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

[InTheCludgie]

Hi everyone here is the new thread for those of us who are about to, or are currently trying to, sell our homes!

So we are now back on the market and have a viewing tomorrow morning, plus one for early next week. This week is a bit tricky as it's DS's birthday so have had to say no to a couple of suggested times for viewings.

How is everyone else getting on?

We'll we've accepted an offer on our house and the house we want is up for auction tomorrow so fingers crossed we manage to win at a decent price 🤞🏻

@InTheCludgie that's so nice of him! Hopefully this time round it'll be straightforward and smooth sailing for you!

Congrats on the offer @123deepbreath and good luck with the auction, let us know how you get on

Congratulations on the offer @123deepbreath and will have everything crossed for you tomorrow.

@InTheCludgie that is lovely of him, hopefully he has put a hefty load of good moving karma into your chain and it all goes smoothly 🙂🍀

Your vendor sounds amazing @InTheCludgie ! I do hope you get an offer soon and can get back on it.

Also congrats to those with new offers. It's such a nerve wracking time but an offer is always a bit of a boost. 😁

I'll keep an eye on this thread even though we have now finished the buying/selling process. I found these threads so supportive and friendly and I want to know how everyone gets on. 😃

@123deepbreath ... congratulations on the offer, any news on the auction??? Am genuinely delighted for all those having more success than we are. A dim light at the end of our long dark tunnel - we have a second viewing (in almost 4 long weeks) on Tuesday. Any tips for convincing him to buy (part from the obvious clean and tidy approach)?

Is everyone using traditional EA? Is anyone selling online?
Just about to start to start on this process and shocked how much EA fees are likely to be…. Are they worth the money?

Not just us then! I think they say it so you list with them. We do want an offer, so we can properly look at other houses.

We haven't been allowed in the house for viewings so I'm hoping the EA has been giving his best spiel.

I’m a bundle of nerves.

I have spent a year browsing rightmove
looking for a very specific type of property (the majority of its kind are vastly out of our budget) and finally found one. Involves relocating 4 hours away but that’s as expected. It’s perfect and I adore it.

We were given a 2 week grace period to sell our house which we managed…but only has 1 offer and they still need to sell their property.

Our vendors have given another 2 week grace period for our buyers to sell. I was confident for ours as we only bought it last year and they had 3 offers at asking the first day of viewing but no idea how quickly our buyers will sell.

@Tormundsbeard yes Im selling with a traditional local EA, to be honest I've not heard of online EAs only or is that like Yopa?

I did consider purple bricks but was concerned about the lack of availability for accompanied viewings that others have mentioned.

I went with a trad EA as I didn't want to do my own viewings and the aftersales services such as progessing but as I've only just accepted an offer in the last week we are still at an early stage so haven't experienced that part yet.

So far though I'm happy with the service I'm receiving. The fees are 1% +Vat which is average in my area.

@Inapicklee I hope you are asking your EA to continue taking viewings. I definitely would in your position because a chain free offer might come in.

@Tormundsbeard we used a traditional agent and they were great. Secured an asking price offer in 2 days of viewing. Pushing them up from their initial offer of 5% below asking.

I will say do your research. She which agents are going to SSTC quickly and then completing the sale. Speak to the owners of SSTC properties and see if they'd recommend them. Speak to multiple agents and let them know you are - they might improve your terms eg reduce commission by 0.5%, reduce number of weeks exclusivity etc.

Last year we put our property on the market and the EA was awful. Told the buyers I was pregnant and needed to move (I was pregnant and wanted to move but there was more than enough space for us. We just wanted to move into a family home as we owned separate property bought before we married. Anyway I digress) they got offers that were insultingly low c13% lower than asking . I think offers were emboldened thinking I was desperate! When someone progressed to asking price a few days before exchange they tried to gazunder back down to 13% below saying "take it or leave it as I was 6months pregnant and needed to sell to move" I told them and the agent to FO. The buyers GF tried to apologise but I didn't budge. We stayed, completed on a another house which we are in the process of modernising and are now selling this one. The current agent so far is miles better .

My EA was great at selling (secured an offer well over asking price within a few days) but is really earning their fee now, through the sales progressor. She's chasing up the buyers solicitor ( who she acknowledges is v slow) and keeping me updated. For me, this is the real difference between online and "old school" agents.

Thanks for the replies. In the last 30 years I have owned and sold three properties: one via ad in The Times, one to a neighbour and one to a work colleague, so not paid any commission. If 1.5% I would be paying approx £12K to agents, which just seems so much money…. What services do they really provide for that fee? Obviously they would be the first post of call for most buyers but reading through the previous chain several sellers lost their prospective buyers, some several times..
Researching online estate agents, their upfront fees are so much lower (some zero) and your property will be listed on Right Move etc.. my first impression is that interested and motivated buyers would find my home anyway, so why pay £12K, but I wonder if I am missing something. The market has changed a lot since I last moved in 2004.

We initially put ours on with an EA at 1%. This went up to 1.25% when we moved out as they were then actually managing the property!

