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)

I have to rant about the estate agents of our purchase - OMFFFFFG they are every possible little thing that gives estate agents a bad name - "every little thing they do it's tragic" - they lie, they do not return calls, they omit information, they contradict themselves - and then they lie some more - when it's their side of the chain being late they just disappear and they shrug their shoulders, but they want our side to have it done by YESTERDAY.

Honestly - I know that there is a special place in hell for them.

I realise now why all the houses left in the area are with these agents... they are officially the local cowboys.

I am so tempted to name and shame. ..

But I won't I am just slowly breathing in and out thinking that what goes around comes around and hope they are, at some point, going to get their karmic retribution.

...and breathe!

My offer was accepted but the offer on ours is from people who haven't yet sold so nit sure how that's going to work out. Hoping they will sell pretty soon because I'm not sure how long my vendor will hang on for

Lindisfarne1, an offer that is not proceedable is not much good to you I am afraid as the chain is not complete. I do hope your buyers can sell quickly.

Our agents have been pretty dire. We did not even go with the highest value agents either. We went middle of the road. We have had very few viewings although it stands okay alongside similar properties. Perhaps because we have lived here so long we are blind to its faults!

It is meant to have accompanied viewings, but I have ended up doing them. We have had a couple who wanted to swap houses (not via agent) but we have told them we do not want to. Agents took 2 weeks to put a sign up. Forget to do the EPC meaning it is arriving 3 weeks late. A young girl at the office seems determined it is "hers" and continues to make errors. She is very offended that we might want a more experienced staff member as main contact. So tedious. I feel like throwing the towel in already and maybe selling next year instead. It just doesnt feel right.

I have an offer from a shared ownership company, has anyone experienced this?

Elsie yes I know, I have been up front with my vendor about it. I don't know hoping they either sell quick or we get another buyer. Things have slowed down alot here on property market.

My estate agents says people are worried about cost of living everything getting more expensive plus people away on holidays....

So finally we exchanged today and completion due next Wed. Has been a little bumpy journey for us but we are (nearly) there, so hope everyone here will receive good news soon. If you don’t think it’s the right time yet, trust your instinct and maybe pull it off the market for a while and wait for the right time to come. We used to feel quite gutted that we totally missed the stamp duty holiday because due to different reasons moving was impossible for us back then, but now that we’re going to move into our dream house, we truly believe everything happens for a reason :)

Here’s a bit of our timeline/milestones for your reference, although I know every case is different and there are tons of factors that can affect a sale and purchase:
01/2: house listed
05/2: open day
07/2: received 2 offers out of 12 viewings, accepted the lower one from a cash buyer. Our agent sent us a consolidated report of viewers’ comments of the house and most of them said it was too small. I blame the wide angle photography for this. Our house IS small but it looks really fab on the marketing photos and vid LOL. So if you have not yet listed, maybe tell your agent not to use too much technology and just take as “true” photos as possible to avoid disappointment.
26/2: viewed our dream house, it was quite a competition there and we won the best and final. It was not stated in the marketing materials but it was for sale with no chain (only found out at viewing), so it’s even better :)
29/3: worst day of all, our buyers pulled out.
Have to praise our sale agent here, he quickly got the house relisted and found us an investor buyer within a week, hence keeping our chain very simple with us being the only middle link.
From then on it’s been all about waiting and praying the sale will go on smoothly. The first lot pulling out really hit me hard and I’ve been having problem sleeping for weeks worrying things could fall through again at any point of time and we would lose the dream house that very rarely seen on the market. You all know it, the wait is horribly nerve wrecking. At some points I felt like we were left in limbo not knowing what was happening and whether things would even move forward. Never been through anything like it before. And yes, as someone up there said, we will never do this again, or at least not until our toddler graduates -_-

Wishing everyone all the best with your sale and purchase. Stay strong, it is tough but you will get there.

That’s great news @LenJoseph ! Really useful to see your timeline. We have a meeting with our buyer for him to persuade us that he will be able to get a mortgage, he’s had his first application declined.

You know @Volterra we did try to avoid complications with buyers’ mortgage by accepting the lower offer of the 2 we received, but eventually that cash buyer still decided to pull out, so mortgage or not doesn’t matter much really. I hope it’s only a litte hiccup with your buyer’s mortgage and all will go well in the end 🤞🏻

@LenJoseph thank you . Survey is now booked for next week so that’s an improvement.

@LenJoseph - thank you for that timeline - very useful.

@LenJoseph Good to hear you have finally got there. Our house actually looks smaller in the pics, so we have not suffered from your issues. But it is photographed to show our home is on a tree lined lane. It is sunny at the front by lunchtime in the summer, but the sun is on a different area during different times of the day. The garden is very large. I find it great to have shade. But viewers do not like them and they are clearly seen on the photos. So frustrating.

We have also had a number of viewers who claim to have come into large inheritances when the fact their properties are not on the market is raised by the agent. It might well be true, but after the third claim in the same amount, I have become a bit cynical!

Also we have had some brutal and unkind feedback. The agents said they had a huge amount of complaints following last weekends viewing from sellers who were angry with the rudeness and entitlement of viewers. Seems I am not alone.

I thought price might be an issue and wondered whether to drop but it sits well amongst the price range. Maybe the house needs a good look at by my dd who is plain speaking!

