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

973 replies

InTheCludgie · 13/09/2022 14:58

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?

OP posts:
Volterra · 27/09/2022 07:38

Good news @FuzzyPuffling !
@PinkPlantCase that has been the case in most places for a time now but I would expect that to most likely change again fairly soon though as the market slows down.

sellinghomeswithmn · 27/09/2022 07:46

with interest rates rising as they are? I would say that's unlikely.

Hopefully we won't need to find out Grin

BeauticianNotMagician81 · 27/09/2022 09:17

Eurgh well I thought by adding the parking space back in around the back we would be inundated with viewings. Not a single one. 😢

We want to move area so gutted it's taking so long at this rate we may have to rent our house out but that would be my last resort. Glad to hear some of you have sold, so houses are still selling just very slowly.

ecochiroptera · 27/09/2022 10:13

Sorry to hear that @BeauticianNotMagician81. It's a very difficult time right now. So much uncertainty. I have heard from a lot of people who are putting their plans to buy/sell on hold. I've got a call with the EA today. Not sure what our plans will be if prices really do start dropping a lot. If we stay put, I think that would be the nail in the coffin of this relocation. Once DD gets old enough to go to school, I would not want to move her halfway across the country anymore. It would also mean we continue to be stuck in this house we are outgrowing and starting to hate - the thought is making me feel sick tbh. Renting it out is not an option for us. So we probably have to accept that it will take a long time to find a buyer and that we have to sell at a loss, which is just about doable but really scary.

123deepbreath · 27/09/2022 14:07

So I've quickly learnt selling a house and my control freak tendencies do not mix well, I like things done quickly....and solicitors are not quick!

@FuzzyPuffling that sounds hopeful! Fingers crossed everything speeds up for you now!

FuzzyPuffling · 27/09/2022 14:42

Argh...hit a snag. It appears I need a certificate from the original builders of my house as a restriction on the covenant. Never heard of this, certainly not when I bought it.

Doubleraspberry · 27/09/2022 14:59

The number of bullshit certificates you suddenly need when selling a house is ridiculous.

Our hopefully exchange date is out of the window as our solicitor failed to mention to us that she’s now on leave until then. We found out from her out of office. Sigh.

FuzzyPuffling · 27/09/2022 15:02

Yes to the bullshit certificates. "Did you have permission (written) to breathe the air around the house?????"

Bum to solicitors on leave. However....last time I bought a house I had a solicitor who needed prodding and poking (and possibly failed to find the aforementioned certificate) and she went on leave. The firm hired a locum replacement...and he was FAB! Sorted out exchange and completion really quickly. Hope you get the same.

Doubleraspberry · 27/09/2022 15:27

FuzzyPuffling · 27/09/2022 15:02

Yes to the bullshit certificates. "Did you have permission (written) to breathe the air around the house?????"

Bum to solicitors on leave. However....last time I bought a house I had a solicitor who needed prodding and poking (and possibly failed to find the aforementioned certificate) and she went on leave. The firm hired a locum replacement...and he was FAB! Sorted out exchange and completion really quickly. Hope you get the same.

No sign of the company doing that, and she is mid-conversation with an interested party. We might get in touch to see whether someone can take things forward in her absence as I'm spooked by the mortgage market movement today and want our house GONE asap.

manateeandcake · 27/09/2022 16:23

@123deepbreath I couldn't agree more about control freak tendencies not being helpful in the selling process (except perhaps when I was tidying for photos, but not sure how much good that did!).

We accepted an offer from the pushy couple who have been wanting to buy our house since the beginning. We haven't had a single other offer in 5 weeks, they did come up a bit to around 5% below asking, and given the news about interest rates it seemed the sensible thing to do.

On the buying side, we've been on a rollercoaster -- put an offer in at asking price on a fab house on Saturday, the EA told DH there was "a good chance of a handshake" that day, then nothing till yesterday and suddenly there's a "significantly higher" offer on the table but it won't be decided till Wednesday. We can't afford to go higher so DH just said that's a shame and restated our position (our buyers are FTB so chain of one), readiness to proceed and the fact that we are looking for a home for our family etc. I am trying to tell myself we have lost this house and move on but also can't help hoping that there was some estate agent tactics going on and the other potential buyer is not in a strong position or something. It's particularly hard because it's very unlikely we will be able to find anything else in such a good location. DH also thinks we should move fast to buy somewhere now because of interest rates, but there is so little on the market. I'm finding it all horribly stressful.

InTheCludgie · 27/09/2022 17:09

Welcome to everyone who has recently joined, wishing you all lots of luck with selling your homes!

I really think I'm starting to lose heart with this process now. Many homes in my area are sitting for ages, prices getting fixed etc and still not signs of buyers. Looks like our vendor may be remarketing this week too. I started back at Uni today and the workload this year is immense, especially in the run up to Xmas.

