About to put our house up for sale.. anyone else?

[DomusAurea]

We are taking the plunge and it's happening - we are selling our house (and relocating 200 miles away but that's another thread I guess) - anyone else? I could do with a collective handhold!

This is where we are now:

• finishing the last small jobs such as painting a ceiling
• having meets with estate agents for valuation
• nervously searching rightmove for possible houses in our relocation area (there isn't a lot!)

Are you going for sale soon? Tell me how it's going!

(we are in the South East)

Of our 5 viewings on Saturday and 6th today, we have 3 second viewings next Saturday, along with a handful of new viewings.

Hoping those second viewings translate to offers – I only ever had a second viewing on places I offered on and already knew I’d offer on, just did the second viewing for protocol/sensibleness even while my heart was singing “This is the ooone!”

Our dream Sussex house is already SSTC a week after going up – I suspect we’re going to have difficulty selling, because London, and difficulty buying, because there’s NOTHING, and I am going to lose all my hair and gain 5,000lbs stress-eating Haribo.

Best of luck @stuntbubbles and @Dreamer1989 - hope you'll get good offers - and step away from the haribos :)

Tomorrow is photography day. I am sooooo tired of the whole shenanigans already and we haven't even started. I'll tell you how it goes.

@DomusAurea I felt sooooooo good after the photographs were done! The house was the best it has ever looked. Then reality dawned that we have to keep it that way for viewings

I'm threatening everyone in my house if they even look at things in the wrong way. DP is so bad for just leaving his shit lying around. I am not. I am very neat and tidy, everything has its place. I can see tempers flaring before long! He has been told before he leaves at 6am the blinds need to be opened, the dishes put away from night before and polish the sink and drainer with white vinegar after, his extra pillow hidden, and absolutely none of his shit anywhere. There's no need for it at the best of times, least of all now. Particularly when I'm only moving to accommodate him and his child. It is the least he can do!!!!

30 viewings, no offers.

Do you think its the tenants being off-putting @Doubleraspberry?

No. That doesn’t seem to be the issue. I don’t know for sure but I suspect that lots of those viewings were drummed up by the agents without a full description of the house. The agents don’t seem to like the house much, and aren’t marketing it as we discussed, despite my repeated requests. The number of viewings from people who have actually seen the online details and wanted to view is much smaller. Our house is really lovely but has its quirks, but I get the feeling the agents aren’t embracing the challenge. They told me, for example, that ‘no one with small children will buy it’ because the garden has a steepish terrace. So they’ve written off most of the people looking to buy a family house, and I can’t help thinking that will come across. (My comment that we had small children and we’d bought it was pushed aside as seller’s denial I think.)

How frustrating. Can you switch agents? Most seem not to have tie ins currently.

Ours is 12 weeks. I’m actively wondering though whether to go multi agent as the second agent will usually offer you single agent fees to get you in, and get our second choice agents to market it offline. As it’s only just gone back online after its week off, I’ll give them one more week.

Hi everyone. I've been lurking for a while and have already found the thread really helpful. We had 3 estate agents value our home. Liked 2 of them but went with the one who lists 80 percent of the properties in our area.

Our photos are due to be taken Wednesday but the house currently looks like a bomb went off. We have a toddler and a crazy dog and no one to look after them so I literally clean something, turn around and something else has been made dirty. Also, after a week of glorious whether the forecast says it will snow here on Wednesday?!

@DomusAurea thanks for making the thread. Good look with photos.

