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)

Omg can’t believe I’m doing this. Just spent hours reading every post in this thread (in the middle of a stressful period of waiting to hear just something, anything from our buyer) and now at 2:30am I had to create an account to share my house selling journey. We’re in Hampshire.

Reason for selling: house has become too small with my husband permanently wfh and a toddler. We bought this house 3 years ago as a FTB young couple and it was perfect for us in every way. Really love it but hubby is the bread winner of the family and now he deserves a home office instead of sitting in the living room with our todd running around making all sorts of noise.

Appointments with 3 agents in late Jan, 3 valuations were only £10k in difference, we went with the agent who has sold most houses in our area. Had an open day of 12 viewings in early Feb and got 2 offers, accepted the lower one (still above guide price) but it was from a cashbuyer thinking it would give us a better buying position.

Viewed our no chain dream house late Feb and got our offer accepted. All seemed smooth until a month later our buyers withdrew just because they changed their mind (8 weeks from when we accepted their offer). We should have suspected their loss of interest as they never booked for a valuation. On the contract paper sent over by our solicitors their current address was there and my hubby thought of sending them a surprise present 🙄

Our seller would wait for us knowing our house sold quickly first time. EA soon found an investor who agreed to pay the same amount as the pulled out d(u)cks. It’s been 7 weeks now, their survey done, their enquiries replied, our solicitors and we were positive exchange will happen soon. But for about a week now our sols have not heard anything from theirs, right when we asked them about exchange and completion. The longer the waiting time the more anxious I’m becoming. I asked EA to contact the buyers and received EA’s message “he said he’s had covid and will get in touch with his sols to see where they are”. Hubby has tried to persuade me not to overthink it but I just can’t. I’m sleepless. How does that sound to you? Does it look like disinterest? Do you think covid is just an excuse for something else going on their mind? I’m getting crazy with all this wait :(

So sorry to hear of all the stress. It is a horrible process and I am never repeating it.

Our agent is being quite proactive which helps as buyers are FTB and don’t seem to quite realise that they have to push their mortgage broker. They are moving out in a few weeks and into a hotel for a week in theory but the survey still not done and I can’t see the end of next month happening. I worry they will think sod it and get a new rental and sit it out in the hooe if the market falling and/or freak out at survey if it ever happens as they can be quite intimidating if you haven’t seen one before.

@LenJoseph oh dear, that sounds difficult. We're currently awaiting a delayed exchange. We should have been completing on Tuesday after exchanging ten days ago but have been held up by much buyer faffing and not being very honest.
It is possible though your buyer has had Covid and been knocked for six for a week or two - it put me in bed for several days unable to do much at all.

After many weeks of prep and reading this thread, finally on the market! Relocating to the next county, SW UK.
First 5 days on the market 7 viewings, 3 cancelled, so 4 actual views, no feedbacks or offers as yet, is this good/bad/indifferent?

We’ve just put our house on and waiting to see if we get viewings. Fingers crossed 🤞🏻

Oh gosh I didn’t know things can be delayed even after exchange. Hope it will be resolved quickly for you RidingMyBike. I don’t understand why sometimes people can make cases so non-straighforward. My cousin recently completed on a no chain house, she was a FTB, a transaction thought to be completed at 8 weeks max eventually took nearly 6 months. Hopefully the new week will bring some good news to us all.

Oops sorry @LenJoseph no we haven't even exchanged yet. In theory once you've exchanged then, yes, completion date should be set and proceed as planned. We should have exchanged about ten days ago, with completion next week but ended up delayed by vendor's onward purchase needing probate, then he was surprised our paperwork was ready in time(?!) so wasn't ready to pack up and move, then he had a 3 week holiday booked. This was meant to be a straightforward no chain on either side speedy purchase completing in late April but will have been about four months and almost July if this latest date goes ahead.

It is possible to go fast - we sold last year (we're currently renting) and got from offer accepted to completion in 30 days but that was quite unusual circs and not the norm!

