How long did it take you to sell?

[Ruralbliss]

Also how many viewings? Just trying to get a realistic sense of what to expect having had sale fall through the day we were due to exchange contracts, lost the house we'd spent £££ buying and were really looking forward to relocating to...

It went back on the market the same day 10 days ago and we've had 18 viewings in that time. Some day trippers, some nutters and one low offer.

Beginning to suspect we'll have it unsold throughout winter and planning to auction if not sold by Spring/Summer.

Curious to know how long others experienced while playing this tedious and tense game?

You can't compare. I had two three properties on at the same time: my own detached family home, a flat in a listed building with sea views, and one in a coastal city near all the action. My house took six months, the listed one four months and the city flat to first viewer. Lots of different reasons why, but my point is how do you compare your place in your location with anyone else's?

You really can't compare.

Our last house was put on at 3pm Thursday. By 5pm Thursday we had 11 viewings booked - 2 for Friday evening and 9 for Saturday. On Friday we booked 3 viewings for Sunday before we closed the list.

All viewers turned up and all bar 1 made an offer ranging from asking price to 10% over asking.

So 5 days from Rightmove listing to accepting an offer.

I can't recommend the auction route. I had a listed II building that needed renovation and after eighteen months of timewasters and silly offers, decided to go to auction. £795 to enter the catalogue, £1300 solicitor's fees, and a whopping £6,600 commission to the auction house on a £275K sale. I didn't have enough money to maintain the house/pay the bills when my husband died, or I would have stayed put.

Selling took me a while.

But the house I bought, I viewed the same day it was advertised, I was the 1st viewer and made the offer which was accepted later that day. (On the condition they list the house as sold stc asap)

That is a huge amount of commission @Salome61

I auctioned my granny's house 15 years ago as such a unique property.

My idea of going that route is to reach a different audience (people signed up to property auction catalogues across the land) and get it off the to-do list.

There's a non-monetary cost associated with staying plus it's costing me a fortune in bills so although commission might be high to auction it might even out if the alternative is still being here for many months after deciding to downshift.

Two weeks from listing, about eight viewings. It was a one-off period cottage which had been updated by us over a few years with quite a bit of land. Took five months to complete - very committed purchasers so we agreed to a delayed completion date to accommodate them. Very smooth sale. This was in 2019 before the current property mayhem and madness.

Put our lovely two bed end of terrace on the market in July 2020 - by November we were getting frustrated with lack of interest and instructed a second agent. Decided to take off market February 2021. The agents kept saying 'you just need that one person to love it as much as you did'.... whilst up a ladder painting the living room I got a call from the agent - someone who had previously viewed had got further with the mortgage side of things and wanted to come for a second viewing. So we essentially put the house back on the market in March and ended up with two perspective buyers who really wanted it and ended up in a bidding war! Completed June 2021.

We recently sold our rental property - a 3 bed maisonette in an ex-council block. It took us 3 months to get an offer at a £10k reduced asking price, in that time we had around 25 viewings. In contrast we sold our 3 bed semi in the same area at the same time and we accepted a £15k over asking price the day after it went on the market! So it's really hard for you to make a prediction based on other people's experiences, house buying/selling in the UK is a bonkers process at the best of times!

@Ruralbliss, it was a NE high street estate agent auction, starts with a P, and unfortunately the auction was on line as it fell as lockdown began on 23 March 2020, so I didn't even benefit from any competition in the 'room'. Their commission was .5% lower than the other auction houses in the area and apparently 33 people viewed.

Sold on first viewing, first time buyer pulled out as he was worried having gas in the house was dangerous
Sold again on first viewing after that

So sorry you lost your buyer, money and inward purchase.

We are downsizing too and can't afford to be here much longer. We got an offer a month after listing and about 10 viewings.

Could you try dropping the price and getting people through the door that way? You could reduce, do an open house and see if you can generate interest and a bit of a bidding war?

I live in fear of our inward purchase falling through as we would be properly fucked

Mine went in right move on the Friday evening. Our estate agent who is a friend of my husbands text him at 7am the next day to say he has two people already wanting to look round ASAP. Both out offers in while looking around. Sold by 12 the next day. It’s madness here for selling houses at the moment.

We put our house on the market in August on a Friday, viewings arranged for Sunday and accepted offer on Monday. We ended up cancelling the sale as we couldn't find anywhere to buy.
We have just gone back up for sale with viewings from fri - mon so have fingers crossed we can sell quickly again.

