Listing, viewings and offers thread 3!

[Fortheloveofscience]

We filled up our old one, hoping I'm not posting out of turn by starting the next, it's the only thing keeping me from going nuts with the endless cycle of no viewings - viewings - feedback - no offer - no viewings - viewings etc!

Hope this is the thread where we all sell and get our dream houses. I'm working from home and doing 'backseat cleaning' - nagging my poor OH who has the day off to do everything for our second viewing this afternoon from the only couple to have shown serious interest.

Fialor it's funny you saying that, I think the reason I'm feeling weird about it is because the couple in pole position I've actually met, but I haven't met the others, so they're not as 'real' to me. The £151k couple were so nice about the house when they viewed, and seemed really excited about it, so I guess that's just it, I can see the house being happy with them in it.
This is just why I didn't like being around for viewings, I only was on this occasion because they moved their appt early and DS was still napping, so I could leave in time. It's so much better to keep it impersonal!!

couldn't leave in time

Drspouse - of course, no problem. If you don't want to put the link up publicly then PM me with it.

Ness - to be honest I'd probably go with the £151K people. They have made the highest offer and are in a good position. The people with something to sell are a non-starter because they aren't in a position to proceed until they've sold.

The people sold to a cash buyer would worry me a bit - because cash buyers have no skin in the game until exchange of contracts. At least if people need a mortgage you have some assurance that they are reasonably serious, because you know they'll be jumping through hoops with valuation surveys and mortgage applications.

One thing I wouldn't do though is ask for a letter. If I was on the receiving end of a request to write and explain why I should be chosen to buy the house then I'd refuse to do it. The transaction is a contract - it's not being given for free! - so it would feel to me to be really intrusive and inappropriate request, and I would not be happy to have to justify why my £150K was better than someone else's. Ultimately there is also no way of knowing if someone is being truthful or whether they're gonna trowel on a load of shite just to try and win you over. I realise though that some people do like letters so my reaction is entirely mine!

Lazy That's a really good point about cash buyers that I hadn't considered... I guess they're not as invested as others because until surveys etc they won't really spend anything. Yeah, my feeling is to go with the £151k folks, I'm going to speak to the agents on Tuesday and see where she's up to.
We saw a house we really like yesterday, and we'd like to offer on Tues, but it would be good to have an agreed offer on ours first so we know what we're working with!

Ness - just make sure that your agent does full due diligence on these people. So you want proof of deposit, proof of final mortgage decision (although I am slightly confused as to how they can have this without a security address?! It sounds more likely that they have a decision in principle and still need to go through the full application).

I'd also want to know the date their tenancy agreement is due to run out, so that you know exactly what date they will potentially want to complete for - you don't want some daft 28 day nightmare where they threaten to pull out every 5 minutes simply because it's not happening quick enough. Word to the wise; the people we're buying from lost their previous buyers because they were in rented and the chain couldn't complete quickly enough before their tenancy agreement was due to run out. So it's worthwhile getting an early heads-up on their expectations for timescales!!

We've spent a delightful weekend clearing out the loft. We don't want to spend money moving stuff that we don't need or want anymore, hence why we have decided to be all organised and do a clear-out before we move. Obviously in practice this means getting pissed off with all the mess and hassle and wishing that we'd never started de-cluttering! I have lost count of how many times I have been back and forth to the tip but we're slowly getting there. I hate mess and disorder so I am really not enjoying boxes being everywhere.

More good points!! Yeah, I'm hoping for flexibility... it'd be best if they're on a rolling agreement so they only give notice when we have a completion date agreed.
I was so spoiled last time I bought & sold. Our buyer was a developer, and our vendor was moving into rented for debt consolidation, so we were the only link really. The only snag was our developer suddenly deciding to put completion back by 6 weeks because his builders weren't available til then

Grand total of one viewing and one re-viewing over the last month - OK I know it's August but...

Putting our ducks in a row to move our small residential mortgage from the house we are selling over to our BTL property so that we can potentially rent out the house.

And new agent the week after next.

Fingers crossed drspouse Hopefully a new agent might help, the current one sounds very unmotivated. Why on earth would they give up on chasing feedback when you've been trying to sell it for so long?! Have you got any new photos that you could put up? We paid £120 for ours to be done professionally and they were worth every penny as it made such a big difference. If the house is unfurnished then if you could drum up some odds and ends to go in it, then that can help as well as furniture can help people get a sense of perspective on the room sizes and shapes.

All quiet here. I swear my solicitor is like the Scarlet Pimpernel though - I seek her here, I seek her there, but I can't bloody well get hold of her!!

How frustrating drspouse * Sounds like you've got good plans in place to get things moving. Agree with Lazy* definitely see if the new agent can refresh your photos if that's a worry, ours were only £80 more for the professional ones and we're really pleased with them.

So our best & finals came back, only one buyer increased, so we've accepted the couple in rented at £151k, their MIP has been checked out and they need to give 2 months notice, and they're happy to proceed at our pace, so that's great.
We should have just accepted the £151k on Friday, I should have gone with my instinct! We were at a disadvantage over the weekend because we saw a great place on Saturday that we wanted to offer on, but couldn't until today. When I've rung to offer, they've had an offer yesterday and accepted it! Pretty pissed off with the agents, because we told them on Saturday we were very interested, but needed to wait for our best & finals on Tues, and she specifically said 'that's fine, the office closes at 4pm today and we reopen Tues, so nothing will happen til Tuesday anyway'. Then not only did they take a call yesterday with an offer, but obviously haven't told the vendor that we were potentially in the running
Anyway, we've offered today and they've passed it to the vendors, and they're considering overnight. But I very much feel like we're on the back foot

Ugh, bold fail!

