Is there a new thread for “Anyone putting their home on the market in early 2025”?

[IWasBornIn1989]

The other thread is full 😏

Anyone struggling to get viewings? Been on since beginning of May. No viewings at all yet. A couple of people were booked in but both cancelled before they came. Not sure whether to reduce already or wait a few more weeks. It's frustrating as we were all excited when it first went up and now nothing. Such an anticlimax. It's a 'quirky' house so knew it wouldn't be an easy sell but no interest at all is upsetting. Any advice on how much to reduce by when we do? 5%? More? We are already one of the cheapest in the area for house size and don't want to come across as desperate (but we are). Hard to gauge whether it's slow for everyone locally or unique to us. Not impressed with estate agent so far either.

I'm selling a probate property. It had 27 viewings within a week of being put on the market and six offers at the asking price. In the light of that, the agent suggested asking for final offers accompanied by the offerors' respective abilities to proceed. The highest offer came in at £30k over the asking price, having taken into account the cost of the work they expected to undertake to refurbish the property (it's liveable, but does need work).

Having considered all the offers, and on the advice of the agent, I accepted a lower offer from FTBs who said they understood probate could take time to be granted and were happy to wait. Since then, they've had a building survey, a drainage survey, and a roof survey, all in less than a week - and I'm nowhere near obtaining probate and have yet to appoint a solicitor.

I can't work out if they're demonstrating they're serious about the property or hoping to negotiate the price based on their various surveys.

@Vie8126 they sound really annoying. I expect they just don't really know how it works and are being over cautious with all the questions. As you say you can do the fixtures form and that will help them.

@AntFarmer the market is fairly slow where we are but I believe if there's no viewings let alone offers then you do need to look at the price. To get listed at the top of right move again there's a certain % of reduction I believe. I would speak to your EA as they are meant to be working for you, the experts etc! When you put it on did you get more than one valuation?

@DancingFerret I would think why would they spend their money if they weren't serious but equally very possible they want to negotiate on price, so depends how much that value takes into account everything that needs doing. I would definitely get on with the probate/solicitors as people often say they will wait but that doesn't mean unlimited time for most. At least you know the interest is there.

@AntFarmer we had no viewings for over 5 weeks no interest at all. We then changed from guide price to offers over and we was flooded with viewers and sold to the first people that viewed. Our agents put us as a featured property also which helped. What do your agents suggest?

@DancingFerret we have over enthusiastic FTBs also!

@OtiMama I agree a combination of not understanding and excitement which I do get but I expect the agents to manage them a bit as we are paying them. I think because I have a feeling that they are a nuisance it’s not helping me! My partner is pretty chilled and saying they are just excited. Hopefully from here they chill out a bit!

The survey on our purchase is being done tomorrow, eek.

Our buyers do not appear to be having a survey done. I can only assume it is because our house still has NHBC warranty remaining.

Nothing has been sent down the chain from our sellers yet so our solicitors are going to chase them on Tuesday.

I keep thinking about things I'd like to do to the house but have to stop myself as I'm 100% convinced something will go wrong at some stage 😂

Estate agents said to wait a couple more weeks then maybe 2% reduction but I think that's not enough. We had 3 valuations and went with middle (a lot lower than top one). Wondering whether to reduce to bottom one but that's 10% less. Maybe too drastic for now? To be honest not much seems to be showing as sstc that has been put on market since us. Very slow

We had the same dilemma @AntFarmer- though we were getting viewings, but no offers. We reduced by not quite as much as I wanted to (estate agent persuaded me to go for the higher figure), which didn’t produce anything much in the first week or so, after which I wished we’d reduced it by more, but then three weeks later, we have an offer. I thought about what I was willing to accept and then worked upwards from there bearing in mind that we would get slightly lower offers - but I had a minimum that I was prepared to accept, which we did reach. It isn’t exactly a quirky property, but it’s due to its location it was quite different from other things on the market, so really difficult to value, and probably appeals to a fairly narrow demographic.

@KnutsfordCityLimits thanks. Lots to think about. My instinct is to just cut loads off the price in a panic but I need to just slow down and think about it calmly. I was really excited when it went up for sale and now I'm remembering why I said I'd never move again after we last moved!

Well last I heard we are still apparently completing on this coming Friday, but have yet to exchange contracts. We spent all day Friday trying to get a straight answer from literally anyone- we phoned our agent and they said they would contact our buyer and find out why their solicitor had gone quiet. They never got back to us.

our solicitors spent Thursday and Friday trying to contact our buyers solicitors to arrange exchange and got ghosted.

then the agent for the house we are buying phoned us because the top of the chain are demanding to know why we haven’t exchanged yet. That agent also couldn’t get hold of anyone.

so we basically ended the week with our solicitors telling us that “worst case we can exchange and complete on the same day and no reason it won’t be next Friday “

However I’m annoyed because I wanted to exchange this week just gone so that I had time to redirect my post/sort my utilities/removal vans

Also it’s now Sunday and I’m looking around at all this furniture I have to take apart ready for Friday and of course I’m worried that if we don’t move Friday that I’m going to be without furniture 😬🤣

Turns out our purchase has been much more underway than I thought. All the forms have been sent to our solicitor and she has already gone back to clarify a few points.
They need to gain retrospective building control on a few things which they have said they have already applied for and I think the planning thing isn’t as big of a disaster as first thought.

We’re about to go on holiday for 2 weeks abs hopefully things keep moving along during that time.

Waiting on our buyers solicitor accepting the proposed deed of variation for our sale.

Our sale and purchase aren’t in one chain and I’m already so stressed by both, I can’t imagine every problem making you think it’s all about to fall through. The process in the uk is so awful!

