Sellers roll call! How many viewings are you gettingin this stagnant market?

[Pixiedust1973]

I thought it would be nice to update each other with our progress as I seem to of lost the other sellers thread!

My house has been on the market on & off since April last year. We found a house we liked, got a buyer before putting in an offer. Had a low offer but managed to negotiate them up & the house we want down to an acceptable level, just! Turns out after many months that their buyer can't proceed so we decide to cut off from our old agents & start afresh with a 25k reduction for quick sale, making us without question the best house in the area for the price! Comparables being 40-50k higher! Im in an expensive part of Surrey btw, hence silly money for very little!

Been on 55 days now & had 11 viewings, 2 cheeky try their luck offers we can't accept because they're 30k below our asking price already reduced by 25k. Id say that given how stagnant the market is we're getting a reasonable amount of interest. Getting lots more hits online since the new year & hopefully its only a matter of time. The viewers we are getting are proceedable viewers, mainly chain free. Probably explains the low offers! Had a second viewing on Friday & awaiting their feedback today. Thought they were keen but the later in the day it gets the more nervous im getting!

Great news easily
Thanks for the advice kitty! Though we've definitely done none of the negatives and still no bites.
No news from the Friday viewing who wanted a few days to think about it so I'm pretty sure it's a no from them. I can't take all that long to think about it after all...
We've decided to drop the price this week.
With the blurb, do you think it's best to just present them with a new one fully written? Or just suggest a few points we think should be included and let them get on with it?

Aw Helen it's so frustrating when you think a viewing goes positive then they make noises like they will offer then just disappear. I had a buyer like this... would like to offer full asking but never actually did 🤷‍♀️

Personally I'm a bit of a control freak so I'd probably write it and then it's right once rather then pointers which might take a few amendments. I'm not sure how it would be viewed but at the end of the day they get an awful lot of money out of us house sellers - for what seems like very little on reflection

Yippee! Congratulations easily that’s fab news. Do keep us posted on the next steps!

One of our viewings from the weekend asked for a 2nd viewing today. I came home from work in my lunch break to do it, They seemed really interested when they came back and have gone away to talk money. I’ve also had word from the agent that another of our weekend viewers is very keen but they have a house to sell. And I also have a new viewing booked for tomorrow from people who have sold and in rented. Hard not to feel a bit excited...

Congratulations Easily. Now that was easy, lol! I agree with your mum though, Id of definitely squeezed a bit more money out of them. Its done now though. If they come back with anything on the survey you can say that you can't go down any further on it! Keep us posted as to how you go anyway!

Try not to be too disheartened Helen. I know its hard when people say all the right things & then nothing comes of it. You start to question what you're doing wrong. Reality is, in many areas the market is incredibly quiet, but there should hopefully be more interest soon. As to your price, well, you haven't been on that long & you have been getting viewings at that price, which says that its not too far wrong. Consider tweaking your advert or home presentation before reducing it, unless you really are keen for a quick sale & are currently priced at a level where you can genuinely afford to reduce down a bit more.

Firstly, Id consider, has your agent been rotating your photos to refresh the ad? Can you get a new photo taken of the front of the house with nice hanging baskets & pot plants so it looks attractive & colourful? We have just swapped our photo to one of our bathroom, because its particularly attractive & the new pic may encourage further clicks through to the entire ad. Is the wording eye-catching & spot on? Are you priced at a level where you will get maximum clicks on your ad based on Rightmove price bandings? For example, at 400k rather than 399k, so if you're priced at 399k & someone is searching 400k+ then your house won't show up in their search. You want maximum exposure!

Hope the second viewing today was successful Francois

We had a panicky text from our vendors today, worrying about the fact that her vendor is threatening to put their house back on the market & is looking for a timescale. I'm not really sure what she expects us to do about it, because we're in the same boat! We reduced to as low as we are able to reduce & are still willing to negotiate a little further. The only way we can proceed quickly is if they & or their vendor can share the reduction to enable us to accept the silly offer on ours, which of course they don't want to do, so all we can do is wait! Got another viewing booked in for tomorrow. Chain free buyers, so everything crossed!

Well.. That was weird! Hubby & I have just received an offer via our EA app from someone who hasn't even seen the house! I have bought & sold my own, my parents & siblings properties numerous times over the last 20 years & worked as an EA myself for a while, but this is a NEW ONE ON ME!

Thanks Pixie - DH has taken some new photos of some of our features as they weren't great and a new one of the garden on a sunny day which we will send to the agent today. They rotated the photos last week. The house wouldn't really look right with hanging baskets but we repainted the railings and the front step before the photos, washed the windows too.

