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)

[quote BeryltheMenaceneePeril]@Doublerasberry
I would clear the 4th bedroom and put a childs bed or cot in there and if there is any room, dress it as a 4th bedroom. Let people see it can be used as a 4th bedroom. Ask the Agent to take some more photos, including one of the 4th bedroom dressed as a bedroom. Good Luck[/quote]
I can't do any of that as we have tenants living it. Ironically though they have only just removed the cot that was in there, and the agents' photos actually show it in there.

@ThinkAboutItTomorrow we didn't quite have LinkedIn but we did have weekly appearances from the young minion of the EA we hadn't gone ahead with (amusingly with hair gelled in exactly the same style as his manager!) to hand deliver letters saying he'd found us a buyer and give him a ring!

It was crazy as he must have known we were in a 12 week contract with the EA we went with, and any interested person would have seen the house on RM and gone via the actual EA for a viewing?!

Exactly @RidingMyBike. All the agents had buyers 'lined up and ready to go'. They'll all be signed up with all of them.

We have a 2 week break clause to cancel or amend to multiple agencies, he's assuming I'll enact that and jump into his arms I guess.

If he's a buying agent then he's appallingly bad as he's actively failing to show all properties to his client unless the owners offer him a cut. Why would anyone want to go along with that kind of a business?

Morning, we are the stage of signing the EA contract and preparing the house to be photographed on 29/3, on RM soon after. Not much happening between now and then so trying to focus on other things. Not quite succeeding though - I have at least 3 RM windows open on my browser at all time :)

Congrats to those who have sold, well done to the kitchen reno ThisMustBeMyDream - tbh the old one did not look too bad, but I know that pictures do not always tell the whole story.

Regarding the earlier question - why moving now and not before - it was a matter of circumstances for us (new jobs).

Have a great day all and remember: Nerves of steel, skin like an elephant! We can do this.

I've got 3 hours after kids go to school to clean and tidy and remove clutter before my valuations. They are booked at 12, 1 and 2 today. It's going to be tight, but praying I can get it done. It won't be perfect, the kitchen still needs final fixes, but it should be pretty good 🤞🤞🤞🤞

Eek! photos morning here in an hour!....think I’m ready although am going from room to room faffing!.....& the sunshine is threatening to show the bits of the windows I’ve missed 😂

Good luck all with house activities today 🤞

Oh lordy lord. I'm done. Finally. The house is immaculate, the shit is hidden (don't go in the car or shed!!!). I'm so nervous. It's like I'm going on a first date or something . I hope he likes me my house!
5 minutes to go, and I've just necked a big ice cold drink and sat down finally. Absolutely exhausted, but I've never seen the house looking this good! Ill be doing my pictures later before the whirlwinds get home and destroy it all!
I've literally have no idea where I've put stuff, I need my vitamins this morning, but can't find them! I am usually so organised, so this is messing with my head! I hope it's all over quickly!!!

First second viewing tomorrow - someone who is under offer to FTB and has lost out on a few houses already. Fingers tightly crossed.

Good luck ThisMust beMyDream & Doubleraspberry! 🤞

Estate agent & photos all done, feel exhausted now.....now to retrieve stuff from car & hidey holes! 😂

Gosh how stressful is all this?!
@missmeg3leg does it not stress you out at the thought of putting it all back away for viewings. I can't decide what to do! I'll have to get some of it out, I mean the cats need feeding and somewhere to poo . But the laundry baskets etc, I'm not so sure about!
First one went well, advised offers over 180k, good strategy, and given I only wanted 175k, I'm pretty pleased! Will see what the next two hold!

@ThisMustBeMyDream have just finished bringing stuff back in.....have put back the few essentials for now & think I’ll go for the trying to remember where I’ve put everything else for now! 🤣

If you put stuff away take a photo of where you put it so you can find it again! Ever since I started doing that it’s definitely made life a lot easier!

@Paddingtonthebear

Those of you about to go on the market- can I ask why now and not before? We’ve been looking for so long and I’ve been convinced that not many people are selling anymore as most people would have moved during the reduced stamp duty period!

Ours is a fixer upper and was only half fixed up – so not appealing to the fixer upper crowd as we needed a price to reflect the work we had done, and not appealing to the turn-key crowd due to the still-shit rooms. Has taken us a year from realising we wanted to move to actually finish the bugger – difficulty getting trades, running out of money, DIY fatigue, etc.

