Help me decide what to tell the estate agent.

[Witchlite]

I wonder if I could have some hive-mind advice. As executor to late DM house, I’m trying to sell it. It is a fairly large 5 bedroom stone built cottage in a small quiet village.

Last year the estate agents marketed the property at £700k in an open weekend of viewings, with a view to getting people to bid the property up. It was valued at probate at £730k. We picked a local bidder at £740k out of 3 who bid a very similar price. This worked as bids all had to be in by a date at best and final offers. We want to achieve the probate price, which is generally deemed a fairly low target. The estate agent previously pushed for this method and said it would work - it did to a point.

To note, it was marketed as needing full refurbishment (think elderly couple who didn’t want to do anything for 10 years) but with a full survey ready and available to the buyer. This obviously limits the market.

Unfortunately, the buyer’s buyer pulled out at the 11th hour. We have given them 4 months to find a new buyer - but no luck. They cannot afford to bring their price down further to make a sale happen.

We need to go back on the market now. The estate agent is saying list it for £700k again and hope we have 2 buyers competing again - I don’t see how this will work, as we are not talking about getting a lot of people in over a weekend, but just putting it up for sale at that price. If I saw a house marketed at £700k, I’d probably bid £675k and would not go above £700k.

I think it needs to go on at £750k with a view to accepting £730k - preferably £740k again. The estate agent says that as it was previously on at £700k it’s going to look really odd going on at £750k and it won’t work.

Another option is to market it as offers over £730k - I hate offers over, but that has the benefit of being what we want.

What would you do?

This may be an obvious question but what it is stopping you doing another open weekend? It worked the first time, the bad luck of the chain collapse could have happened however you priced it.

The estate agent has said they don’t think a second one will work. Yes, it could have happened and if we could help our buyer we would. We’ve offered to bring our price down by £10k, if they match it on their asking price, but they said they can’t afford it.

so they would bring their price down by £20k overall £10 from us and £10 from them

Are you still tied to using this particular agent?

I'd be tempted to get a couple of others in and ask them for valuations and suggestions of how to market the property.

We can give 30 days notice and move on and we might do that. It’s not that they won’t put it on for whatever we tell them to, but it seems counterintuitive to put it on using a non-bidding method at a lower price than you expect to get. They are supposedly the experts, but their advice feels wrong.

we would then need new photos, checks etc - but it could be done.

one of the reasons I asked on here is to get other thoughts.

I think that I would give them notice and try another agent. They've had a good go and it hasn't worked out, so perhaps time for someone new?

A new agent is a distinct possibility- even though we’d have to get new photos and do all the ID again.

what do people think about the pricing point, given we want £730 min (and always did) but it has been marketed at £700k?

It would look weird and probably put people off if you listed it at a higher price and the longer it sits there the harder it will be to keep up interest. It sounds like it is already an unusual, project property so your pool of buyers may be quite limited already. If this is a probate sale, surely whatever it sells for is split between however many beneficiaries there are who already live elsewhere, so why not just price to sell? You're covering council tax, insurance, bills etc in the meantime which will be mounting up.

We picked a local bidder at £740k out of 3 who bid a very similar price.
Another obvious question: are any of the other original bidders still in the market?

@Crouton19 it’s not that unusual a project, just needs work done and is dated. Similar properties which are all done up would cost significantly more. We have priced the cost of the work and added extra into the price.

There’s no council tax, but the other bills are nowhere near 30-40k. I think we made a mistake with the original marketing (pricing ultra low) as it now leaves people thinking that is the price. The question is how to get out of it, without losing +£40k. The method was heavily pushed by the estate agent and if the first sale had gone through, it would have worked. We didn’t think about what would happen after a failed sale.

@senua the other two are no longer in the market.

ATM we’re tending towards asking the agent to replicate the initial pricing strategy, or using whatever method they suggest, as they’re the experts, but we will not be accepting offers under £730k and to give them 6 weeks. It has been sitting under offer for 6 months, so probably won’t damage it a few weeks extra at for sale.

i just wish we had marketed it more traditionally at £20k more than we were prepared to accept to start with.

Unless the market has changed substantially since last year I would do exactly what you did before, including the open weekend, as that brought you 3 offers. I think the agent is right that you can’t now market it at the higher price. Changing agents won’t help as people will remember the house and the price.

I think we made a mistake with the original marketing (pricing ultra low) as it now leaves people thinking that is the price.
They could think "that is the price". Or they could think "there's a reason why it's so cheap, there must be something really wrong with it". Being 'too good to be true' could put some people off.

Unless you are in a desperate hurry for the money I'd market at a higher price. It's crazy to throw away the chance of tens of thousands of pounds because you are worried about "looking really odd" (is the EA worried about you looking odd or them looking incompetent?)

If it’s been marketed as under offer for 6 months most current buyers won’t have seen it/ won’t be aware what price it’s on for. I’d market at £750 and on the description put for sale for between £730 and £750 and do another open house. Tell the agent to call everyone registered over £700.

