Selling your house in 2024? Join me in house sprucing!

[Yemelade]

Been scouring for a similar thread, but not seen one so far!

I'm planning to get my house on the market this year, hopefully by May 2024. There's a couple very noticeable things that will put people off straight away if we don't sort out prior to listing (fascia boards/uPVC drainage near roofline is broken and has holes in and looks a mess, plus also no hand rail on the stairs) But also some cosmetic things we need to spruce up to improve curb appeal, as well as the need to declutter.

Tasks on my list also include sanding and reoiling our oak worktops (not been done since they were fitted in 2019) as well as finally getting around to putting a door back over a cupboard opening. The biggest one is sorting out our garden and putting gravel in the driveway that we lined with railway sleepers and membrane last year but never filled with gravel!!

Anyone else care to join me and list what you're hoping to achieve prior to sale? Part of me thinks "I'll just list it as is" but I know not doing these things will go against us financially, plus I'm keen to see how mortgage rates change in the next few months so I'm not in the biggest of rushes!

Please join if you're in the same boat 😊

@Loobyloo68 congrats on finding a buyer for yours! Hope your survey goes well this week, fingers crossed.

@Yemelade that is worrying about the survey. I would want a structural engineer to do a subsidence survey; would the sellers pay for it or go halves with you on it?
Your solicitor can probably advise you on it, too - have you spoken to them yet?
some info here https://hoa.org.uk/advice/guides-for-homeowners/for-owners/subsidence/

@ItsCrazyItsParty Wishing you better luck - I'm sure the market will pick up again now, post election - fingers crossed!

Nothing much to report here, nothing new on the market over the last couple of weeks and I'm hoping it will pick up again, although it's nearly the school holidays now, so I'm not hopeful that we'll find something tbh - I think it's more likely to be the autumn now.

Our buyers came for a second viewing and I showed them round (the agent did the first one). It was nice to meet them actually, they seem lovely and had loads of questions which I was happy to answer. However, they're expecting a baby in December so I'm definitely feeling the pressure to find a house so they can move into ours before their baby arrives! Not much we can do about it except keep looking but I will feel bad if we can't find somewhere in time.

@Yemelade did you get any more info re. the survey results? I have my fingers crossed it is not as bad as you fear!

@OverwhelmedAndUnderprepared nice you got to meet your buyers :) I hope something comes up for you soon. My EA thinks that there will be a post-election bump in the market soon (although with summer holidays coming not sure if this will happen...)

We have a couple more viewings booked. One is actually a 2nd viewing so fingers crossed something comes of that!

Our worst fears have become a reality unfortunately. Spoke to surveyor, who advised he wouldn't touch the house with a barge pole and there is very clear evidence of not only ongoing subsidence, but also more worryingly of the vendor covering it up and trying to conceal cracks. Some walls were plastered just before our first visit to the property and were fully in tact. However, those same walls now have cracks in them. And that's on freshly plastered walls, and they aren't fine hair line cracks either. They are very noticeable. The surveyor did say that it may still be settlement due to recently removed trees and we would need to dig pilot holes and do an arbocultural survey, but this would cost us yet more money. We've gone back to the estate agents to ask vendor to cover costs otherwise we will withdraw our offer. I don't have any hope that he will agree. We're back to the drawing board several thousands out of pocket!

Oh no @Yemelade ! That doesn't sound good at all. I don't know how the vendor thought they would get away with covering it up if it is that obvious! I mean, he might agree to cover costs because it sounds like he is going to have a hard time selling the house otherwise? I'm glad you found out now, reasonably early on in the process. Very annoying about the money you've already spent on it though. Are there any other houses that have been listed that you might be interested in?

@ItsCrazyItsParty bit of a small update - the vendor has agreed to cover costs as long as these are affordable for him. We still have very small hope that it was just the trees, but what I'm currently struggling to find out is if that would still be classed as "subsidence" and if I'd need to report to bank who have offered mortgage or report to home insurance company etc. I also can't find out if there is such a thing as certification or confirmation after all of these tests (and if they say it was trees and no further movement will occur) to confirm that we can actually go ahead?? I'd be so worried if it was just a case of "it's your choice, take it if you want but it might still subside and future insurance issues will likely come up since you've now had these tests”. I think that's a worry I couldn't live with.

If anyone has any experience of this, it would be much appreciated!

We've found absolutely no other houses. We viewed one yesterday that was semi Vs detached, tiny north facing garden and could hear busy road and electrical substation nearby. That was 50k more expensive than the house we've agreed to buy which is detached and has a massive quiet, private garden !! 😭 We may have to reduce our expectations. We are however now exploring rental properties because we don't want to lose our buyers and it will give us time to find a new house to buy if all of these tests don't come back in our favour, without us feeling rushed to choose just any house.

