something more modern grrr. Darn Victorian house!

Why look if you don't want a period house?

Anyway back to the drawing board, we'll see if we get any interest over the weekend and then probably reduce a little.

I think I said this viewer didn't have a mortgage in place when they viewed originally - so we suspect they were just hopeful that their mortgage offer would be high enough, rather than hopeful we'd come down far enough.

That's what I get cross about - 3 viewers now who have looked at our house which is clearly stated to be Victorian and said they want modern. And 2 who don't want a downstairs bathroom - I totally understand that but why view then? Its all on the floor plan. Maybe they hoped they could be persuaded otherwise by the other features and weren't. Just feels like timewasters.

koalas we were forced into viewing a property with a downstairs bathroom. We had already written it off based on that, we went to the viewing and we're completely in love. Weren't keen on a downstairs bathroom but as I'm a sahm with two toddlers and a 6 year old, figured I'd spend most of my time downstairs and potty training two children would be so much easier being downstairs! We are in the process of buying the house. It was the ea that repeated that a downstairs bathroom created bigger bedrooms, a downstairs bathroom would be handy with kids and in the summer would help stop grass and mud being brought up the stairs... Maybe tell them to repeat those and it may help. I ended up convincing everyone else they should have a downstairs bathroom!! Haha! 😂

Tbh the house we are buying doesn't have the two main things we said we wanted lol. Just feels like such a waste when we get feedback like that. But hopefully the right buyer is just round the corner!

Honestly it always feels like it's never gunna happen. But it does! Just persevere on, the right person just hasn't looked yet! Got fingers crossed for you that it happens soon!

Thank you.

Am so worried about losing the house we are buying. Apparently they have had people very keen to view it but vendor has kept his promise of no viewings - 4 weeks left til he puts it back up though!

I phoned the EA of the amazing place we viewed last week and just asked him to let us know if there was any serious interest.

He was all agreeable, but then he would be, wouldn't he? I didn't mention money.

They certainly mustn't have had any offers as I asked him to let us know and we may be able to join negotiations and he just went oh sure absolutely.

So now it's the waiting game.

It's frustrating not being proceedable but it's also putting a halt to our gallop, which is no harm. It's forcing us to fill in the time viewing any other potential property.

I'm pleased to hear I'm not the only one fed up already!

The woman who knocked on the door came back to say it was more than she could afford/alluded to it being over what she wanted to pay. I was pleased she had the decency to let me know either way though.

After she left I called the EA, we have a FTB viewing it on Tuesday. She's seeing 2 others with the EA and having looked at the ones she's seeing, they are slightly bigger but don't have off street parking so I hope she drives and has a couple of teenagers with cars because the parking on these other roads is a nightmare!

Other than that my EA said the market has suddenly gone really quiet - I can see that for myself, nothing has come on RM since mine went on, Friday.

She said people get spooked by elections but I fear she is feeding me a load of bullshit!

Dragon I hope that it's a quiet market, because we still have had nothing - and we've been on for almost a week now. I'm hoping that things might pick up over the bank holiday or failing that - after the election.

Don't lose hope PaulDacres
We've been on since Feb! It does seem to be quiet. I too am hoping it'll pick up after the election.

We have just put our house up forsale, I felt disappointed today as the estate agents recommended some people to look at our house so they turned up and they haven't even sold their house yet, Which sounds like they are struggling to do as they keep having to drop the price apparently.
They like our house and want to come back for a second viewing with their children.
Is this normal to view houses when you aren't in the position to move are the estate agents just trying to keep me happy by making out they have people interested?