Really odd for an offer without a viewing. Would you house lend itself to development or a rental? I guess an investor with a big portfolio might do that. Or I suppose someone relocating from really far away but that still seems unlikely!

Oh, meant to say, we are priced at 460-480 which is quite competive looking at what else is around currently and very good compared to what's recently sold but I'm aware we are not going to get anywhere near the (pre brexit) recently sold prices. We had hoped for 450 initially so would happily take that and any more would be a bonus. We had an offer accepted on a house when we had a buyer but now we don't it's back on the market so we would like a fairly quick sale really. The type of houses we want in the area we want don't come up very often so we don't want to loose it really. They've had very little interest though - been on since April and it is quite a project. We could still get it and have enough money for essential works if we sold this at 440. So that's our bottom line really.

A tentative woohoo, pixie!!??

We've accepted an offer from the Friday couple!!!!!! Hurrah!!!
Given what happened with the last buyer I'm not counting my chickens quite yet but I'm very relieved.

Congratulations Helen. Hopefully all goes smoothly for you this time!

No such luck our end unfortunately. The offer we had last night was 10k below what we can proceed at & the people further up the chain are unable to move on their prices either, which is a bit of a blow. A 5k drop to them is such a small percentage of the price of the house. We already squeezed ourselves below what we're able to do & are still prepared to reduce another 5k if they'd of been willing. Our vendors vendor is prepared to wait till the end of February before remarketing her place though, so its something!

We did have another viewing this morning, which I feel was positive. The guy is a local & currently renting a house in the next road, which would be very similar to our one in size & layout unless its been extended at all, so he knew what to expect before coming round & can't say its too small. He also knows about the schools & area. He will hopefully know that given its location ours is the best value by far for its price. So fingers crossed!

I'm constantly astounded at how people try their luck with pricing & don't seem to get it that prices have come down. Saw that a house just went on today round the corner from me for 85k more than my house! . Similar location, except that road is quite narrow, (a drive slow or you'll lose your wing mirror road) but this means its a quieter road, it also has flats on one side, whereas our road is just houses. This house is quite ugly & flat fronted, unlike ours which has a nice bay window. Only plus point it has that ours doesn't is that it has a rear single storey extension which gives it a larger living area. Its not 85K added value though. Their pricing is NUTS! Ill be keeping an eye on that lol!

We've had another two viewings today. Not positive at all. One travelled for two hours and was in the house for less than 5. The other just didn't seem interested. Got another booked for tomorrow so at least we're getting plenty of viewings. I think we're priced at a good level. Five doors down sold for 5k less than our asking in October and it's virtually identical. We've accepted we've lost the house we loved and there's not much on we want to buy right now so not actually in a rush to sell

Sorry to hear that G1ggleloop. Did they give any reason why they were so keen to get out in 5 minutes? As for the others, well its so hard to gauge what people are feeling. Often its the people who don't seem interested that end up making offers & surprising you! Does sound like you're getting lots of interest anyway, so I'm sure it won't be too much longer for you!

Thanks. No reason. They skimmed round the house and left. Were very friendly but just in and out. Onwards we go. We've only been on for 6 days so it's still early days.

Yes, very early days! Id rather they did that than hand around for 25 minutes making very positive comments & then proceeding to give poor feedback.. WTF is that all about? Onwards & upwards to the next ones!

nothing at all going on here
been on for two weeks and only had one viewing. agent insists its a good price ....its hell living with my STBXH

Don’t lose hope Lost. It’s a challenge for sure but you only need one! Is there anything you can do to push the presentation up a level and then get a couple of fresh photos? If you posted a couple of pictures would it help to receive some suggestions on this thread?

G1ggle - how odd to travel for so long and then not properly look. Nowadays you can see exact location of the property on Google maps and even look at it on Street View so along with clear internal pictures surely viewers must have a fairly good idea that they are happy and interested before viewing.

Congratulations Helen great news re the Friday couple. Are you happy with the offer you accepted? Are your new buyers in a good position?

Our 2nd viewing went well and they have gone away to talk money. They do have another property they also like, according to the agent, but they contacted us for prices for our utilitiy bills yesterday so sounds like they are budgeting.

Did another 1st viewing today which turned into our 1st offer. 25k below asking price and we only put it on the market 4-5 days ago so no way we are taking that. They increased it by 10k but we don’t need to drop that low. We have good interest so will see what tomorrow brings. The agent will let the couple who did the 2nd viewing know we now have an offer on the table and fingers crossed they will make one and we will get our asking price.