Well we are finally launched on the market - took longer than it should, perils of using an independent EA. Photos and brochure look good, now just waiting to see if/when we’ll get some viewings.

We had our survey done today on our purchase and they confirmed the house is fine. The surveyor said there is nothing to report beyond cosmetics for the house which is a relief as we already started the paperwork, searches etc. He also said the windows are fairly new, good quality so that's a bonus too. Another box ticked after paying lots of money!

Both us and our buyers are waiting for all the searches to come back before we know if there are any more enquiries. Hopefully that won't take too long. I can see on the council's website that some have already come back for our purchase. So in the meantime we have the contract to sign ready for exchange. Ever hopeful we might be in at some point during July. I don't like this middle bit where there's nothing to do but wait!

@MadameSzyszkoBohusz I hope you get lots of interest this week booked in!

@Cookiecats I have my fingers crossed for you. That all sounds like a nightmare to me. How are you meant to prepare or even book any removals if it all happens the same day without risking it and having to cancel them if it doesn't! Did they say why it's taking so long this close to the end?

I've just tried my solicitor again as I've no idea where the purchase is at still. She 'wasn't available'. I've left a message, but I'm now pretty unavailable the next 2 days due to work.

I've no idea if she's now had the sales contract for the purchase (was apparently being sent last week), if any of the searches, which I paid for 3.5 weeks ago, are back, if she's started enquiries, if she's now had the mortgage offer letter - or anything.

Bit frustrated, if i just knew what she had had or what she's waiting on, I could leave her in peace to get on with it. It's just silence, as she doesn't answer emails. And the portal they give you a log in for, which has all the steps, isn't updated at all. I'd happily log onto that to see the progress!

@ScoobyDoesnt tempting to ask for her to explain why she can't give an update. When did she last reply to you? Does she have an assistant you can speak to? Usually if the solicitor isn't free then someone else would know about the case.

I will say I chose to go with the estate agent recommended solicitors, which they also own - as I thought that would help with the process, they were a good price (not cheap though!) and also offered no sale / no purchase, no fee, which I though would be good if anything went wrong.

So it’s a large scale office rather than a small firm. I used a local small firm when I bought this house, but the lady has retired, they’ve been taken over by a bigger firm, and the local reviews were not so good.

I’m going to get the estate agent on it tomorrow. They after all have a vested interest to get it all completed, so they get their fee!

@ScoobyDoesnt yeah you would think on that case that they would get that solicitor replying as it benefits them and they have that connection!

Well we put an offer in mid way between asking and the figure the vendor suggested before they would cancel further viewings. Just hope it’s enough to put other potential buyers off. There are 3 viewings booked this week that we know of so it’s just a waiting game. I have a constant adrenaline rush. Does anyone else find this bit really hard? This is the 3rd house we’ve offered on and easily the one that best fits our needs.

@OtiMama your survey sounds so positive! Glad things are progressing well for you.

@ScoobyDoesnt I have a feeling our solicitor is similar to yours. We haven’t heard a peep since we did our identity check. They haven’t sent us anything to fill in for the buyers yet. I emailed today asking for details to sign into the portal but I’m now realising that might not shed any light.

We've now had our survey done, and they've advised that we should ask a roofer to assess the roof, as they believe it is original (the property is around 100 years old). Other than that, they didn't say much, but we will see when we receive the full report from them.

We still haven't received any paperwork from our sellers, and their estate agents have contacted our solicitors to ask if they've heard anything!

We are having the opposite problem. All paperwork done and sent and received but no survey booked as yet. Putting a little pressure on our buyers to book this as nothing can move forward now until surveys are carried out. Not sure what the hell they are waiting for but I am getting impatient. They say they are booking it but still haven't. Feels very much like, for some reason, they are stalling. 😬But I feel like I am constantly asking the agents and solicitors to check stuff out and find out info. The lack of communication is bonkers and very frustrating.

So after suggesting a completion date of the 13th and then ghosting everyone. We keep contacting our solicitor trying to exchange !! Only to discover today that our buyers solicitor hasn’t requested funds… for a completion that should be happening this Friday. I’m stumped as the 13th was their idea. No one can ever get in contact with her. Am I right in thinking this is a no go now then ? At least I didn’t start defrosting the freezer I guess. 🙄💀

Hello, I thought I'd join you and share frustrations.
We received 2 offers in the first week of our house being on the marker, both fell through. We have been very lucky to get a third offer who are really keen. However, after having an offer accepted 4 1/2 weeks ago on a property we are trying to buy, the estate agent has let it slip that they don't have probate yet! And didn't know! Which means they have either lied to us or are completely incompetent, or most likely both. I feel like I'm being made to feel like a nuisance, chasing things but we obviously need this information for our buyers. And I am at a loss of what to do, I feel like it's all that consumes my thoughts.

Still no viewings here. Been on the market 4 weeks.
Another house on estate (same layout) went up for sale a few days after we listed ours and they dropped their price by £25k last week so think we will have to do the same.
The house we hopefully want to buy was originally listed at £360k dropped to £350k and have now pushed their price up to £370. Don't quite understand that one...

That's an interesting price adjustment, do you think they were meant to reduce by a further £10k and someone has ballsed up? 😂

Absolutely no idea what's going on 😂 the text in the key features says guide price £350-375k so it makes no sense!

@Junobug actually getting probate once the info is submitted is pretty quick, ours was about three weeks, so it may not be far off. It’s the collecting info to submit that takes the time, so depends where they are with that and also how big and complex it is. Ours was only about two months from start (i.e. when DM died) to end, though we did it ourselves, she was very organised and it was under the inheritance tax threshold.

We accepted our offer last week, waiting for the memorandum of sale to come through to feel a bit more confident, how long did that take for people?