Still. Up on RM yesterday and have 5+ viewings lined up for Saturday already with more in the pipeline having their credentials checked. Cacking it.

Thinking about doing this. Property is selling very quickly here (southwest) but not much available yet where we are going (East Anglia).

@Paddingtonthebear the stamp duty holiday wasn't a factor for us at all. We were relocating for work reasons and put house on market at end of September - completed in December. It would have been nice if it had happened during the stamp duty holiday but that would have been completely accidental timing-wise!

[quote RidingMyBike]@Paddingtonthebear the stamp duty holiday wasn't a factor for us at all. We were relocating for work reasons and put house on market at end of September - completed in December. It would have been nice if it had happened during the stamp duty holiday but that would have been completely accidental timing-wise! [/quote]
yep same here, when the SD holiday was on we were in a completely different place, mentally and professionally speaking

And that must also apply to a lot of reasons for sales - probate or moving into care home - which is the reason the ones we've been viewing came on.

Ooh can I join? Had 3 valuations done last week, each of them chatted for aaaaages, clearly waiting to see which agent was going to show up the next hour but ha, I did them on 3 different days which nearly broke me keeping the house clean and tidy for 72 hours but I needed to do them in my lunch breaks.

Not sure which we will go with, difference in valuation range is £50k and all different fees. Only one followed up by email so maybe that one but he was the one who really, really wanted to know if a particular competitor was valuing and asked what value they had advised which kind of put me off.

I have never sold in this kind of market before with offers over, best and final etc, will be nerve wracking for me as a buyer

I think for us we need to get on market asap and hope something comes up to buy. We are in SW, staying local and not a thing in our range.

Good luck everyone and I love those kitchen tiles

So the final 2 valuations were done. So valuation 1 and 3 were identical, offers over 180k with ai. For 185/190. Valuation 3 which was the agent I wanted to use was offers over 210k which was just bloody absurd. The woman was an absolute twit, but I stood my ground and said no, I knew the first agents were right. I had offers over 175k in mind from my many years of following property in my area.
So I liked both the first 2 agents. First one was 1%. No tie ins. Second was 1.2% but would "do a deal" to go cheaper. Not sure about tie ins, I forgot to ask. Third was strike, which I wanted to go with as it is free, and I'm happy to do the photos myself etc. But she really put me off by her attitude. It also means I was right in thinking that their properties are over priced. I've been watching them on RM for a while and they either sit there for ages or have to reduce. I've told her I'm going on at the price I want, and she accepted it eventually. But I just don't know what to do now. I need to decide by tomorrow. £1800 is a lot to pay estate agents when I'm capable of managing photos and viewings by myself. Strike do still manage the offers and do all the other stuff EA's do. So... what do I do?!!!

Bloody hell, my sausage fingers! Valuations 1&2 were identical!

We are just about the complete on our new house it all happened rather quickly with estate agents coming round purely on a speculative basis in September. We saw a house we liked quickly were told we needed house on market to view, didn’t get that house but in the meantime got 3 offers above asking price for ours 🥴. Eventually found another house but the market round here is bonkers. Quite a lot of people chasing almost no houses

Re agents I would ask for recommendations from friends. Ours have been staggeringly useless. I used them because they were quite good when we bought off them but that was many years ago.

They undervalued the house but I don’t think that really mattered as round here (NW) selling prices don’t seem to follow asking prices at all. We got a fair bit more than asking price in the end because there are so few houses the size of ours in the area. We got three offers out of the first five viewings.

@ThisMustBeMyDream I’d go with the 1% fee, sensible valuation agent you liked. Don’t go with Strike if you think she was a twit and they’re generally no good – incidentally, how do they make their money if they’re free? As a buyer I much prefer to do viewings through an estate agent rather than the owner, you can’t relax and look around properly with owners hovering – and for me it’s worth paying the agent’s fee so they do the photos and the viewings because that stuff is stressful and selling/buying is stressful enough!

Our survey (Scotland so the vendor provides the home report) went well yesterday, nothing out of line with the age of the house. Surveyor was optimistic about the market, not much for sale in the village and demand high for property just outside the city. He’s done a couple close by that have gone very quickly and both were smaller and more “tired” than ours. There’s a lot of new build round here but ours is 1930’s so more features and also very private with great views and lots of parking. Photos tomorrow then we can reclutter a little.

Valuation came in more or less where we expected on the home report.