Nessalina Hate that, we've had house where we went in with a starting offer (at asking price) and expected feedback from vendors/to be told it's going to best and final and then they've accepted another offer and didn't get a chance to improve ours.

Well done LazyDailyMailJournos on clearing the loft. We need to do that too at some point. Dreading it to be honest!

Oh how frustrating drspouse. Hopefully the new agent will get you some more viewings.

I'm not surprised you are frustrated Nessalina. I'd be annoyed to with the agents. At least the vendors are considering your offer too I guess. Do you have a 'back up' option in case you don't get your first choice property?

As for us, we had some feedback from the people who viewed last week to say they were put off by the fact they couldn't get the oven to work (which is bloody annoying as the oven DOES work, as I told the EA, it's just I turn it off at the wall when it's not in use as my toddler has a habit of creeping in the kitchen and playing with the oven buttons and I'm paranoid she's going to turn it on - I didn't even consider someone on a first viewing would want to try and put the sodding oven on) and that there was some peeling paint around some of the windows etc. So, we have spent half the flippin' bank holiday weekend trying to tidy up the paintwork around the house. I think it's been worth it though as it does look better. And we have another viewing tomorrow. Somewhat awkwardly the viewers wanted to view tomorrow but the EA didn't have an agent available, and rather than then make them wait until the viewers next had the time off work to come and do a viewing (which would probably be next week-ish) the EA have asked if I can how them around which I've agreed to but I'm a bit anxious about it. In all honesty I've been shown around by vendor a couple of times in places we've looked at and I always feel a tad uncomfortable (despite them having always been friendly). It's tricky to get a balance between enthusiastic about the house and not being too pushy I think when you are the vendor.

Our old photos with the furniture in place were lovely I think... We are looking into buying them from the agent but I don't know if they will agree.

Oh to add insult to injury I found out today I have to move offices - I've been in this one for 13 years... erm... I'm a bit of a hoarder... and I have quite a big office...

Drspouse think of it as good practice for the big move!

pretty girl How infuriating! And surely not in the interest of the vendors who the EAs are acting for!? It's making me very nervous about 'opening offers' going forward, I think I'll just have to be all over agents like a rash.

All is not lost on our offer, they spoke to the vendors, and we must have offered more, because they're thinking about it overnight and have verified our chain with our EAs. So fx - we'll hear tomorrow!

We don't have a back up KitKat there's very little on the market in our price range & area with what we want. But if we don't get this, apparently September is shit hot for house sales, so we should see some new ones hitting the market soon, and I shall be on them like a seagull on chips 

Feeling very stressed by it all, so silly when we should be celebrating today that we have a buyer!

Don't worry too much about showing folks round KitKat, just don't crowd them. Totally agree that it's always super awkward, so I'd just show them the ground floor, take them upstairs and give them the bare bones, then leave them to it upstairs whilst you lurk downstairs to give them time to talk alone. Then check if they have any questions on the way out. As you've found out, sometimes it's useful to be in, so you don't get issues like you did with the oven - how annoying that your agent didn't exercise a bit of common sense!!

There's a special place in hell for agent's who play silly buggers like that. FX for you Ness

Kitkat I hate showing people round but it is actually quite handy because you are there to answer questions and it prevents daft things like the oven becoming an issue. I second the advice to show them the ground floor and then just let them wander round and shout you if they have any questions.

So I rang my solicitor today - she was unavailable so I left a message.

Pop quiz kids! Do you think she's:

A - called me straight back and I know exactly what's going on.
B - not called me back.
C - not ever called me back, in fact I'm still waiting for her to return my call from a month ago.

Answers on a postcard!

Agent's? Not sure where the rogue apostrophe came from?!

Hmm why of course it's A isn't it Lazy?? No C?? Are you sure ;)

Ness We already moved!

Giz - congrats you win first prize Which is a single returned phone call from someone who normally never bothers to ring you back - you pick: Your estate agent, your next viewers, your mortgage lender or your solicitor!

I am currently surrounded by boxes and bloody hating it. I don't like mess or disorder so I will be very glad when this is all over.

Ooh tricky. I seem to have been lucky so far with call backs.. it's the calling to give me information in the first place that is the issue. About to instruct our solicitor to instruct searches as we have our mortgage!

We have shoved a load of our clutter into a storage unit. We are sorting it before it goes into the new house

Well jealous of your storage unit. We were trying to get one but everywhere is booked solid at the moment and there are only a few spaces left. All of which are eleventy billion quid a week - plus extra costs per week if you want to visit your unit outside of office hours!! So we decided just to live with the boxes. We go away on holiday for a fortnight on Saturday and I am rather hoping we'll be exchanging contracts the week we come back - so hopefully we won't have to put up with the boxes for too long!

Anyone who walks away from a house because of an oven apparently not working is a bit bonkers and probably not someone you want to be dealing with in your chain, to be honest!

However, DH is going to contact our seller's agent tomorrow and request that they change the light bulbs in one of the bathrooms for ones that work, to avoid delays arising from no working lights in the bathroom cropping up in the survey. If there's nothing wrong with the lighting circuit, then it's easily fixed, but we won't know that without a fair bit more faff and investigation unless they take a few minutes to change the bulbs, now!

Our storage unit is MIL's spare bedroom!