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)

@JurasicPerks it might be worth a try. We've been inundated with paperwork from all sorts of places!

We know about our buyers because we're using the same solicitors and it caused problems.

We know about our vendors because their solicitors have been in touch. Their EA is extremely motivated and harassing everyone possible which was annoying when we went away for a few days but might turn out to be useful.

We're now 8 weeks after getting our offer accepted. Survey done and it's fine (well, as expected - house needs a lot of work!). Solicitor is sending us paperwork next week to go thru. We're still waiting for probate to be granted on vendor's onward purchase but that solicitor is chasing. Apparently we're still on track for completion at end of May so beginning to look around for building companies etc.

@RidingMyBike - awesome! If all goes well our completion date is set at early August. Which suits us, as moving from a house with lots of storage and a garage to a house of the same size but with hardly any storage. More than decluttering, we have to do some serious streamlining/chucking things - I am selling so many things which we had 'just in case' on Next-door at the moment.

@CornedBeef451 , ah understood now, from your earlier narrative I thought you had offered before selling. Hope all goes well for you!

Thanks @DomusAurea you too!

Good luck @DomusAurea we did a lot of 'streamlining' last summer before our move into rental. I cleared so much between getting job offer and actually relocating. I aimed to get x amount on eBay/FB Marketplace per week and x number of bags to the charity shop.
It was worth it in the end as it would have been horrendous otherwise.

My buyer pulled out on Friday. I'm wallowing in self pity this weekend. It has ruined the BH weekend for me quite frankly!
I will speak to the EA tomorrow as I'm not happy that it has just had the sstc taken off it and not relisted on RM as a new listing. Haven't had a single viewing request. My performance tracker on the EA website shows very little traffic in comparison to when it was new on RM.
Am I right in thinking that the EA can remove the listing from RM and put it back on? Am I also right in thinking that most people are just looking at what was put on in the last 24 hours/3 days/ 7 days on there?

Oh, no dream that sucks.

I think, from my rightmove stalking, most places do just go back on with the old listing date.
I think a price change brings it back on the last 1/3/7 days lists.
tbf, there is so little round here, I just have the full list. But we have a pretty small zone of interest - we are only moving if it's walking distance to school.

I hope you get a committed buyer soon.

That’s so disappointing, @ThisMustBeMyDream . I hope they can relaunch. I do the last 3 days thing and have seen houses reappear.

We remain on the market without a single offer after 8 weeks. The agents are baffled. I’m not hugely. They’re not very good. We hit the end of our lock in with them in a fortnight and have a new set ready to take it on. Our listing is pants and the agents just never really seem to get the house, so I’ve refused to reduce further until we’ve changed agents. If same again, the price will go down.

Tbh I think you are overestimating the role that estate agents play in buyers wanting to pick your property over another one. As long as the property is on Rightmove and they are making themselves available for viewings, you should be getting offers if it is priced correctly. I suspect that in your case it is having tenants in the property that is making it less desirable. In the end, I think you will have to choose between reducing the price or losing the tenants so you can get in there and make it more visually appealing for every viewing.

@Doubleraspberry - we tried to sell our B2L last summer in (what we thought was) a massive buying frenzy prior to the SD holiday.

Our tenants had put all their good furniture into storage and were living with awful furniture that didn’t fit and was a complete mess for the photos. Needless to say, we didn’t sell. The EAs didn’t manage to sell the house empty either.

Its so frustrating…

I wouldn't consider a house with sitting tenants. You have no idea how willing they will be to leave or what they may leave behind if they do! Too much uncertainty in an already difficult process.

So sorry to hear of frustrations! It’s such a slog. I know everyone says the market is mad, but it does seem to be if you have a certain size family home - less so otherwise.

we’ve been on for a month, 30 viewings, no offers, no negative feedback about the one drawback for me (relatively busy road, but one I compromised on for lovely quiet garden) but lots of fiddly feedback about specifics. Everyone has said if they had offered, the guide price looked reasonable. I don’t quite know what to do!

Totally understand what people are saying about tenants but as some of the agents in the current team never realised they were tenants I’m not sure how many viewers ever knew! I also realise that lots of people aren’t necessarily frank in their feedback but not a single person has mentioned that fact that tenants are in there as a factor. Which surprises me I must say. The agents have said that they are more or less camping there (they leave in early July) which perhaps means they look very obviously temporary. The timing of their departure means that new agents reckon they are the issue, we’ll just take it off the market till the autumn. Every agent I spoke to did say that tenants in my area tend not to be a problem if they are short term and/or professional people as we’re not the only sellers renting out a house they’ve already left - I guess people perceive risk to be different in those circumstances. That might all be bollocks but we’d have abandoned efforts to sell weeks ago if the tenants kept coming up as an issue.

I also agree that the choice of agents really shouldn’t make a massive difference but this lot have done a dreadful listing, which I’ve given up on trying to get changed (and a result almost no viewings come from online - and of course you don’t know it’s tenanted online so clearly that isn’t the factor there), haven’t marketed it through their neighbouring agents as promised, and just seem to be pretty inept on viewings. So I can imagine them not inspiring viewers much. They also don’t dig much for feedback so maybe the new lot (who are terriers on this) will find out it is in fact the tenants causing the problem.

