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?

Thanks @FTStheFirstTimeSeller I should be more relaxed now theoretically but bizarrely I'm not!

I'm sure the bank valuation will be straightforward, in my experience they're quite pragmatic and don't hang about 😆 I think a lot of it is a desk top exercise so comparable houses are often referred to🙂

Hi all,
We put our house on the market 10 days ago- the estate agents did an open day this weekend which was hectic! The house has never been so clean and decluttered 🤣
Out of 15 booked for the open day only 8 showed up- but hopeful that even if half of those 8 were just being nosy we might still have a couple of people interested…no news after the open day, so anxiously waiting to hear today what they all though.

@FigandHoney it took us 8 days to put an offer in. I would have offered the day we viewed it but DH needed time. He was moping about our previous purchase falling through (offer accepted then seller decided not to sell). I dodged the estate agents feedback calls until he made a decision because I didn't want to get the sellers hopes up.

Thank you @Lemonandlimejelly ... we are just waiting for 2 valuations today and then making a decision on how to go forward! It's so complicated as the houses we like don't come up very often but we need to be ready for them...

Unfortunately not great news for us.
The person who came for a second viewing said they loved our house. But they saw something else that weekend which they preferred.
Upon further enquiry it was the location that made them sway for the other property.
Which is a real shame, as the location of our house is actually brilliant. Everything is within walking distance, 5 minutes into the center of town, 5 minutes to a big supermarket, under 5 minutes to some lovely local shops and cafes, under 5 minutes to a primary school, under 10 minutes to the secondary school and right on a cycle / hiking path that leads into the countryside within 2 minutes.
Since the feedback has been about location a few times now, we feel like the estate agents haven't been doing a great job selling it. In fact we have had so many viewings at this point, I don't understand why we don't have any offers.
We do have two notes of interest. But one is waiting to see a different property next weekend. And the other is about to sell her house and wants to wait until then.
At this point we are thinking of changing estate agents. We do need to give our estate agents a month notice though.
I personally really want to move on and just rent out the place. But my husband is desperate to sell it.

@FigandHoney - could you ask the estate agent to update the listing to emphasise the advantages of the location? It is frustrating when something that should be a selling point becomes a stumbling block!
My update today was that 5 months in, my buyers who have been having issue after issue with the sale of their flat dropped a bombshell and have said they can break the chain with a gifted deposit from a relative. They seem to think this means we can complete within days but I believe there are money laundering checks and lender approvals that need to happen? Im told they don’t have a mortgage on the flat they were selling do that might speed things up. I am so worn down by the whole process now that this doesn’t even feel like good news yet. We have been ready to exchange since before Christmas!

How big an area does the EA cover? We experienced one being very vague about the location of local shops when we were new to the area. Turned out they were down the next road but EA didn't seem aware of that.

When we sold we briefed the EA about the location of nearest key facilities likely to be of interest to families.

@RidingMyBike They are the main local estate agent. They just sell in our town. So you'd expect them to know the location. Plus we also mentioned all of this when they came to assess our house 🙈 I mentioned this to them today and they said that it would have been mentioned to people who aren't local and they will put a filenote.
@Karmatime Could be good news? I think they need a letter from the person gifting them the deposit to state it's a gift and won't be expected to be paid back. But don't quote me on this.

@FigandHoney it took me over a month to put an offer in. I wanted to before but had to wait for my house to have a buyer first. There may be people in the same situation, waiting for an offer on their place so that they have the money lined up to go ahead.

Yes very similar, probate sale. We offered, estate agent looked at our listing and thought we were likely to sell (we are on the market) but heard nothing back. They had another offer and we've just noticed it's gone sold STC. The EA had said they would update us but never did. But we are not proceedable so not much we could do.

Yay @Lemonandlimejelly congratulations! Hoping something happens for us soon but not getting many viewings ATM. A few people have said house needs too much work (kitchen and bathroom need updating which we know) but we were kind of hoping people would deduct that in their heads and make a lower offer, maybe that isn't the case!

Curcurbita - I think many people want a house ‘done’. It’s a lot easier to get a mortgage for (say) 250, than to get a loan for 20k on top of a mortgage for 230…

I have now heard that my buyer’s solicitor is on leave until Friday so the proof of funds for his sudden gifted deposit won’t get signed off until then. Apparently the buyer has sent documentation through. They are talking about being able to exchange early next week but I honestly won’t believe it until it happens! He is using those PMPL online conveyancers and they are incredibly difficult to get hold of according to my solicitor.
It is so frustrating being at the mercy of so many third parties and it seems we can only ever move at the speed of the most inefficient one!