@Volterra Good luck with the survey report. Our first lot of buyers (those who pulled out) never booked a survey. We should have known it better then. We were so naive thinking because our house was in such a great condition (it was built some 10 years ago so can be considered pretty new, we're OCD people who are obsessed with keeping things in order, and the house is in pristine condition), and they could see that at the viewing they could not be bothered to spend hundreds on a survey. Also they were cash buyers so obviously no need for a bank survey and valuation. Turned out it was a tell tale sign of disinterest. And those people took away 8 precious weeks to gain the braveness to tell us they were no longer interested. All those time we were so sillily hopeful. Still hate those time wasters now. Let us know when you hear about the report.

@DomusAurea You're welcome, I'm glad you found it useful. Maybe we can encourage others to share their timelines here too, those might be reassuring to read :)

@ElsieMc You remind me of a recent thread on here. Someone complained about a neighbour's tree casting shade on her garden, and there seem to be 2 opposite sides of opinions: some said because summer was so short here in the UK a shady garden didn't matter much because it'd be gloomy most of the time anyway (the neighbour side), while others said it was because summer was so short a sunny garden was a treasure or something like that (the OP side). I mean literally everything can be controversial now and while some people may prefer a bit more sun in your garden, there might come a viewer/buyer who doesn't care much, or hates gardening, or both. So keep hoping that you will find "the one", sometimes it's all about luck and coincidence :)
About viewers' comments, I agree some can be a bit nonsense. Like one of my viewers talked about school catchment while that can easily be checked before booking a viewing. Perhaps didn't know what to say when my agent called to ask if he was keen LOL. Don't be bothered by those, they won't be your buyers anyway and don't deserve your time. Just focus on what you think will make your house more attractive. It will be alright :)

Thanks @LenJoseph . Time wasters are a nightmare 😓We met with our buyers and I am pretty sure they are genuine. They are having to leave their rental soon but moving in with family . Came with chocolates and flowers to apologise for the stress and are happy to accommodate a certain date to make things easier for us. Just have to hope it’s second time lucky on mortgage.

Thanks @LenJoseph for your kind words. Its not all been bad, we have had some funny ones as well. My DH found a lady in our driveway who said not to worry, she was just here to see if her horse fit on our garden. She really should have brought it!

Well offer on my house from non proceedable buyers....they've taken a lower offer for their house apparently and now want to drop their original offer by 5 000. I've already dropped 5,000 so the answer will be a no. If they love the house as much as the estate agent says they will pay the money for it. Cheeky buggers

Finally after reducing our price we got an almost asking price offer on Friday. There were another 8 viewings on Saturday so I’m waiting to see whether anything comes up. The offer is from people funding it through the sale of an inherited property which makes me nervous that we’ll end up at the end of a long chain. If no other offers materialise I do want to know how many in the chain and what completion date it’s working towards (I know probate has been granted and conveyancing begun but nothing more yet).

My second buyer has now pulled out.
I honestly can not believe it. I'm so fed up.
I just want to give up.
Why is it this hard?

Oh no @ThisMustBeMyDream , I am so sorry. It is an absolutely hideous process to go through 💐

That’s very cheeky of them @Lindisfarne1 .

@Doubleraspberry great news you have an offer 🙂Sensible to wait and see if any others come in and to check out the chain.

Cut the grass in readiness for survey tomorrow.

@ThisMustBeMyDream I’m so sorry to hear that, horrible to have to go through that once let alone twice . Like you, I can’t believe how unnecessarily hard this whole process is…

Good to see everyone’s updates, though sorry for those for whom it’s still not moving in the direction/speed necessary.

I’ve now finished with my hopeless first EAs and will now start to look for new ones. It’s my busiest time of the year work wise so wondering whether to leave it ‘fallow’ for a couple more weeks.

In the meantime, I’ll call these house buying agencies (3 letters from 3 different companies) just to see how too good to be true they actually are… 😶

@Melminiani , the only thing about leaving it is you are heading towards the summer holidays. We went on July last year and it all went a bit weird during the summer with no families viewing it when really it is a family home and the 3 offers we had this year were all from families. If a different type of property that might not be an issue and it might not be an issue this year as the world is weird.

Surveyor has just been, took 15 mins and said he will write the report this afternoon. Hoping he hasn’t seen anything serious and will agree the price.

@Volterra thats a good point, back to seeing if I can get a new EA this week then! I contacted the house buying company and their basic offer was £40k below estimate, so now at least I know…

Good luck with the survey, I hope the fact that he was so quick means that it’s straightforward and problem-free 🤞🏼

Thank you @Melminiani . 😊As you said at least you know with the house buying company. Hope you find a good EA, they make all the difference.

@ThisMustBeMyDream NOOOOOOOO WHYYYYYY????? why did they do that?? any reason? I am so sorry.

On my side the whole castle of cards is so fragile I do not even dare to breathe.

We are trying to accept the offer on our house but we can’t find out whether they are chain-free or not! The agent who took the offer is now on holiday and his colleague can’t get hold of them! They are financing the purchase with a sale so could be chain-free but it’s an inherited retirement property so we wanted to know for sure it isn’t the end of a chain. So we wait…