Sellers roll call part 2. Who is still on this treadmill?

[MovingThisYearHopefully]

I thought it was about time to start a new thread as this one is close to 1000 messages.

Who is still here & what is your story?

Heres me: I have been trying to move since April last year. Had a buyer, buyers lost their buyer in October & still haven't got a new one. We remarketed at a low price in November in order to continue buying the house we were at point of exchange with, but were unable to get enough to move on & lost the house in February.

Prices are definitely falling here in Surrey. Realistically we're looking to get 10% less than our original asking price, if we're lucky. Getting viewers has never been an issue, regardless of price. This process has been stressful beyond belief & almost split me & DH up. Surely our luck must change soon?

One thing that seems to be helping us get more interest than other properties is that we have now agreed to go chain free. Is this a possibility for any of you struggling? If offered significantly less than asking price then as far as I see it you are within your rights to say chain free was based on near to asking price & not affordable at a significant amount under! Worth considering perhaps?

@MovingThisYearHopefully you are right and I totally agree with you about being battered for feedback, I've even had agents tackle me for feedback weeks after I've viewed a house before they'd book a viewing on another house.

Sometimes you know it's stuff the seller can't change about their house or maybe it's just the houses didn't have the feeling but the agents just want something to report back so they look like they are working hard ... so I find I end up making something up.

So don't take feedback too much to heart.

I had the same selling - stuff like it's a main road was the most frustrating- yeah it's an A road so yes that means it's busy 🙄 feedback is worthless - really you just wanna know if they like it or not. I never thought to just say forget the feedback to the agent.

Good luck today @flamingofridays 🏡

@Lilmisskittykat - when I told the estate agent to stop giving me feedback that wasn't useful they thought I was mad! First time it's ever been asked. The problem was I ended up dreading my phone ringing and the anxiety was driving me crazy.

The only problem now is the phone never rings

@flamingo - good luck today!

@Maybenexttime08 I can see the logic in what you asked to be fair. We are coming into a quiet time of year anyway - I think only those that have flex on asking price or can reduce a fair bit might get a sale.

I always found this time of year the hardest to make my house look cherry and bright as it gets dark so quick which makes a house look gloomy... and the garden always looks so sad.

@Lilmisskittykat - I agree! I've let the house 'go' for the past week as we don't have any viewings. I'm hoping I'm jinxing it by letting it get messy then suddenly having to clean as we get a viewing :-). Atleast Halloween is over so I can take those decorations down!!

Good luck flamingo for moving day! Update us when you're in your new home, complete with glass of celebratory fizz...

Harriet, oh I hear you. We've had feedback about the village churchyard a couple of times now - strangely, we can't move that, or the house, so we're a bit stuck. Gloomy fist bump right back at you.

Maybe, oh we've done the same and let the showhome standards slip a bit, it's so hard to stay on top of it with three kids and working long hours. I'm so hoping that this means we'll be inundated for viewings now it's starting to look like a shit tip!

We've got a bit of a quandary. We've been on the market for a month now, and had a flurry of viewings initially but nothing for a couple of weeks now. The house we desperately want has been taken off the market although if we sell ours, we'll proceed as they still want to sell. This means we have until February-ish to sell ours, when they'll put theirs back on the market, so the pressure's off but we don't want ours sitting on the market for ages (given the crappy timing before Christmas), so do we sit and wait and leave everything as it is, or do we reduce the price to see if we can drum up interest...? The house is up for sale at £325k, and we'd be prepared to drop to £315k but no lower.

Hello everyone, I’ve been following the thread for a few weeks and am in a similar position to Uninspiringusername.

We’ve had an offer accepted on the house we want to buy but have only got about a month to sell ours and get things going. Ours has been on for a month and I don’t know whether we should drop the price. The estate agent thinks it is too early but we don’t want to lose the house we want.

@ALadyofLetters if you can afford to drop it a bit, and you really need to get moving the I probably would.

@ALadyofLetters - if you can afford to reduce then it might be a good idea - might help with a final push before xmas!

Thanks! It is good to hear that two experienced house sellers/buyers think we should drop the price. I don’t know why the estate agent is reluctant.

We’ve got a viewing this afternoon so it nothing comes of it then we’ll reduce the price.

I’ve been cleaning/ tidying for over two hours! We’ve not had a viewing for ten days and we’d rather let things drop from show home standard.

@alady being cynical, are your estate agents on a percentage commission? If so they want to sell for as much as possible...