DH is making noises about just staying put, paying off the mortgage and adding a small extension to make an extra bedroom. We would be much better off financially and would have plenty of extra money over and above this to give the kids some nice xperiences while they are still young. I worry though that if we did this, we would end up regretting it and then be unable to move as we will have lost our fantastic fixed rate which still has another four years to go and the the things that annoy me most about this place are things that can't be changed. What do you all think, what would you do if you were me?

OP posts:
Violinist64 · 27/09/2022 17:10

One thing that we are still unsure of is that we are due to exchange in the next few weeks. Our new house is a lot more than the £250,000 stamp duty threshold for non first time buyers. Does this mean that we do not have to pay stamp duty on the first £250,000? Sorry for my ignorance but I have become totally confused by it all.

BeauticianNotMagician81 · 27/09/2022 17:14

@InTheCludgie we are in a similar situation. I hate the area that we live we moved from a place about 35 minutes from where we are now and it's where my heart lies. Our mortgage fix ends on 31st December so DH thinks we should fix again and just stay another 2 years. Our plan was to go into rental and take our time with the next purchased as we rushed into this one during the pandemic. We can't improve this place much more nor do we have the funds to. I'm so miserable so are the older teen DS they hate it here too but my younger ones are in primary school and I wanted them moved sooner rather than later.

We put our house on at £25,000 less than the 3 valuations we have. We've now dropped it a further £10,000. We have only one offer on the table now but they have 2 properties to sell and we've only had 9 viewings since the start of July. Sad

FigandHoney · 27/09/2022 18:35

@BeauticianNotMagician81 Sorry to hear to introducing the parking back into the property hasn't drummed up any additional views so far. How long ago did you make the changes? Hopefully you will get some more viewings soon.

@Violinist64 We are exchanging on our new home this Friday. And you are correct. You won’t pay stamp duty on the first 250,000£. You will pay stamp duty at different rate on anything above that.
Do you currently still own a property though? If you do like us then you will need to pay a 3% surcharge on all of it including the first 250 000£. But if you sell your original property within 3 years you can usually claim the additional 3%surcharge stamp duty back.

@InTheCludgie If I were you I would probably still continue trying to sell. Doesn't sound like your heart really is in your current property. And you have nothing to lose right? You have a good fall back option. Always good to see the positive. More money for fun if it doesn't work out.
I sometimes wish we hadn't forged ahead buying our new house. I didn't quite foresee things getting this bad. And part of me does wonder if it would have been safer to just stay in our current house. Possibly try to extend into the loft. Although we would never have made the money back on a loft conversion. I believe the area of the town we currently live in has a ceiling price that we can't really break through.

@manateeandcake Sounds like you made the right decision on agreeing to a sale with the pushy couple even if you didn't get full asking price. I think the market has slowed and things might get worse.
Hopefully you will get your offer accepted on the house you want to buy. Wishing you good luck.

@Doubleraspberry How annoying about your solicitor being on holidays. Everyone has a right to holidays but they could really have told you earlier. No wonder you are frustrated. I would ask if someone can handle your sale whilst the other solicitor is gone.

@FuzzyPuffling Argh I am dreading the process of selling and all the certificates you need to provide. What happens if you don't have them?

So I called two estate agents today and booked in valuation viewings on Monday next week. Need to decide on at least a third one to book in. There is a company that seems to have signs up all over our part of town. And they were actually the estate agents that our vendors used. Our experience with them was perfectly fine, but a couple of people have yold us now that they had bad experiences. So not sure whether to get them in for a valuation or not.

I don't actually know what to expect after that at all. How fast from booking valuation does it take to put the property on the market? What steps hapoen after the valuation? Argh feeling so nervous.

Spoke to one of the estate agents on the phone and he confirmed that things had slowed down and that we shouldn't expect to sell at the same prices as 6 months ago. Buy he said the main issue isn't actually the rising mortgage rates. He says our town is actually a little bubble and prices always stay fairly stable here. However in downturns in can take longer to sell. According to him the reason for this is the lack of properties coming on to the market. Because people thinking of selling their property and buying a new place aren't sure if they will find a place to buy or a buyer, they hesitate about putting their property on the market. The whole thing grid locks and becomes a stale mate. He says the only solution is to get more properties on the market. Dunno. That's what he said anyway

manateeandcake · 27/09/2022 18:44

@FigandHoney Good luck with the valuations! As soon as we had had three in, I called the one we wanted to go with, let him know we wanted to instruct them and confirmed the commission. They emailed me a contract that day which we signed and returned over email. The next bit was delayed because we went on holiday, but they booked in a photographer to come round as soon as we were back -- he also did the floor plan and EPC. He came on a Friday morning, we approved the photos on Monday around lunchtime and the house was on Rightmove by Monday late afternoon.

@InTheCludgie It's a really tough one, but it seems a bit soon to give up on moving if that's what you really want to do. Do you like the area where you are?