@ItsCrazyItsParty
Hope the viewings go well, the second viewing sounds promising! 🤞

@Yemelade
So sorry to hear the subsidence issue is potentially serious Still, at least the owner has sort of agreed to cover costs of further investigations - "if it's affordable" (how is he going to sell the house otherwise?! Is he hoping people won't get a full structural survey and will buy it without realising about the subsidence issue?! ) Have you asked your conveyancer for advice about potential insurance issues? Or maybe talk to a few home insurance providers?? If I were you I'd be very tempted to walk away but it sounds as if you did fall in love with the house so I hope you can resolve it somehow, even if it means negotiating a big price reduction. It might be helpful to proceed with your sale and rent, even if you do buy this, since there is a lot of work to do?

I have an update which is that we have found a house we want It's a bit of a stroke of luck as there really was nothing coming onto the market, but this house has come back on after the buyer pulled out quite late in the process (change of personal circumstances, apparently). Sad for them but an opportunity for us... we viewed it today and we really liked it, it ticks all our boxes, we are trying not to get our hopes up but it's hard! Wanted to put in an offer immediately but the agent didn't answer the phone So it'll have to be Monday morning now.

I am a bit worried that the seller will turn us down if she wants a buyer who is chain-free and ready to go... we are selling ours to first time buyers so a short chain but a chain nonetheless. They have been slow to instruct a solicitor which is annoying me so I've asked our agent to put pressure on them to instruct and get the survey arranged. If we lose the house we want because our buyers and/or their solicitors are slow, I will be so annoyed!

So am now in a bit of a stressed out limbo waiting for Monday to see what happens and if we can get our offer accepted... argh!

How are you all doing?

I put in our offer this morning and at the end of the day the agent called to say that someone else has now made a MUCH higher offer, like tens of thousands and 6% over asking price higher... I find it so weird that they did that and didn't just offer a bit more than us?! Now we have to decide whether to match the offer or not, we can afford to but need to decide whether the house is worth it. I think we will but we resent paying SO much more when the seller was likely to accept less

@OverwhelmedAndUnderprepared is there any way you can get proof that offer exists? I'm not sure how it all works but it does seem really odd someone would do that? My experience of estate agents lately is that they will bullshit massively to get a higher price and they're working for the seller, not you. Mine has openly said to me that when we've had people interested in ours they will claim someone else is also offering to make them think there's competition.

Whaaaaat... it just seems insane they would make this stuff up. How would I even go about finding out if it's genuine or not?!

I don't know how you could find out but I promise you they do things like this. It could all be legit but you never really know if they're telling you the truth. Their main goal is to get the highest price they can for their seller and they have many tricks for doing that which won't be in your interest as the buyer. Look up power bespoke on YouTube, he has a lot of videos on how estate agents negotiate and tricks they will pull.

https://youtube.com/shorts/e-HZW8bNCbs?si=8u9A4xVwnS5VNZHd

We’ve been on for a week now with no viewings at all 😨😫.

Getting a bit freaked out.

For my house sale, the estate agent sent everyone an email saying that I've now received multiple offers and due to extremely high level of interest, we're going to best and final offers.

We had in fact only just received the 2nd offer at that time! So they definitely do exaggerate. In our case however, they told us they would tell prospective buyers we'd received offers but wouldn't tell them if it was on, below or over. When we did the viewings, it was up to us if we wanted to share that information which we did! We told our final viewer we had 2 offers above asking, and have them the number that would seal the deal and that's the number we ended up agreeing ☺️

We are going for a second viewing this afternoon and it's the owner showing us round so I am going to try and be brave and ask how much was the offer she previously accepted (the one that fell through), the agent wouldn't tell me but said that the seller might
I Have a feeling we are in a stronger position and she would like to go with us so we might be able to get away with offering slightly lower than the crazy people.
Man this is stressful! please wish us luck!

Yes that's the other thing they will need to look at, who is more proceedable...
They shouldn't always just jump on the highest offer if it's not likely to go all the way to the end. Best of luck, I hope you get what you want!

@OverwhelmedAndUnderprepared good luck with the second viewing and finding out more info. And yes, always a good idea to emphasis you are in a strong position. I'm sure some people offer high and then find excuses to reduce the offer later as well...

@Yemelade any more news on getting more investigations done? It must be so upsetting if you have fallen in love with the house :( Renting for a while sounds like a good plan, it'll take the pressure of you.

@DrawersOnTheDoors hope you get some viewings soon. Is it generally slow where you are? We've had quite a few viewings but no offers yet and it definitely slowed around the election, and now with summer holidays coming I feel it could be even harder. Just need to sit tight for a bit I think!

The people who did a second viewing on Saturday are still in discussions apparently. It's parents with adult children, parents love the house but one of the kids is dead against it! We'll see, not holding my breath! We have another 2nd viewing today though, and just had another viewing which apparently went very well, and another booked for later in the week so I'm sure we must get an offer soon. Soooooo sick of tidying!!!

