What is worng with sellers!?!?! ARGHHH

[navyeyelasH]

am a First Time buyer with mortgage agreed and 40% deposit. Have offered on a house that has been for sale for 1 year, is currently empty and "sold" for £180,000 3 months ago but the buyer did a bunk. It's ont the market for £185,000

Have put in three offers, the highest being £165,000. All rejected.

Why oh why! The headline of the property on rightmove is something like "quick sale needed, all genuine offers considered" etc. Second house we have offered on now, the first was a very cheeky offer (although house still on market about 8 weeks after made offer).

What is it with people who want to sell houses but don't actually want to face up to the fact that the market sucks in most areas right now!

AIBU?

I found that older people dont accept offers, but I blame the estate agents, - they go round and give them big shining blingy valuations to get them on the books, but dont clearly explain to them, that in the area I live in at least, NOONE pays anything over about 15% less than asking price. They get all offended and say "well the estate agent said I could get £££!!"

Younger vendors tend to understand the process a bit better. (eg. valued at 200,000, Offer for 170,000, vendor comes back saying 190 max, buyer says "meet you in the middle at 180,000 - done!) - the estate agents let elderly vendors believe that they will get value price to get them to sign up with them

I think that's what's happening in areas wehre there are lots of retirees, Sal, especially as many of these sellers are mortgage-free.

EAs aren't licensed here?

Sounds like it's back to the spivs in suits scenario. No license here - anyone can do it Plus, they're after their bonus - if it sells low, the commission is too. People often go with the EA who values it the highest...so they regularly over-value just to get the clients on the books.

The problem with the retiree's is that they are baby boomers too so will live longer, have final salary pensions, paid for by us and the wankers want our generation to pay for the houses they bought for buttons and saw inflation basically give them a house in the 70's.
Honestly i'd bring back the gulotines for some of them who then chirp up, well it's all those ipods you youngesters buy.
Yep that's the reason we don't all own 4 bedroom detached houses

Way I see it is, well, if that's how they feel, then they can sit in their house till they cark it and their kids with more sense flog it off.

If your budget is 160,000, tell the EA that you budget is 140,000 and they will show you properties with vendors who will accept between 140,000 and 160,000. If you tell them your budget is 160,000 in the first instance, they will try to only show you properties that want over 160,000

But I agree with your sentiment .

The other one they like to throw out is, 'You don't need 4 bedrooms,' when I grew up we were all in one room.

And there they are on their own in the 4 bed house and I have no problem quipping back, 'You don't need 4 bedrooms, either.'

As for their living forever, well, they were right about how 'selfish' my generation is, because if they think I'm gonna pay for them to live for donks at my expensive they can guess again!

I would just like to say that not all estate agents overestimate house just to get them on the market.

I am currently on mat leave from my job as a property valuer. And boy am i pleased - the job is really hard at the minute.

There is no point in over valuing as the house will not sell - who wants to carry the costs of selling a house which won't sell because it is on the market for a higher price than is should.

Sellers want the best price and they often dictate what they want to market at.

You have people with money invested in property but are in no rush to sell at a low price beacue there money wouldn't do much better invested in a bank with rates so low.

Then you have people who need to sell but bought when the market was high and have to acheive at set price to make the sale viable to them and price is more important than time. Although time may becoming an issue.

You have the media who don't always get it right and fuel peoples fire and scare munger.

On the other hand you have buyers who don't want to be paying over the odds to find the property goes done in price after purchase. And people who find it hard to get funding to buy.

And all the frustration and anger is targetted at the estate agent who is most often (well i know in my office they do)trying to do their best when they have to deal with angry sellers offended at offers, angry sellers not getting offers, angry buyers not haveing offers accepted or can't get a mortgage.

Then on top of this have targets they cant't meet, their hours cut and little commisions and the threat of losing their job.

I don't know what the answer is but feel better now i've had my say.