Doubleraspberry · 27/09/2022 18:48

@FigandHoney yes, it's really quick from valuation to market if you want it to be. But I would prepare for not much to happen.

Our solicitor has emerged to reveal that she didn't tell us about her leave because she's continuing to work on the cases that are near exchange, so that's good (although I feel a bit sorry for her!). She's confirmed that once we've chased the people who are not being helpful, we are ready to exchange and totally understands our eagerness to get this over the line asap. Phew.

FigandHoney · 27/09/2022 18:53

@manateeandcake Thank you. That timeline is really helpful. We are off to a friends wedding the weekend after the valuation viewings.
We want our house on the market as soon as possible, since the market situation will probably not get any better. At the same time there were a few things we wanted to do before photographs and viewings (sand the wood kitchen counter top, fix the paint on a doorframe where the carpenter putting up the new doors made a mess 🙈 and get some of the furniture and personal possessions out if the house). And I just don't think we will get all of this done the coming weekend.

Did any of you get professional cleaners in or got the windows cleaned?

Also do we need to pay the estate agent fee upfront or does that come out at the end when the house is sold? Same for solicitor fees?

manateeandcake · 27/09/2022 19:01

@FigandHoney our cleaner had been in doing her normal job while we were away and we gave it another clean ourselves. The windows had been cleaned fairly recently so weren't in a bad state.

I wouldn't worry too much about doing the little things as remember not every corner of your house will be photographed. We did move out quite a lot of clutter, but the photographer and I also just moved some things out of shot for the photos. In retrospect I wish we had spent less time getting our house ready to put on the market and just gone for it as I think if it's basically clean, tidy and well-cared for, people will look past the small imperfections.

manateeandcake · 27/09/2022 19:04

@FigandHoney Sorry, forgot to say that estate agent's fees are payable when the sale goes through and same for solicitor, or after - we haven't got to this point yet and I can't remember from last time we bought. But it's not upfront.

FuzzyPuffling · 27/09/2022 19:33

I got clarification of the legalese from my solicitor about the certification and she doesn't think there's any issue and told me not to worry.

As an aside, I was wary of online solicitors, but this lot have been fabulous. Even the estate agent I am buying from says she'd never seen speedier ones. If I email, I get a response really quickly - always the same day.

LionessesRules · 27/09/2022 20:41

@Doubleraspberry thanks for the prompt to chase Solicitors. Enquiries recieved. Nothing horrific in there. Yet 🤞
Looks like I've won the argument about servicing the boiler. It's booked for next week. Let's just hope it passes (last engineer 18 months ago said it will need replacing in the next few years, I said it would need a newer certificate, DH said he wasn't servicing a boiler he wasn't going to own...)

Stayingstrongish · 27/09/2022 21:28

FigandHoney · 27/09/2022 18:53

@manateeandcake Thank you. That timeline is really helpful. We are off to a friends wedding the weekend after the valuation viewings.
We want our house on the market as soon as possible, since the market situation will probably not get any better. At the same time there were a few things we wanted to do before photographs and viewings (sand the wood kitchen counter top, fix the paint on a doorframe where the carpenter putting up the new doors made a mess 🙈 and get some of the furniture and personal possessions out if the house). And I just don't think we will get all of this done the coming weekend.

Did any of you get professional cleaners in or got the windows cleaned?

Also do we need to pay the estate agent fee upfront or does that come out at the end when the house is sold? Same for solicitor fees?

I think it depends on your contract but I am not paying estate agent/conveyancing fees till the house is sold

Can’t afford a pro cleaner in so the cleaning was just me running around dementedly inbetween work and looking after two young kids. Ex turned up, did a tiny bit and then said he was too tired to do more 🤔

Positivelypatient · 28/09/2022 07:39

Our buyers survey is being done today... the day of reckoning! I will keep an eye on where he/she is lingering in the house although I think I have a fair idea what might be brought up.

Housebuyingistheworstthing · 28/09/2022 07:58

I feel like I have found my people!!

We’ve had a purchase and finally a sale fall through in the last year. Been working towards and trying to move house for five years now but feel utterly defeated. Stock is a huge problem here so everything still going for over 20% over. We have decent equity for our price bracket but not when we need £00,000 over value. Not to mention interest rates meaning every house we go for at the same price is more expensive to pay for than the last.

We’re resigned to staying and extending but we need an extra 40sqm or so to make the house suitable really. I don’t think we can afford that at todays building prices. We might just need to do a smaller extension to make the kitchen big enough for a dishwasher/washing machine and accept the rest of the house being too small.

I feel so down about it all. We always thought that if the worst happened we’d extend but it feels like that’s been taken away from us too and we are destined to be stuck in our too small house forever!

It feels like everyone else who wanted to move got to and we’re the only ones who are stuck.

Housebuyingistheworstthing · 28/09/2022 07:59

We’ve worked so so hard to get to where we are and I could just cry every time I think about it all. I’ve let the kids down so much.

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