I listed mine May this year. Sold in about 10 days after listing, after about 8 or 9 viewings, but it only took that long because I wanted all the viewings on a single day, not drip drip drip, and that was the only day available.

Moved end of September.

Our boring, tired but sound 3 bed semi went in five days for asking price with 13 viewings and another offer made. My in laws beautiful 6 bed house which was tastefully decorated and included a mature and well tended garden took 14 months and went after a hefty price drop (it didn't appear to be overpriced, they did it based on comparisons and a couple of valuations). Around here, the larger or more expensive houses have a smaller pool of buyers with a longer list of must haves.

My last house had viewings but no offers for 2 months. I dropped the price significantly, had lots of viewings and a decent offer in 3 days.

Bingo @Jericha that's exactly what I've been thinking. Although the viewings have been from all over the country to see what looks like a big super unique house with grounds it turns out not to be everyone's dream house. I've had several couples round where one half clearly LOVES it and the other one is pretty much muttering 'over my dead body'.

It's a marmite house. Had been for sale for three years (!) when I chanced upon it & declared it the house of my dreams ticking every box after 5 years of searching nationwide but in a price bracket below the one it was listed at.

I guess I'm in for a long ride. Or accept that a quicker sale will come at a price.

We went on the market on a Thursday, had 8 viewings on the Saturday and accepted above asking price offer on the Monday.
We had an offer accepted the same week.

That was in June and we are still waiting to move.. damn chain!

Houses round here either go immediately, or stick for months. We have a nondescript 80s four bed house, big garden, in a genuinely "desirable" location in the home counties (walk to the station, good schools etc). 20 viewers over three months, one stupidly low offer. There was some genuine interest - though the agent had a very , very scattergun approach despite us saying "proceedable only" - but it seems ours was always everyone's second choice and they kept getting their first each time. Definitely priced correctly. The only real negative feedback was that our house has three floors (the other one that sold has two) as it seems everyone wants to move their granny in these days and they don't want the stairs!

We are now with a more local, highly recommended agent as of a week ago. They already seem much better, but the market is pretty much dead now, coming into December. Had one viewing from somebody on the market who is keen but needs to sell theirs first before deciding on offering. Biggest regret is not going with this new agent in July when the market was hotter. We were seduced by a "Mr and Mrs XYZ want to buy on your road" letter with the crappy agent, they never even bloody viewed, probably didn't even exist!

FWIW, our new agent will be "hiding" our place from Rightmove in a few weeks, so it can appear fresh again (for the third time..!) in late February when the market picks up. But they'll still market it to customers who approach them.

Hey @Shattered04 we are leading parallel lives

That's a good idea to 'hide' off Rightmove but continue to push for people viewing similarish properties in the area. I wouldn't have known that was a thing.

Currently two other big detached houses in our area one is a doer upper and has fast flowing river as boundary and on the main road so quite a bit less than our asking price and the other looks immaculate but a good schlep out of town so kids couldn't walk to school.

I'm staggered at how much tidying effort is needed from one day to the next to keep it viewer-ready. Hide the laundry, hide the cats and their bowls, floor mopping/sweeping/hoovering, put the washing up away.
It is quite nice living in a clean tidy house and the teens having the rationale to not live in total squalor.

We had a viewing before house went on rightmove on the Friday, then 6 viewings over the weekend. Had two offers on the table on Monday and accepted an offer on the Tuesday.

That was about 3 weeks ago. We just had an offer accepted on our next house. Hoping to exchange and complete in the new year as we are top of the chain x

We only had two full days of viewings — I think there were 22 in total over the two days — and about nine offers. Accepted one the next day on May 19th, completed sale on August 2nd. I did push very hard for speed, and replied immediately to all correspondence, supplied anything the buyers asked about ASAP, did everything to expedite it.

I've always sold with open days. Private slots for each viewer, two days of viewings over a weekend, offers on the Monday, best and final on the Tuesday. Had nine offers on the last place and seven on the one before all over asking.

That said these are in a massively in demand city where property moves fast. Not really the same as yours.

I think it depends where you are selling. We are selling in central London and the market there for small flats is not good. We put it on in June and have just sold ( though we had a previous sale in August fall through).
We’ve had over 30 viewings and it is mentally draining but you’ll get there in the end. Was beginning to despair as so many viewers said ridiculous things about it needing work which was obvious from the photos. There are a lot of time wasters out there and agents sometimes over value initially to win your business but in the end a fair price becomes apparent.

Late 2020 so a bit dated. 12 days, 8 viewings. Sold (full asking) to the only people we showed round ourselves.

EA's can sell a house but not a home :)