I’m at work all day for rest of the week so can’t do anymore viewings until the weekend as I will only be home when it’s dark! It will actually be nice to have a day where we don’t have a viewing as we’ve had at least one every day since it went on and although I know it’s in a good cause I’m getting exhausted from all the tidying and hiding stuff away. I probably go overboard (DH says I do) but as it’s working, in terms of the photos bringing in viewers, I’m not minded to stop! The kids are getting used to my hiding places now and have become accepting of things like their toothbrushes being hidden under their beds!

Thanks pixie! I'm relieved but won't really believe it's all ok until we've actually moved I think! It seems ridiculous for them to risk loosing the whole chain for the sake of 5k. Especially if their house is one of the higher value ones.
G1ggle the people who stole bought the house we originally really wanted looked round it straight after us and left before we'd even finished talking outside. So don't loose all hope!
Francois they've come straight in at the offer we had previously accepted from the other buyer so very happy. I think the agent wanted to push for more as it's 10k under asking but it gives us what we need and hopefully makes them feel secure in their purchase too. Especially as they were torn between this and a cheaper one that wasn't as nice. So if they feel this one isn't as expensive as they thought hopefully they won't change their minds!

So sorry Lostily. I know exactly what thats like. I hope it doesn't take too long before you get an offer. Its still very early days for you.

Hopefully you get an acceptable offer soon Francois.

Hopefully things start progressing quickly Helen & you can start to feel a bit more reassured that its actually going to happen. You are right though until you have the keys in your hand there's always the faint possibility that things can go wrong!

No progress here. Nothing new booked in as yet, despite having over 100 advert views in the last 24 hours. There's really nothing else we can do other than wait it out. Still awaiting feedback from yesterdays viewer & have at least 2 interested parties that cannot proceed as yet & another that likes it but is wanting to see what else is out there. I fear our biggest strumbling block is still our neighbours & their ongoing eyesore of a DIY project, skips & mess, that 18 months in shows no sign of ever being finished. Even the surveyor who did the survey for our ex buyers was taken aback at what they have done & didn't disagree that its cost us at least 20k on the house price!

We are getting a few more with the New Year. Our cheeky offer raised their offer by 6K. They need to add another 15.

We accepted an offer today! Kept turning them down until it was 5k below our asking price. Although I’ve only met them once they seemed nice people too and they clearly love the house as they had to hold back our other potential buyer!

My mum has had more offers than one expected given that she's put it on the market at IMHO 75k over any realistic prices. At least it's forced her neighbours to drop their price - they've been on for almost a year at 25k more than hers, one less bedroom, without dropping a penny. But I realised when I visited an hour before a viewing how much she doesn't want to sell - the house was freezing, cluttered and grimy. Did an hour's freshening up, and in fact the bones of the house are quite good, but no real interest. I think she will come off the market again until she falls, breaks a hip and we are stuck trying to sell from 120 miles away to fund her care

I don't regard any offer as cheeky personally. As long as you are clear how far you are prepared to drop, people can offer 2p for all I care.

Hopefully they'll increase the offer some more drspouse. Everything crossed for you!

Congratulations Francois. Hopefully things continue to go to plan for you.

So sorry to hear about your mum annandale. Must be a truly heartbreaking situation for you. Hopefully it doesn't come to you having to sell the house from 120 miles away. Ive had to do that myself with my dads house after he went into a care home. It wasn't as bad as I expected tbh. The estate agent I chose were amazing & sorted any problems, of which there were many because my sister tried to sabotage the sale. She'd turn up, shout abuse at potential buyers, the EA & dads neighbours. At one stage the EA turned up to show a potential buyer around & the silly cow had changed the locks. They sorted it all out for me without me having to go down there thankfully!

Going for 2nd viewing on my potential new house today!

How exciting veuveo. I hope you love it even more this time.

We hadn't seen the house we're trying to buy for a few months before a second view & it was the first viewing of a long day of viewings, one of which was at another house we'd seen the week before & fallen in love with! We completely fell in love with the first house to the point where we didn't want to view anything else. We still did of course, didn't want to be rude & we may well have seen something we prefered. The house from the previous week, on this occasion, while we could see it was lovely, it was a poor second place to the one we eventually offered on. Must be 6 months now since we've seen it! Not sure its going to happen now!

Good luck to everyone this weekend! Fingers crossed for offers on your houses or finding your new dream home!

They upped their offer, they are selling to a cash buyer, we've accepted!
Just over £20K below our original asking price but a) that's not bad in this market and b) we have got past the end of our fixed rate period on our BTL mortgage so it's more urgent.