To those selling in these difficult times Part Deux. AKA sellers support network!

Karmacat

Hello Blodwen! Good luck Az - difficult decision to make.

I was lucky with the cleaning thing - mine's a fixer upper, and I still wasn't very well when I put it on the market, I asked the EA what to do, and he said that people didn't expect a fixer upper to be spotless. Thank heavens is all I can say.

The first few times, I wasn't quite tidy either - some big jugs went in the washing machine, lots of stuff got crammed into a wardrobe that isn't built in, that kind of thing.

But as for opening cupboards .... absolutely! I've always asked permission of whoever is accompanying me on *my* viewings, but if its built in, I'm buying it, and I want to see what I've potentially got! People are very chilled about it - we all know that anybody with any sense tidies up for a viewing, nobody lives that tidily. I like it, tho, I like there not being much around.

My house isn't like that any more tho - I went up in the loft today - I put the details on my diary thread in dfw land, but it was *horrendous*, and its only half done ............

Sphynx

It's hard Az. I think they are being a bit hard nosed not coming up a bit, like you say meet in the middle?? Having said that the house we are buying was on at £200K and we were the first to view we offered £180 and ended up at £183 (because they liked us, I knew having toddlers was good for something, they wanted it to go to a family ) They were only on the market for 3 days before we finalised that offer, how lucky were they!!
I can so see why you are tempted, I was sooooooo fed up of last minute frantic cleaning at 10 o' clock because we were both working the next day. My DH wanted to hang out for our full asking price (we had dropped alot) but I just wanted to be past that part of the whole house nightmare. What are your plans for the next house? have you started looking?

Hello Blodwen! Welcome. Hope you have a smooth ride!

vet8

WheelieWood wrote: »

I've been caught on, by viewers who turned up early, putting stuff in the car and carrying the hoover back down the stairs.

I know what you mean.

The last time we sold I reckon over three quarters of the viewers turned up early, some by as much as 20 minutes and I was always being caught out stuffing things out of sight, hovering, shutting the dogs in the car etc. etc.

I reckon they do it on purpose to try and catch you out as so many of them came very early, not just one or two.

Cazzr

Hi, I have a question for fellow sellers.
We've been on the market for 3 months now and have had 1 viewing! We've dropped the price a bit but are competitively priced compared to others on the market. The market just seems dead in our area. There are now 3 other houses like ours in our street and they are all just sitting there.. Anyway...
We had wanted to move in time for my son to start school (Year R) in the area we wanted to move to. We have a place ready at a very nice school locally to where we are now (just in case) but time is ticking on to get moved before September so we've pretty much decided to stay in this area for another year (unless something extraordinary happens).

Question is, do we leave the house on the market and when it sells move to a rented place locally until we want to move areas or do we take the house off and try again next spring? We were planning to move to rented in the new area anyway and get settled before buying again so not totally off plan but it's just as we are staying in area i'm unsure whether it's worth selling till we are ready to move again...
Just seems pointless being on the market at all at the moment!

Blodwen

vet8 wrote: »

I know what you mean.

The last time we sold I reckon over three quarters of the viewers turned up early, some by as much as 20 minutes and I was always being caught out stuffing things out of sight, hovering, shutting the dogs in the car etc. etc.

I reckon they do it on purpose to try and catch you out as so many of them came very early, not just one or two.

We've been early to almost all of our viewings but that was mainly because most of them were out of our town so we didn't know quite how long it would take to get there and factored in a bit of extra time for getting lost BUT we always waited in the car/wandered around to look at the area until the right time as I'd hate to be taking my knickers off the washing line etc and have viewers turn up early! :eek:

vet8

I am afraid I have to rant again - sorry.

Having, hopefully found a buyer we are now in the process of surveys etc. and what a pain, there is a constant succession of men traipsing through my house. Well not so much traipsing, as moving in.

The surveyor was here for 3 hours, then the mortgage surveyor was thankfully only here for 15 minutes. Today we had the first of the "specialists", the drain men. They were here for three and a half hours, checking about 20 feet of drain. What!

My OH was well hacked off. I was out at work, but he was stuck inside as he had to turn on the taps, turn them off, turn them on, turn them off over and over. The dogs were stuck inside getting very bored. I was pretty short with these guys when I came home and found them still here.

Then the "wall ties checking man" turned up and the first thing he said was "You've got cavity wall insulation. My camera won't work then". I did say that I had told the EA that. He just walked around for about 10 minutes.

It makes me wonder about the surveyor, he spent 3 hours here and had not noticed we have cavity wall insulation.

Well, another 3 more guys to come and inspect various bits. SIGH!

[Deleted User]

I understand exactly where you are coming from AZ. Are they good proceedable buyers? I would probably accept too as selling does take a physical and mental toll and that is why we became so cheap

We bought `posh` bed covers from costco and we lay them back over the spare bed, over all the pillows after every viewing. It looked like a corpse in bed. We developed a good routine for each viewing and felt eternally grateful that there was just dh and myself to consider. No pets and no children. We got a bit paranoid, I mean I would vacuum while dh was out and then he would come in and vacuum although the floor was already spotless. I confess, I once bought 4 fluffy towels in tk maxx and I tucked all the labels in and displayed them for 2 viewings and then took them back for a refund. Now that was ridiculous but it was early days and I settled down after a couple of weeks

Blodwen

Wow Vet 8, that's a lot of surveying! Is there anything about your house that might make your buyer think all this is really necessary? At least if they are paying for all this they're less likely to pull out having forked out a fair but of cash!

azkaban420

Need to suss out this multi-quote thingy!!

kittie wrote: »

I understand exactly where you are coming from AZ. Are they good proceedable buyers? I would probably accept too as selling does take a physical and mental toll and that is why we became so cheap

Yes kittie, they are proceedable buyers which is why it's so tempting. At first my EA said think it over the night, I just spoke to him to ask him qs about the buyer's position and he said let me know asap, in case they see somewhere else!!

Sphynx we've looked at many houses, liked/offered/got accepted on one then lost it as couldn't sell in time, they have since had more offers, then decided to take house off market. Now that there is a low offer on the table, with nothing to help towards a deposit for a new house, we're thinking we might sell, and rent in the new area, so that kids can start school at least, then we'll be chain-free buyers, saving up more for the deposit, and hopefully with more bargaining power. I keep hearing 'it's a buyer's market' - it bloody well better be when we come to buying! The main issue is moving to the area in time for new school terms....at the moment we may be cutting it fine.

Now, all this decision-making atm is thru phone calls whilst I'm at work and DH is home. With the EA now pushing for an answer, do you all think we should just go ahead and give them our decision now/later in the day, or wait till tomorrow?

Az

pr1nc3ss

Have also bitten the bullet and called a couple of other EA's to come and value tomorrow. As it's already on the market I don't expect them to say anthing different than we already know. We've been told it's at the right price by the previous two companies we were with. Just sick of my EA now. No feedback for days, the three viewers over the 9 months we've been with them were all timewasters, two there was no feedback from. What is getting me is the 1.75% + Vat they all charge, thats 3k for us, none of them will budge on it.