Make sure your agent calls the 2 other bidders that missed out last time.

If theyre not interested I'd market at same price as agent recommended. If I saw this property sstc for a few months then back on the market at a higher price I'd assume you were very difficult sellers.

My advice is influenced by the fact that this is an inheritance property and not something you've worked towards yourself. But I understand if you dont agree with this, or if its not appropriate to your situation. ( ie, this is a bonus property that you haven't spent 250k making beautiful and there isn't an onwards purchase dependant on getting a certain price )

Putting it on for 700 is likely to generate far more interest which is then more likely to end up in people bidding.
So many people make the mistake of pricing too high which puts people off viewing, which ends up getting you less bidders and therefore a lower sales price. You need to generate interest to get the best price.

@SupposesRoses i don’t think the market has changed, except it’s now not November and there is more property on the market in summer.

@senua we’d like to sell, but not at any price. It will look odd, but I wish the agent had warned us of the negative side of marketing low - it was their preferred strategy. We don’t need the money immediately, but it would be useful to have it all done. 3 beneficiaries, so 3 different needs.

@Ouzz It still showed up on Rightmove, you just had to tick the stc box. It’s a small village and everybody knows how much was bid and that their buyers fell through. People outside might have to do some sleuthing. They’d have the full story told to them, just by saying hello to someone and that they were interested in the house 😊

@dairydebris the other 2 buyers have just completed on moving out of the village.
my late DP lived there for 40+ years and did lots of work until they just gave up and lived in it - faults and all (we did get the roof repaired) and the survey says it is structurally sound. Just because we haven’t earned it (inherited wealth is another subject) I don’t feel the need for someone to get a super-bargain, just because we inherited it. I just want a reasonable market price for it.

@Okdaisy do you think putting it on at £700k will automatically generate bidding. This is what the estate agent said. I’m not convinced it will work without the pressure of “best and final bids by …” after an open day. It should go (looking at other sold property) for £730-750 - we’re not being greedy, but also don’t want to give money away.

Generally, we just don’t want to get it wrong! For us it is a lot of money.

I’d market it at offer over £730k or offers in the region of. We had a similar thing when selling my late mother’s house and a buyer pulled out. Agent also said it would be a bit weird to go back at a higher price, but we did it anyway. Some people might remember it from last time (but who cares if they do, unless they’re thinking of putting in an offer) but chances are there’s a whole new load of buyers now who won’t know it’s been marketed at a different price previously. If you don’t get two competing buyers again, you will start getting offers with 6 in front instead of a 7.

You can do what you like it’s your property! All the estate agent can do is advise you but at the end of the day they have to do what you tell them! If they aren’t happy to do that then replace them with one who will

If 700 is a bargain, it will likely generate more interest. Even without an open day, if the interest is there you can still go to best and final. You just allow all viewings to happen and then set a deadline if you end up with multiple interested parties.
Having moved several times over the last few years, I've been watching the market closely and see the same thing happen time and time again. The houses that look like a bargain are snapped up and go over asking. Whereas the overpriced ones tend to sit on the market, end up having to drop the price, and often ending going for less.
If 730 is the minimum you want, I definitely wouldn't market for 750. You will price potential viewers out and people may wonder if you are difficult sellers for upping the price so much. Plenty of people watch the market before they are ready to move, so many potential buyers may have seen your previous listing

Thought I’d pop back and say we exchanged contracts today - to complete on Friday.

The house sat on the market until October, when we had a buyer at £730k. The day before exchange, they knocked £30k off the price. We said ‘no deal’ and they said they’d walk away. A day later our original buyers, who had their house under offer but were part of a chain, asked if we’d reconsider their offer again as their parents were making up the shortfall. We said yes.

The buyers who tried to force a price cut and said they’d walk away suddenly agreed they would pay the original, agreed price … they were outraged when we said no and I really enjoyed it (I know, very small of me) anyway we’ve sold it!!!

edited because I didn’t make sense

Glad that worked out. I would also have enjoyed the reaction of the buyer who tried to chip at the least minute

Very pleased for you and that your original buyer got your house. I bet the other buyers are kicking themselves. A friend of mine had a similar thing happen when they were selling a probate house in that just before exchangevthey tried to knock £20k off but they said no immediately and still went on to buy at original price. Glad it worked out for you.

Oh I would have enjoyed telling those second buyers the deal was off too
We had a buyer try it on like that and we gave them 24 hours to reconsider or we’d put it back on the market
They wouldn’t budge so we remarketed it for more ( the market was increasing at the time ) . They viewed it again and offered the price they originally offered but we refused again.
They were desperate to be with in our Geammar catchment area and we were the only house up for sale in their price range.
We sold to someone else but they really kept hassling us with notes in the door etc

You muck people about too much you lose out

Glad your first buyers got it, they genuinely wanted it and weren’t playing games

Brilliant news. Glad it worked out for you.
Thanks for coming back to update us; it's always nice to hear the conclusion to the tale.

Deleted due to ops update.