Help! We lost our buyer and we need a quick sale!

[DontBiteTheBoobThatFeedsYou]

DH inherited a house. We rented it out for a year and now we want to sell to buy a bigger place (it's far too small for our family to live in and way too far away from kids schools).

We just had to pay a few thousand for a new boiler and some general repairs.
And we are paying a fortune in council tax for it (no discounts etc).
We have maxed our overdrafts, and now needing to consider yet another loan to cover the council tax and general fees for overdrafts etc.

That was fine because the cash buyer who's offer we accepted (45k less than the asking price because we are desperate and we think it was slightly over valued anyway) 2 months ago was just days away from exchanging.

Now she found out that all the changes she wanted to make she has to get permission from the council and she isn't happy.

She's pulled out.

We are financially panicking. DH was shaking yesterday and I've never seen him like that.
He's talking to the bank about a loan to consolidate debts (we were fine before this!!!) and have excess to pay the extortionate council tax.

It's back on the market for 50k less than it was originally on for.

Is there any way of pushing this through ASAP??

It's bleeding us dry and we also don't want to lose the place we had put an offer on (and paid out for searches etc).

Help!

Don't go down the modern method of auction route. It's a con which benefits EAs and makes buyers pay their fees. If you want to shift it, go to a standard property auction. When the hammer falls you've exchanged and the buyer has 28 days to complete.

@DontBiteTheBoobThatFeedsYou it's not live yet. It was on previously for £130k. Connells suggested £110 starting price with a reserve of £122k (10% higher than starting price). He's confident (🤣) to get well over the reserve but I just need rid of it now.

Okay i'm probably going to get flamed here but what about using a company that buys for cash? We did this a few years ago and used Quick Move Now, yes they will offer you below market value but they were very transparent throughout the process...just a different option consider to an auction?

I did try a cash buyer but they offered £150k less than it's worth.

Which would mean we wouldn't be able to buy the house we wanted and definitely wouldn't be able to afford a house to fit us all in.
The house we want needs a LOT of work and that's the only way we could afford one that size (4 bedrooms).

After a tense discussion tonight, DH now sees that moving in there is the answer to our problems.

Oh wow that is a low offer!

Connells auction should complete in 48 days & 98% of the sales complete. It locks the buyer in so that when they make an offer they pay a fee, if they pull out they lose that fee & connells takes a share as does the seller. It would be perfect in this situation, you also can except any offer, you don't have to wait for the reserve to be met.

Modern method of auction is a scam... no benefit to seller or buyer

Why?

Because there's no incentive for the EA to actually sell it. If the buyers pull out they lose the upfront 'reservation' fee which they have to stump up in addition to a survey and a deposit. And who wants to pay the EA fees when they're buying a place?

Agent gets the fee regardless and as the buyer is paying it they will obviously factor it in to their offer and you as the seller will get less... that is if they are stupid enough to pay a 6k reservation fee with no ability to pull out regardless of survey or anything

Is it presented perfectly? If so it is worth paying for proper photographs from a professional.

Any house that is realistically priced (as you claim yours to be) will sell relatively quickly and easily in this current market.

Modern method of auction of IS a huge scam for buyers and sellers, you'd be far better off just knocking another 10% off the asking price on the open market... that should get you a very quick sale and still leave you in a very comfortable financial position based on the figures you've given.

It's more than realistically priced, we have dropped it by 50k to ensure a quicker sale.

The person who viewed it yesterday is keen and wants to put and offer in (we wanted OIEO) but he's just lost his buyer. So he's calling his EA to see how that's going.
We have more viewings this week.
Fingers crossed.

And the problem is not being comfortable afterwards.
We know we'll be fine.

It's how fucked we are right now.

I would talk again to the bank, you have a 500K house you are trying to sell, your bank should be able to help with the gap.

I'm in the same boat OP. I looked into a bridging loan but it wasn't feasible for us.

I have been strongly advised against bridging loans. Is it really that bad? Presume going into rented is better than a bridging loan?

I agree with you, unless it is genuinely impossible you need to move in there and stop paying rent, but make sure you have a massive de clutter beforehand/ in the process.

There is no way to guarantee a quick sale, even if you massively drop the price you could be unlucky. I think 1 in 3 accepted offers don’t proceed to exchange. I would though make sure that the price is very competitive and also that the estate agent is very open about any “issues” before you accept the offer.

Not your area but about 30 minutes up the main road I have friends looking to buy. There was no movement for a few months but within the last week or two things have really started to change. For example, there were a few houses which had been up for sale for months they wanted to view (don't live locally so had to arrange viewings to coincide with a visit to the area) and by the time the trip had been booked the houses had sold. Hope things start to move soon.

Thank you.

You're the 4th person to tell me that things have picked up recently.

So we have had three viewings and one more tonight.
Two want to put and offer in but haven't sold their own places.
We have got a loan out, and we're moving into the property. It's not idea but we can panic less about money this way.