I had deposit, part of which came in from my mum's account (she withdrew my savings in native country and sent them to me). It wasn't just "meh, fine". She had to provide her bank statements and it took quite a few days to prove where the money came from and got it okeyd.
She was very much not happy with having to provide her bank statements...
It's not only money laundering but iirc there also has to be a statement that it's a gift and the gifter will not claim any interest in property.
At the end they accepted it was my money so we didn't have to provide any assurance about interest in property.

Thanks @FTStheFirstTimeSeller yes they need ID checks and a declaration that it’s a gift. I think they are stricter on proof of funds when the money is coming from abroad too. I don’t know whether that is the case here or not. I hope all went well with the bank valuation?

Fingers crossed ot get sorted quickly @Karmatime !

Not sure yet. Lovely lad, had a chat, hopefully we will hear soon. Then I can finally relax a bit! I am planning to propose exchange as soon as everyone is ready with completion date in May. My buyers are from similar system I grew up in so I have a feeling they will also welcome some assurance.

Morning all, just wondering how everyone is getting on?

After my 3rd attempt at selling, we finally exchanged last week - I can’t tell you the weight that was suddenly lifted after having this hanging over me for so long. I now have two weeks to pack the house (and feel all the respective feelings) and will complete 1 week shy of it being on the market for a year… this has really felt like a marathon 😳

Am hoping that things are moving in a good direction for lots of you 💐

Congratulations @Melminiani - it’s such a relief isn’t it? We finally exchanged and completed 10 days ago, it took 2 months of being told we were ready to exchange before it actually happened and over 5 months from accepting the offer. That doesn’t sound bad at all compared to a year but we were originally only 2 properties in the chain and in the end no chain at all.
We are renting and there’s literally nothing coming on the market to buy. I’m hoping Spring / Easter will see some more movement. We are not in a rush and in a strong position as buyers but need something to actually buy!

Congratulations to you @Karmatime although I do not know how you survived a 2 month rolling supposed-to-exchange… I don’t even know what to call it… situation? hell?! Mine took 10 days and had me living on my nerves…

So pleased you’ve got the hard bit done and have survived! How did you find the actual leaving? This is my first home and have been here a long time, so dreading the leaving a bit, even though I know it’s the right thing to be doing.

You are in an excellent position to buy now; I think things do start to pick up at Easter so hope some exciting properties come on the market soon!

I hope so too @Melminiani , we only need one!
Moving out was drawn out as we moved 250 miles away into rented in January so the house was empty for 2 months bar a ‘camping’ bedroom for visits to check up on the place. It was sad to see it empty, I’d been there 11 years and loved the house, but in the end it was a relief to finally give up the keys along with the worry and expense.
I’m sure the excitement of finally moving to your new home will take over feelings of sadness and I think it’s a good thing to feel a bit sad as it means you have happy memories.

Thanks @Karmatime you are absolutely right, ‘it only takes one’ has become my mantra over this last year!

I totally get what you mean about remembering the reasons for selling, especially with just everything being so bloomin expensive now. So glad you’re no longer having to camp, and here’s to new homes 💐

Hi …. I’m new to this thread as I’ve just put my house off for sale this week. I am living in rented a few hundred miles away and hoping to buy here once my house is sold .
Ive never sold before so how does it work with my mortgage ? I owe £50k still and expect to sell for approx £200k - so do I just pay off the £50k and then have £150k left towards a house - can I use that as a deposit even though I won’t have the actual cash yet ?
I don’t have any other deposit money saved ?

hope someone can help?!

We had pictures taken yesterday and our house will go on the market this week! Wool!

The estate agent selling the house we want to buy is already proving difficult 🙄 Every time we make contact it’s either the EA not answering the call, not texting back or not responding to voicemails. Just a simple ‘the owners will not accept that offer’ would do but we get nothing. So we finally got the EA response on Friday to our offer (2 weeks after we offered) and we’re now just taking our time and not responding. We’ve got quite a lot going on so I’m in no rush until we get our house sold.

All in all we’re not in a rush and will just depend on how many people will be in our chain. We’re buying a probate property so that will be too of the chain and our house is unlikely to be a first time buyers house so will probably be a few.

@Fidgety31 yes, the proceeds from your house can be your deposit and how most people will do it 😊

Just gone under offer after losing 5 buyers since Feb last year. Lost two onward purchases as well. This is a chain of 3. I havent found yet. Hoping it doesnt go tits up again