Ah right @RidingMyBike sorry I misread what you said initially. So I guess our situations are quite similar to each other, awaiting dates to be announced. Too bad we couldn’t complete earlier so we can make use of the coming long weekend to get settled (ahh how I hate the lot who pulled out). I don’t even want to spend the 4 days packing the non essential stuff because nothing is certain yet for us at the moment. Such a waste of time, and mental health. Really hope we will hear something next week. And yes, hope our buyer really did have Covid, not that something is happening to his feet 😬

Hello, again. Part 74 in my 'terrible estate agents' tales. We changed agents over a fortnight ago, to ones that are big, corporate and efficient - high quality photos/floorplans/information gathering. Or so we thought.

This morning I've had a full apology from the manager as in the last two weeks they've managed not to even do our details, let alone tell anyone on their books about the house. My emails to them have gone unanswered, they lost our paperwork, they eventually (yesterday) put a piss poor listing online with the wrong details on it, and the photos and video plan are weak.

So two weeks down the line, we may as well have not had our house on the market.

Oh, and he told me he'd done a viewing with someone who has already seen our house, who told him he thought it was actually a two bedroom house. I actually felt like crying as that's just such bollocks. I just need not to be getting a constant stream of negativity about my perfectly nice house.

So sorry to read your update @Doubleraspberry although I’ve heard EAs getting a bad rep for like forever, I’d only the experience of using them as a buyer, and I used a really lovely company (years ago) at that.

Trying to sell my house has been a different kettle of fish entirely. I’m just emailing my EA to cancel my contract, but I think they’re going to quibble about the notice period, which makes no sense as they clearly cba even to do a half hearted job of selling my house.

So I’m really sorry to hear that your new lot are useless. I’m guessing you have a grace period in your contract, would it be worth leaving them and going for 3rd time lucky? I feel quite ragey at being forced to suffer such shite ‘service’…

💐 to all of us being dragged arse end first through the seven circles of hell that is today’s property market…

We have got off to a bad start with our EAs. If you know in your gut instinct that something is wrong, act on it. Our house was placed with a very young inexperienced girl and whilst I was prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt, she seems to be off regularly. Why place a house in the care of someone who is off and only a trainee available. As I suspected, errors started happening delaying the marketing of the house. Too many staff not speaking to each other.

I put in writing I wanted consistency and it has gone to another worker who I met today and she was friendly and pleasant.

Our fear is that we wont find anything and have scoured rightmove to a 20 mile radius. We are downsizing and dh retiring.

I was absolutely astonished at some prices. For example a lake district village where I went to school has a bungalow for sale. On a busy street with parking difficulties, no views and small in size on for £1,300,000. It also brought up Lytham with eyewatering prices as well. It is making me feel anxious already tbh,

Doubtraspberry - You are very unlucky. Perhaps it may be third time lucky for you. Don't be embarassed. Your agent is crap.

Sorry, DoubleRaspberry.

Sorry to hear that @ElsieMc you’re absolutely right to trust your gut instincts… I hope that the new one gets things moving really quickly now.

A question for everyone… I have just emailed my EAs to give them notice of me cancelling the contract once we reach the end date, but was just wondering if anyone knows what happens about the EPC? My current EAs paid to have it done, but now wondering if I can use it going forward with new EAs, or whether it has to be done again? (I guess the same question for the photos and floor plan that they did?)

Photos and floor plans are different with each agent but are usually included in their commission. EPC is stand-alone - we’re currently using the one we got done a while ago for renting the house out. But we paid for it - not 100% sure if the agents paid whether it’s centrally lodged (I know our agents just pulled it off a system) or they can say you can’t have it.

@ElsieMc that sounds a total pain, I’m sorry. We’ll stick with ours for now as they are probably the best placed agents if they actually get themselves in gear, and they’re pretty determined to prove themselves to us now. So we’ll see. We can walk away in a month, which is when our tenants leave too.

How's it all going everyone?
Mine is still sold, although they haven't sold theirs so just waiting on that.
I found my purchase last week. Put an asking price offer in after viewing. They came back and asked if I'd increase by 5k. I said I'd consider it after discussion with mortgage advisor. There wasn't any wiggle room really so I went back and said I can't increase my offer.
They accepted anyway! I had a feeling they would as they were similar to me in that they were busy working, raising young kids and not wanting to do lots of viewings. I think I was the only viewer they accepted by the sounds of it 🙈. I think they just wanted it done!
The fun starts here I guess!
BTW my compromise in the end was on garden size. Bigger than my current garden but not as big as I wanted. Otherwise it ticks all my other boxes. I was getting a bit worried I wouldn't find what I wanted tbh!