No news yet! The only thing we received was an email last week confirming the vendor is exploring quotes with a view to arranging work. That's it so far! Planning to contact estate agent again on Friday to ask for weekly updates/let them know I'll be contacting weekly to enquire about an update. I don't want to be twiddling thumbs and waiting around if he's already made the decision to not proceed. It is incredibly tough and we are just not seeing or finding anywhere that fits the bill! In fact if anything, houses seem to be getting more expensive...

Re. Your sale, I am flabbergasted that adult children are calling the shots! Perhaps it's about time they consider finding their own property Vs dictating what their parents should buy. Though, given the current market and climate, I do recognise adult children do tend to stay at home for longer these days... Did they come back to you? Or any other bites with the other viewings lined up?

Oh, it's frustrating when other people don't have the same sense of urgency! I wonder if there has been a bit of a post-election up turn in prices too? I hope that either something else perfect comes on the market or the vendor of current property sorts things out! But yes, probably time to start hassling.

Honestly, the adult child situation was mind-blowing! Surely you'd just put your foot down and say 'this is what we're doing, you're welcome to come with us but if you aren't happy we understand and we'll help you find your own place'?! She was mid-20s with a job! No more news from them yet... Other second viewing yesterday seemed to go really well, they said they'd call EA this morning but I haven't heard anything yet... :( We have another viewing tomorrow sigh

We didn't get the house and we're absolutely gutted 😭 The other buyer was effectively a cash buyer and the vendor wanted to sell as quickly as possible so we were doomed really. The agent did tell us that if it hadn't been for the other buyer, the vendor would've accepted our offer - which makes it worse I think, we were so close!

I'm sure another house will come along eventually but they are very few and far between and there is always so much competition - often from cash buyers 😭

Yemelade
I really hope something else comes up soon so that you feel you have other options in case you get tired of waiting for this house.

ItsCrazy
I too think it's completely mad that they're letting their adult child dictate the decision to that extent! More fool them, I guess. Really hope one of your interested people makes an offer soon 🤞

@OverwhelmedAndUnderprepared Oh no!! I am so sorry that didn't work out for you. You never know, it may fall through or there may be another property just around the corner that's about to blow your socks off! Doesn't help you right now or this feeling of loss you'll undoubtedly have, but the hope of "it will all work out in the end" can sometimes be helpful to hold on to. X

I'm planning to email the estate agent for our house tomorrow, will confirm a draft tonight!

How are you all getting on?

Belated thanks Yemelade... we are still feeling gutted, more than a week later, but I do feel it will work out in the end.

We viewed a house today that I wasn't excited about because it needs work to make it how we want, but was pleasantly surprised by how nice it is and how much potential it has... so we are considering it, mixture of excitement and dread at the idea of embarking on such a project... probably crazy and we should hold our nerve and keep looking. Just worried that even if we do find the "perfect" house (no/little work needed) we'll lose out like we did with the last one. Such a tricky business, this house-hunting!

@OverwhelmedAndUnderprepared did you end up putting an offer in the house that may have needed work?

I've had a whirlwind 24 hours. Its now been over 2 weeks since we got the survey results and asked the seller to do exploratory works. After several chases with estate agent, as of yesterday we still didn't have any confirmation that he would cover costs or if work had been booked in and confirmed. So we went ahead and saw another house today. Hubby fell in love with it, it's more expensive but bigger and in the area we initially started our search. After a bit of talking and imagining, we decided to just put an offer in. Felt a bit too spur of the moment for me and I also morally feel a bit odd that we've offered elsewhere. In the meantime, the original house estate agents got back to us to ask for a copy of survey and confirmed the seller is arranging works. We've sent the survey over (bitterly from my perspective as we paid a lot of money for that and we might not even be proceeding with the sale!)

So I'm still no further forward! We haven't had a response on our offer, and now I'm worried about stuff we can't see in surface etc and going through surveys etc all over again. I've got a tracker on the solicitors website for where I'm at with selling my house, and of 25 steps, I appear to be only 3 or 4 away from agreeing exchange of contracts!!

We only saw it today (end of day) so haven't decided whether to put an offer in - told agent we'll think about it over the weekend and get back to them on Monday. There doesn't seem a huge amount of competition, a bit of interest but others are in a weaker position than us, so for once there's no great pressure. I am wondering about seeing if I can get an architect to meet me there for a second viewing; I know who I'd use so I could call them on Monday. Really not sure.

About your situation - it's a very big and personal decision but FWIW I think you should let go of the original house and go with the new one you've found. You say it's more expensive but I think the original one would be an absolute money pit! It sounds like you really fell in love with it though, so I guess it depends whether there are things to love about the new house?

"the original house estate agents got back to us to ask for a copy of survey"

I'd have asked for half the cost of it tbh, cheeky seller!