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The Great 'what you wish you'd known before selling your house' Hunt
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What I meant by commission was a % of the sale price, i.e like a salesman on commission, the business owner gets the fee paid by the vendor, we get standard salary no sales commission.:).....but surely the only way the business owner can pay you a salary is if the commission keeps coming in....?0 -
What i wish id known: That, although very grateful for my buyer paying asking price after my property spending aaaaages on the market.. i do NOT have to leave him all the curtains! He isnt gonna pull out over some curtains! Good godfrey i do miss those curtains..
Cost me a fortune buying curtains for my new place 
Trying to think of a clever witticism, but cant, so... *insert clever witticism here*0 -
Upset_Nanny wrote: »
The solicitors we recommend are far from rubbish, we recommend them because we have had dealings with them and know how efficient they are.
So as my post says EA's have a bad press but PLEASE don't TAR US ALL WITH THE SAME BRUSH!!
And how much commission do you get from these solicitors?;)It is nice to see the value of your house going up'' Why ?
Unless you are planning to sell up and not live anywhere, I can;t see the advantage.
If you are planning to upsize the new house will cost more.
If you are planning to downsize your new house will cost more than it should
If you are trying to buy your first house its almost impossible.0 -
The one thing I forget every time I buy or sell: everybody lies about everything, all the time! Estate agents lie, buyers lie, sellers lie, solicitors lie... Or, at least, they say things without checking they're correct and they don't tell you when things change. Basically, if you can take anything anyone tells you about timescales, about their finances, about the rest of the chain etc etc with a massive pinch of salt then you'll save yourself a lot of stress when you think you're all ready to move but actually the whole rest of the chain collapsed weeks ago and has only just re-formed and everyone "forgot" to tell you.0
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As someone who is about to put my starter house on the market shortly after many years of living here - what I wish I knew right now is just HOW "spoiled brat" like potential buyers are going to be about the condition of it.
When I bought it in the 1980s - it needed rewiring/kitchen/new roof/replacing the boiler and generally sorting out the central heating system/doubleglazing/swopping gutters, fascia boards and downpipes/the decor was all in a state/the shower was a horrible little thing with its wires going right along the surface of the bathroom wall:eek:and tatty pale blue carpet going up the sides of the bath a la 1970s style/some internal doors needed changing/the loft needed insulating/telephone points needed changing to modern style/main part of house needed replastering.
I've done all the work the previous owners left behind for some other mug to do and pay for - apart from the replastering and the kitchen now needs replacing.
So - the house isnt "finished" - but its one HECK of a lot better than it was when I bought it. When I bought it they hadnt even bothered to ensure that wallpaper wasnt literally hanging off the walls and orange carpet in main area literally in loads of little bits and a trip hazard with it.
So - I just looked at the location and the basic layout and size of the house (which are factors that ARE okay and couldnt be "neglected" into an expense by previous owners) and had to ignore darn nearly everything that was wrong with the house. Literally all that was right with the place was the ceilings were modern plasterboard and the bathroom suite was white. Everything...but everything else that could conceivably be wrong was.
Since I've had to do the vast majority of work previous owners before me should have done to the house:mad: - then its understandable that I shall feel "What a spoilt brat" about any potential buyer that comes round viewing and complains about having to change the kitchen or that a couple of areas are painted in rather bright colours. I will need to ensure its the estate agent - and not me personally - that conducts viewings because if theres one "spoilt brat" remark out of any of them I'd probably explode after all the work the ******* previous owner left for me to do and pay for.
So - does anyone know how likely to be "reasonable" a buyer of a first-time buyer old terrace house is likely to be on the one hand or "spoiled brattish" on the other hand? I'd like to know JUST how far out of their way I will have to stay...:rotfl:. So - with a house like this - do many of them expect "jam on it" too or are a lot of these old terrace houses still in rather a state and they will think they are lucky at the state I have gotten this one to?
That is a serious question BTW - and not just a "bit of a rant"..0 -
moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »I will need to ensure its the estate agent - and not me personally - that conducts viewings because if theres one .....
That is a serious question BTW - and not just a "bit of a rant"..
You've provided the answer yourself. Get your agent to do the viewings and gather feedback, and stay out of the way.0 -
moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »So - does anyone know how likely to be "reasonable" a buyer of a first-time buyer old terrace house is likely to be on the one hand or "spoiled brattish" on the other hand?
All depends on your asking price! If you price it high, they'll be expecting perfection. If you're realistic, they'll be expecting it to need a bit of work.0 -
I wish i'd understood the estate agent fees better!
A well known estate agents valued my house at £138,000 and i was tied into a 20 week contract and they told me i could have a discounted and fixed fee of £2500 +vat, instead of their 2.7% fee plus vat.
In the meantime we found a house we loved. We had a few low offers on our house and ended up accepting £120,000 just to sell. Another estate agent said the price was marketed too high for the current climate and £120,000 is a good price!
I can't blame the EA for that but they wont reduce their fee either, so I've taken £15,000 less for the house and are paying the same fees. i feel they inflate the value to get you on their books. I could have held out but we'd have lost the house that we are buying.
So .. shop around with EA's, check your contact and negotiate it, get a few different valuations to get a realistic asking price.. we live and learn!0 -
A well known estate agents valued my house at £138,000 and i was tied into a 20 week contract and they told me i could have a discounted and fixed fee of £2500 +vat, instead of their 2.7% fee plus vat.
2.7% !?!?! A couple of years ago the OFT conducted a survey which determined that the AVERAGE EA fee in Scotland was 1.1%, and in E&W 1.60% .....
... ended up accepting £120,000 just to sell.
I can't blame the EA for that but they wont reduce their fee either, so I've taken £15,000 less for the house and are paying the same fees.
Some folks would say that a fixed fee is a good thing, and those same folks would argue that a variable percentage is inequitable, because the EA 'does the same work' for a different fee depending on the sale price.....
However, you signed up for a FIXED FEE as opposed to a percentage. If you didn't realise that this would mean you paying the SAME FEE, regardless of what level the house sold at, then .....
Reaching for my calculator, I see that your £2500, as a percentage of the sale price, is 2.08% - so if the EA's fee is normally 2.70%, that equates to a 23% discount on their regular fee.....
i feel they inflate the value to get you on their books.
There's loads of house price data available in the public domain, that allows you to a certain extent to have an informed view on what your house is worth. nethouseprice(s), myhouseprice, ourproperty, zoopla, etc. The only thing these sites are missing, since they show you SOLD prices, is the EA's 'on the ground' knowledge of possibly the comparative merits and demerits of each sale, and, crucially, what didn't sell; what was marketed, how long it remained on market, whether it sold quickly, hung around for ages, and when it came off market.
What did you buy the house for, and when did you buy it?0 -
Yes Googler, I'll live and learn.
We have to pay £3,000 as its £2,500 plus VAT. It does seem a lot of money. We did see agents offering 1% fee but i was put off as they had houses on the market for a while. We did have plenty of viewings so i can't complain too much. I'll know more about it for next time. this is the first time we have sold a house.
Still, we made a reasonable amount of money as we bought it 11 years ago, shame we need to invest it all to buy the next house. Icould do with a long holiday when this is all over! :-)0
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