Very happy to reduce price or withdraw until tenants have left once it’s had a shot with effective agents. But at the moment ours have driven me so mad that I’m not prepared to drop the price or give up yet.

This is so familiar.

And sorry, so many thoughts! The lack of online success points to the price but it’s already really reasonable for the location, facilities and floor space that people we know are asking us why on earth it’s so cheap. But the listing is just crap so I can imagine people thinking it’s in a poor state and discounting it.

It could be the combination of disappointing listing, cheap pricing and tenants that makes people feel a bit suspicious - ie there must be something wrong with it? Even if there actually isn’t!

our listing is decent, photos good quality and they drum up interest well so I can’t blame our agents. I suspect ours is not the marketing but the market and we’re stuck in an inbetween hole where our house is a little expensive/suburban for FTB but a bit small for family upsizers. Let’s see.

Our buyer has withdrawn their offer. So we go from a 6th of June closing date to back on the market. Even the Scottish system isn't perfect.

Ah, no! I hope some new ones pop up quickly.

@Alexahelp any of those could be the reason, but I don't think many people see all three, if that makes sense? Anyway, have the new agents lined up. Obviously they are all full of bullshit fundamentally, but they are going to do a video tour (don't know what experience you've all had but apparently houses without them get far fewer viewing requests nowadays), better photos and a proper listing. Push the house to the people signed up on all four of their local offices, and draw up an agreed briefing on the house with us (old agents never shared any of the information we gave them so we'd keep getting feedback on things they should have been able to reassure on during viewings). They were adamant we shouldn't consider a price reduction as they also think it's very cheaply priced for the area but were surprised the listing doesn't emphasise that it's chain-free.

They are far more 'aggressive' in their style than our current lot which initially put me off when it looked like the house would sell immediately and I wanted 'nice' people to go through the process with, but they made the point that if a house doesn't sell immediately, you need to be really pushy, and I really think our lot just didn't do that. Last time we used these new agents was in exactly this situation - had a flat on the market for months and months with 'nice' agents, it didn't sell, lots of random feedback but no offers at all, original agency suggested another price reduction, said no, switched to these agents and they got us an offer within a week. So fingers crossed.

And, the reason our buyer was being so slow was because they had doubts, and have pulled out today (possibly following from my chasing). Meanwhile, our purchase is going ahead at 1000 mph.......

God sorry to hear about all these flakey buyers. At least you know sooner rather than later.

Another 6 viewings this week. One from the weekend deciding between two this week apparently, but I think they’ve probably got an offer in on the other and waiting to see if they get it first. Two very interested from yesterday but partners haven’t seen it yet. Getting frustrated no one wants to close to deal especially after interest rate news today!

Our buyers have pulled out too. Apparently they heard a cockerel when they came round to do some measuring and don’t want to live near a cockerel (I know there’s a cockerel but it’s not next door and I hardly notice it) so they’ve pulled out! On the day we found a house we made an offer on too!

so back to square one for us, we have a few viewing booked on Saturday so cleaning like mad again, didn’t think I’d have to do this again for a long time.

So fucked off with all this already!
My poor son has yet again been moved out to boyfriends flat, room set up as toddler room. Spent 6 hours cleaning before viewing today. They did make an offer but 5k less than the previous, and can't go higher.
Have 2 more viewings booked, but for Saturday and Wednesday. Last time I was able to do multiple on the same day, so just did 2 days worth of viewings. I can't live like this and having to spend at least 2 hours making beds, polishing cookers etc, dusting and tidying... and all the rest.
Just fucked off. And nothing on the market for me. Plus the interest rate rise... we do really need to move. So I have to suck it up. But I don't want to. I want to stamp my feet and scream.
Probably doesn't help that I'm on day 3 of my diet with a HUGE amount to lose (again, lost the same 6 stone at least 5 times now).
Just..... ARRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!
I'm sorry to hear you're in the same predicament @JurasicPerks @Foxglovesandlilacs86 and @Chemenger . I wish ills on all your buyers 🙈. Maybe not bad ills. Just a bout of noro perhaps?

OH MAAAAAAAAAAAN, about these flaky buyers - what's wrong with Democrats people? I am so, so sorry for your misfortune thread friends!

I wonder if because the market is so unstable, people panic buy and then they have remorse, and the interest rate growth is not helping fretting hearts to settle.

Remember the thread mantra: nerves of steel, skin like and elephant and keep believing. You'll get there. Collective breath-in-and-out.

This is where we're at: we have received memorandum of sale from both ends, had our buyers round for measuring and they seemed still happy about the house, and sent a massive amount of paper work to our solicitors.

I am fully aware that this whole theatre is made of paper and can collapse even at the hint of a breeze. I guess I also have to recite the thread mantra. Like, a million times.

In the meanwhile to keep myself occupied I have set yet another one of the million 'old house' accounts on instagram and I am also trying to shift a bit of chub (all the chocolate I stress ate during the sale did not help).

'Democrats people' should have been 'them people' - autocorrect fail 😂NOT Trump supporting

I didn’t think you could do that in Scotland?!