Salbysea, why would an agent show you a house you couldn't afford? I'm not saying it doesn't happen ever but not all agents are bad.

This would be a complete waste of their time.

Everyone should just be honest from the outset with non of this cloak and dagger effect. Agents can only deal with facts so give it to them straight if you want them to get it right for you.

lots of estate agents I've viewed through were happy to waste everyone's time

e.g. if I'd booked a viewing for a place that ticked my boxes on paper I'd meet them to find that they'd booked me into 3 other viewings because they're "on the way" - I've had to be very determined at times with them on seeing the details (which were often SOO far off my brief it was laughable). They were clearly just doing it to be able to tell the vendors that they'd done X amt of viewings.

had so many conversations that went like this

"no thankyou, this is not in an area I want and I only want to see places with off road parking, and this place only has a 40yr lease"
"Well its on the way to the other property so you might as well see it"
"but I wont buy it"
"well you havent seen it"
"I dont need to, I wont buy it"
"its just here" turns car towards property I would never in a million years buy

a friend who was selling recently got the same behaviour, she described her conversations as going something like this:
"hello, I was wondering if there was any feedback from the viewing the other day"
"yes they said it was a nice flat but they dont want leasehold"
"then why did you show it to them, didnt you tell them its not freehold?"
"well at least I'm getting you viewings, the market is slow at the moment"
"what's the point of showing it to people who you know need more bedrooms / freehold / etc?????"

It is frustrating i can imagine - there are people who shouldn't be in the job. The sad thing is it does reflect on others who are trying to do a good job for all concerned.

The point about the tenure, well this should always be on the property details - i thought this was a legal requirment. But also the agents could help themselves by educating people into what it really means. So what if it is leasehold often you can buy the freehold for a couple 1000. They should try and get the eveidence together to show the buyers.

Almost all flats are leasehold cos how can they all be freehold - they are all on the same bit of land!! Why don't they educte the agents to educate the buyers!!!

there are the odd good un, the ones we bought through in the end were great, but its a hatefull process and most EAs I had to deal with make it more difficult and not easier

yes the tenure are on the details, but often I wasnt given the details until we were at the property.

I sat in on a friend's valuations and there was a few who gave silly high valuations - they were the pushy ones who wanted her to sign up there and then. I can see how elderly vendors who havent bought or sold for decades get suckered in to signing up with those ones

There were also the vendors who hadnt thought about selling till they heard that someone on their road got £££ and decide to put their place on the market just to see what they can get. They are easy to spot and have no intention of selling for a reasonable price - unless you offer them something akin to a lottery win they're not interested and will happily live on there indefinately

the property market is a mine field of w@nkers on all sides. Am glad to be out of it for now

We are trying to sell atm and are practically giving the thing away, yet many buyers seem very unrealistic - not interested becasue the dining room is the wrong colour and so on. WTF? I agree, buyers AND sellers can be utterly infuriating people.

But not me, natch.

Yeah - the thing is you will rearly deal in such an amount of money and this makes it so emmotive.

Plus like you say it's not somthing you do everyday so this can make people feel uncomfortable.

Always choose the agent you trust and not the cheapest or the highest value.

my fav buying experience was the couple who refused to sell to us cause they over heard us talking on the viewing about the things we'd change. apparently it showed that we werent the right kind of people for them to pass on their precious flat to - they were really angry with us too LOL - practically pushed us out the door. It was as if we were trying to inherit their children or something.

its not like we said anything personal like "we'll have to get rid of the hideous decor" or anything. Nothing insulting, just that we could use their "office" as a spare room, and we would change the heating to combi - wierd!

Forgive my ignorance but i am new to forum's and am having trouble with some of the terms. What is natch?

And i so need a spell checker.

natch = naturally.

Don't worry about the splelnig.

Minty obviously the seller has to say yes to proceed but in a falling market they do not set the price or if they do they don't go far!