It's not only the taking photos, writing blurb and getting it on RM though, a lot of what you're paying for is managing the chain, progressing sales. We went with a recommendation from friends for a local EA and they were extremely helpful and on the ball (we sold last year and got from offer to completion in 30 days). The online only ones may work if you can handle your own viewings and want to, but the service at the next stage is v important too.

True. Thinking about it, all my previous sales were chain free, so the 'aftercare' wasn't too demanding.

I suppose you don't know who your buyer will be until you receive your offer.

The tales of buyers dropping out on the previous thread sounded so alarming..

I've just stumbled upon this old MN thread and thought it was such an interesting time capsule. It's from 2010 and some of the things sound just like what I'm reading in threads now. Slowed market, recession worries, people saying that house prices are far too high out of proportion compared to salaries and surely need to come down. I was barely an adult in 2010 and definitely not aware of the economic situation/property market, so it's a fascinating read for me.

@123deepbreath How did the auction go? I love the concept but I'm so competitive, I'd completely get caught up in it and keep bidding just to win.

The difficulty is, when choosing an EA, even if your personal circs are straightforward, you have no idea what your buyer's circs will be? So you could be chain-free, onward move sorted etc but your eventual buyer part of a chain of three or five, which is where the EA comes in.

Clearly some EA are fairly useless - the one we've just bought from wasn't great, said what he thought people wanted to hear and I don't think supported our elderly seller at all. He got the seller to agree to go into rented so we thought things could progress, but it became clear the seller had no idea what this meant or that finding somewhere to rent in our area is really difficult, so that never happened and purchase further delayed.

We were quite careful when choosing one - got 3 round to quote, went with the one who seemed to have an efficient back office function to organise things, had good knowledge of local market and who we'd had recommended by several friends. We didn't go with the smarmy one who changed his mind about the price 3 times during the valuation visit and who didn't have a sales progressor in the office.

So I'm feeling a bit fed up, two out of three of the viewers we have had this week have given feedback along the lines of "we like the house but aren't wanting/ready to proceed..keep us advised!". This is the fourth 'keep us advised' we've had in this process and it's starting to piss me off now. Either you're serious about the house or not! Anyone else feel like they've been burdened with time wasters like this?

Aw, Cludgie that's rubbish. All that effort and the beastly "buyers" aren't really buyers at all.
I wouldn't be happy showing my house to anyone who wasn't under offer...or at least firmly on the market. It's a lot of work to get "viewer ready" and not fair if they're just nosy gits.
I'm sorry you've had this experience and not surprised you fell fed up.

We had sold, found something we wanted & had offer accepted then 2 days later our buyer dropped out after assuring us for 7 weeks was definitely going to buy our house! V v annoying. Back on the market & had a few viewings but definitely slower now. Pretty sure going to lose the house we want to buy 😞

We have done some maintenance and tidying up of our property. we wanted to put the house up for sale but there's absolutely nothing on which is any good or suitable supply is shocking and they aren't aren't shifting because they are vastly overpriced. Our house is a really good size ex LA 3 bed semi perfect for families but very quiet and all owner occupied. One down our street sold in 2 days last week so I know we would sell as it's very good value but there's nothing to move too. We are probably going to wait until Jan 2024 when applying for DDs secondary school. Not bothered if our house price drops as everyone else's will also fall or good supply will eventually pick up. It's just so annoying waiting when you feel mentally done with your house.

@GingerPigz and @ecochiroptera we won! Went slightly over what we had initially planned and came down to several last second bids but it's ours! Just hoping for a straightforward sale now!

@InTheCludgie that's rubbish! Can you ask only those ready to proceed view or not really?

Anyone know how often downvaluing happens with mortgages at all? We're waiting to hear from our buyers mortgage company at the moment!

Hi all, just popping back on to say not much happening here apart from quite a lot of worrying. We will probably reduce our asking price tomorrow. We've had no viewings in two weeks, and the market in our immediate area seems to be cooling fast. Unfortunately, the same isn't true for where we want to buy, and with interest rates going up we may have to revise our ideas of what we can get. But first we need to sell! Feeling pretty gloomy about it all.

@123deepbreath woo hoo!! Massive congratulations 🥳 🥳🥳

We have our SECOND viewing in FOUR weeks this afternoon... and we've convinced ourselves it's a fake viewing (engineered by the EA to make it seem like they know what they are doing). All a bit pants really.

@123deepbreath congrats here too!

And good luck to all those hoping for offers.

We are in that annoying period in which it’s impossible to know why we haven’t got a date for exchange but we haven’t - solicitors on both sides are not hugely impressive and need chasing, as does our agent. We’ve said we wanted to exchange asap since the start and our buyers presumably need to get things done before their mortgage offer expires. Meanwhile our costs on an empty house continue to accumulate. Sigh.

@123deepbreath yes, congratulations!

@manateeandcake Sorry to hear that. I'm feeling super gloomy too. We're still getting plenty of viewings but the constant same-ish feedback is making me think nobody will ever want our house. We've had a few people who seriously considered it and talked about second viewings, but they were all downsizers who then decided that actually it was too small and they didn't want to downsize after all. Where are you based? I'm basically on the border between SE/SW and yes, market is cooling off very fast. Haven't seen anything on RM go SSTC in over a week.