Welcome @SellingBee & thank you for your kind words :)

To any potential lurkers: please post and come take part! I am not the kind of OP that comments on anything because I already work a 40 hours week and have a family and sometimes try to do some exercise as well (trying to lose a bit of lockdown chub, but that's another thread entirely) but I read all comments and learn masses from all of them, so please keep 'em coming :)

Pictures are being done as we speak - we are doing the virtual tour thingy so the bloody process is taking the whole bloody morning, and I had my team meeting, and my own meet with our head of programme, so this morning up at 6 to prep the house with frantic last minute cleaning and of course I forgot something totally visible like giving the last clean of the stove which had a lovely carrot soup splodge on it :/ - drat. Thank goodness for photoshop

@Doubleraspberry - so sorry to read that - it's so important to have an agent who likes your house :(

Ah hopefully they’ll photoshop that out for you! Mine is on the market now, we have some very strange, heavily edited photos of our lovely living room. Open house Saturday with 6 viewings that I know of. Another house has just gone up in my street for a lot more than mine for almost the same house so I’m not sure if that’s bad or good - we shall see!

Two viewings done, both were very positive and saying they would make offers. Interestingly both were of Chinese ethnicity. The first gentleman was looking for his sister who has a job offer locally, but living in China currently. It would be a cash purchase (will check that out obvs) and sister has a young family so it would still be a family home.
Next family were wife, husband and what appeared to be her mother. Looking for them all it seemed. They would be getting a mortgage and are FTB.
Next viewing was cancelled for 1pm, so I can sort of relax until 2pm. Think I might go out for lunch so I don't make any mess .

I've got a viewing myself between 2.30-3 for something locally that may work, but would need a lot of vision. I'm not sure I have it, but I can try!

This is what I'm going to view: www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/121426961#/?channel=RES_BUY

@ Dream

Knotty pine is due a comeback!
Hope the viewing feels good

Pine makes me and not in an envy way!

First offer in for 10k over. Bloody hell. Nearly spat my drink out when it came through! They said they had offered on 3 others and lost out. I'm happy to accept but feel obliged to allow the other viewings. She is a ftb with mortgage so I want to check others positions. But ftb would be my preference to keep a short chain if possible.

DP has just texted from the post office where he’s dispatching the mountains of paperwork to our solicitor that he put it all in a document box, weighed and paid for postage, then asked for sellotape and they wouldn’t allow him to add to the box weight after paying for postage. So instead of paying for more postage or something sensible, he’s just posted all our documents unsealed with a “But I can track it?” as if the tracking MAGICALLY follows each bit of paper that will fall out of the box in random postboxes and bags. We spent all bloody night yesterday pulling that stuff together, FFS! ::breathes into paper bag::

@ThisMustBeMyDream Amazing scenes! Get yourself a bidding war going!

@DomusAurea If it makes you feel better, there’s one on near us where they did the tour right after the storms and have had to clarify in the text of the ad “the fence that’s fallen over in the tour is actually fixed now”.

@stuntbubbles -thank you for this - it's given me an idea to add in the description 'the stove top has been cleaned now and for full disclosure, the carrot soup was made with organic carrots (true) and a recipe from Nigel Slater (unsure but not possible to factcheck)

And I loooove the retro vibe in that house @ThisMustBeMyDream, knotty pine too - we live in a 1960s house and have a ceiling which we have left because it's a period feature! :)

a pine ceiling that should have said - we do have ceilings in all rooms

OMG @ThisMustBeMyDream, CONGRATS on the offer, go you! :)

Congrats, @ThisMustBeMyDream! That's fantastic.

@stuntbubbles I might have throttled him. BUT how petty is that post office worker not to add the weight of sellotape? That's ridiculous.

Have you thought about lowering the price @Doubleraspberry? We had 30 viewings and only a couple of very low offers on our flat in London and had to lower the price by 10%. It wasn’t an easy sale as it hadn’t been decorated in about 15 plus years as my father used to live there. But the main problem was the price was too high.

Ours went live today!

Some of the pictures are from a couple of years ago when i put it on the market and changed my mind, we used to have a room solely for my dogs but I turned that into a playroom and my daughters room is a much nicer greige colour now ( I let them choose the bright colour when we moved in-big mistake) but apart from that I'm happy with it.

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/121697813#/?channel=RES_BUY