Agree with JimmyMcNulty (and LOVE the user name!).

Here in Scotland we have an 'offers over' system that turns house sales into blind auctions. In a rising market, this suits the sellers as they will get top whack.

Now the market has fallen off a cliff, it's a different story. Most houses are on at fixed price and it's normal to make offers below that price.

If sellers are in the lucky position of not really needing to sell then fair enough, once they get bored of giving up every Sunday afternoon they can pull it back off the market and await the inevitable next boom cycle.

But if they do need to sell then every month that goes by is losing them money. It is so often a pride issue. Nobody needs persuading that their house has gone up in value. But it's another story when the value falls.

There are quite a few round where I live (posh part of Edinburgh) sitting for months at 'offers over'. Complete waste of everybody's time.

And the EA who came to value our flat recently was brutally honest with us. I can't fault him for that. Our flat has lost 25% value in two years.

Salbysea, the vendors of our current house told us that they sold to us because we were the only viewers who were positive about the house and they had been really upset by other people's comments.

They had split the garden in two and built themselves a house so I think they didn't want to live beside people who had offended them.

People get emotive about it because it was their home, they may have brought their kids up there and they can be very attached to it.

If they get that emotive about a place they're trying to sell that they'd rather not sell to someone who is on a viewing and wondering around their own and saying what they'd change, then they're not the kind of people most would want to do business with, anyhow.

It's like that Andrew guy and that Anne Maurice always say, 'You're MOVING!'

I was quite happy to do business with them as they accepted our offer which wasn't the highest they got and was £40k under what it valued at.

Salbysea - I agree with you on older sellers. They know nothing about the market but what the EA tells them. Tyey do not use th einternet and look at Rightmove and Primelocation to see what other houses roudn about are selling for. They know nothing about modern furnishings and fittings or how much it costs to renovate a house to modern standards. They just think their house is lovely and expect you to pay up to their asking price. Happened to me lots of times. Most will just die in thei rhouse and watch the market collapse while their relatives are desperate for them to sell as they watch their inheritance dwindle.

I also agree with your comemnt about people getting offended and refusing to sell to certain types of buyers. I have a friend who is an otherwise savvy bloke who 'agreed' to sell his flat to the people he did finally sell it to because he felt they would really look after it'.

What would he care - its not as if he is going to go back and live in it!

I never owned my own house but I buy and sell shares, commodities and bonds with my own money every day and the UK housing market is one of the most irrational markets I have ever come across.

We've having the same problem. We sold our house last year and been renting since. We've put in offers for two houses recently at around 15-20% under the asking price but at the maximum we could afford and both sellers have refused.

House prices are mad, one of the houses we have our eyes on has one bed more than our old house but doesn't have a garage or a London postcode (devon) and the market is supposed to be going downhill, yet they want £50,000 more than we sold our 3bed london house.

We just can't afford it and are not prepared to risk borrowing too much (5dcs, dh a contractor) so looks like we'll be renting for the foreseeable future.

The house we're renting has been on the market for some time, the owners split half the garden off to sell as a development plot and yet did not decrease the price of the house!

abetadad yip negotiations get really interesting when the next of kin gets involved - we had an offer accepted on a flat owned by an old lady desperate to get into a warden run place she'd had an offer accepted in (she had friends there and really wanted to move)

However her daughter had other ideas - she got her mum to pull out and find a higher offer (our offer was v reasonable) - clearly it was inheritance greed!. Anyway we refused to go up, the old lady lost her place in the warden run place and the flat is still for sale 1 year on! - very sad as she was quite isolated there and now she's well and truely stuck.

I sold my family home to a buyer intenting to tear it down and rebuild so have no time for sellers who wont "let go" - what do they care! IMO its the people who are in a property that make it a "home" - once you and your nearest and dearest move out its just a pile of bricks so I'll sell to anyone who will allow me to move on to the best possible new pile of bricks so I can make that "home"