Thanks @Doubleraspberry for the clarification, that’s really helpful.

So pleased that everything is moving in the right direction @ThisMustBeMyDream that all sounds so exciting. And well done for sticking with the offer that you could realistically afford, and yay that they accepted it 🥳 Glad the garden is bigger than the one you currently have too, even if not quite as big as you’d have liked.

I’ve confirmed cancellation of the contract with my EAs once the contract period ends. They seemed totally unbothered and I really feel that they’ve been actively trying not to sell my house. A friend of the family called them pretending to be interested in my house to see what might be going on; they first of all tried to interest him in a house round the corner, then (when he said he was actually just interested in my house) said that there’s no parking, and generally seemed very lukewarm. Didn’t offer a viewing, nothing. Am just wondering how much interest that there has actually been that they’ve then put off… I haven’t said anything to them about it, but very tempted…

How’s everyone else getting on?

@ThisMustBeMyDream oooh that's exciting, congratulations! And that sounds a reasonable compromise. Does anyone ever get their dream house? I imagine there almost always is a compromise somewhere.

@Melminiani that EA sounds beyond weird. Good luck with the next one...

We are STILL waiting to exchange. Our letting agent is getting the house we're renting valued so we're a bit worried the landlord is planning to sell and we'd have no opportunity to extend the tenancy if we need to.

Hi everyone - we had our first gremlin with the seller estate agents - resolved by getting our solicitor involved... long story short but they were making a mistake and instead of checking their data/info they were on our back to chase with our solicitor... anyway, resolved but it was hairy for a bit - we threatened to pull out, that sort of hairy.

It's not over until it's over... and definitely it's not over for us.

Our planned completion date is around mid August. So, still a while to go.

We just went to a jubilee street party at the new address after our vendors invited us.

Really, really didn't want to go but it turned out to be quite good fun and we met our new neighbours in either side plus lots more.

It was slightly painful and very awkward but had a good chat with the vendors and they've said we can go over for a good look round and to ask questions before we move.

I don't think they're ready to move at all though. We're pushing for asap but they mentioned their 30 years of belongings and I got the impression they haven't started decluttering yet. Could be interesting.

It sounds like some of you are having a bit of a nightmare time so hope it all works out for you.

We've managed to sell and find somewhere to buy in the space of 10 days which is scary.

We're buying a massive project which is right at the top of budget which was absolutely not the plan. But here we are! Really worried the mortgage company will undervalue but fingers crossed that won't happen. We're selling to a cash buyer so hopefully that price won't move really as survey should be ok.

I'm getting really worried about it all, it's coming at not a good time personally and I'm normally very chilled but definitely feel anxious about this move. My husband is incredibly excited!

Been on market just over a week one viewing so far, one cancelled yesterday last minute and we have one today. Still nothing much in my budget fo sale. Have enquired on a couple but both had offers. Worrying I will sell with nothing to go to

Going to view a new build flat Tuesday but realistically not practical, I have 2 dogs.

We seem to be edging forwards, our buyers have managed to get under offer by their deadline and we have a tentative date or completion at the beginning of August.

Things moving quickly, had offer on ours although they've not yet sold. Viewed and offered on a little place in the countryside yesterday. Will hear today if it's been accepted. There is another offer so don't know how things will turn out.

All been a bit quick I'm panicking a bit but the type of property I'm offering on doesn't come on market often it's fairly unique so I thought strike while the irons hot

We just found out our buyers can't get a mortgage on our house due to some sort of freehold/leasehold issue.

After some panicking from us, the buyers and the estate agent (solicitor on holiday) I went through our stash of papers and found land reg docs which seem to show we own both the freehold and the leasehold on the bit of drive in question so hopefully that will sort it out.

It didn't help that so much if the legalese is like another language. Either I've saved the day with my mixture of hoarding and new sorting or we've just sent random documents to a bunch of people.

Our buyers have had their mortgage declined, nothing to do with our house. This happened to us last year too. Horrible process.