@uninspiring we're sale twinsies...am having exactly the same internal debate re pricing I've got a premium listing on rightmove now which apparently should increase hit rate. Then we'll see about price after that I think. It's galling though because no one has said it's overpriced and two people said it was really well priced!

Leaving my house to go to s**t has worked - we have a viewing tomorrow!

I never trust the people that book in a viewing at the last minute - when I book viewings I have thought about it for a few days first - but I'm a natural born cynic

@harriethoyle I think EAs are often reluctant to drop price / encourage lower offers to be accepted because of their overall statistics and reputation.

Eg. A local EA here boasts about their average of achieving 100.5% of asking price. This might depend on location though.

We continue to look for a property, have made offers on another property, up for £210k, our second offer was £200k a few days ago which was rejected. It's very overpriced at £210k and needs extensive work. We may push to £202k because the location is great.

We are on tenterhooks about our sale... waiting to hear whether our buyer has been made a mortgage offer. Valuation took place last Monday and we are still waiting for news ...

I am a first time buyer . .. and still I had to face this can't believe......
I saw a property. I liked strait away.. but bit expensive .. we told that we liked it but we cant afford.. and left it as it is.
After few weeks seller reduced the price and contacted us by himself that now he reduced the price are we still interested in his property .. we said yes... both parties agreed on a price. He accepted our offer on the website. Then after agreeing I proceeded further with agents and solicitors for all the formalities, evaluation and survey....... paid all fees. Got mortgage papers from bank.
just contracts were left to be signed.

But the seller (silently) was still in contacts with other buyers .. that we didn't aware of... his property evaluation came very less from the price he marketed.. our agent called him to inform him..
Then without talking to us he rejected our offer and immediately accepted someone else offer.
when we asked seller told that he want more money and the other buyer is offering way up...
We felt cheated... our fees for survey and evaluation etc. went in vain..
we told the seller that money is something but there is something called TRUST that is out there too and he came back to us not us went to him back.
still angry as we thought our kid birthday in December we will celebrate in our own house..

@saku - that's horrible - the whole buying / selling is such a horrible business!

Hope the move is going well for Flamingo. Fingers crossed!

Thats great news about the viewing Maybe. Did you find out their position? Ie if they're a FTB, chain free or SSTC. Everything crossed.

I think that the agents who say they sell for over 100% of asking price are the ones who are pricing it low to start with tbh Tiddle. We have one of those around here. They price low in the hope of creating a bidding war. Its a dangerous game in this current market in my opinion. They wanted to put ours on for 375k a year ago, when the "we buy your house in a week" companies were offering the same, plus they pay your legal fees too. Most people are still offering a substantial reduction on asking prices I've found, regardless of how low they are.

I am so sorry Saku. You have been used badly. A lot of solicitors don't charge for aborted sales & some will redo searches for free on a subsequent purchase. Hopefully yours is one of those. Plus many lenders don't charge for valuations. Worth factoring in when you do your sums.

@ALadyofLetters my (recent) experience has been that dropping the price has been the key and resulted in loads of viewings and multiple offers in a relatively short space of time.

However I think it does depend on where you are and the price band. Ours took us into a lower Rightmove band which seemed to make a difference. We actually ended up with an offer over the top of that band, but the lower start seemed to help.

It made us the nicest property at that price. It is a risky strategy though if the market is generally slow. The key for us was that we were prepared to adjust our expectation of what we could buy depending on what we sold for. If you are set on a certain property at a certain price it's harder.

Hi all!

V stressful day. Heard nothing all morning then called solicitors and got some snotty assistant who said solicitor wasnt in today. I told her we were supposed to complete and she said shed look into it and call me back.

At this point half of my house was in the back of a van. Called ftb guy and he called solicitor who had infact completed the sale just not in the office.

Got keys for new place at about 3pm. Boxes everywhere. Still doesn't feel real! X

Congratulations Flamingo. Nice to read of a success on here. They are so rare. Enjoy your first night in the new place.

Congratulations Flamingo!! How long did it take from start to finish - it seems to have gone quick to me but I bet it doesn't to you!

aahh @flamingo congratulations! really hope you enjoyed your first evening in the new house!

@Flamingo - congratulations - enjoy the settling in :-)

Congratulations @flamingo you give us all hope!

Thanks @FridayThirteenth - we’re going to drop the price today - we’re going to drop from 240 to 225. I hope it works!