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

Blodwen

jw2003 wrote: »

our 'offerers' carried out their 'survey' yesterday.

They are cash buyers so under no obligation to have a valuation or anything like that done, she turned up with a builder, spent 20 minutes outside and then left.... Any ideas?

She has asked my EA what the house fell down on with a previous survey and those issues have been remedied so maybe she thinks it's all fine, or maybe she found something she didn't like outside and decided it was dealbreaker.

I am pecimistic (sp?) - especially as I had a dream the chain fell apart because I had kids ???

Try not to worry - could it just be that she wanted to have an extension or something done? Maybe the builder told her something she wanted to do couldn't be done/wasn't a good idea? Or could be that everything was fine and they didn't need to see anything else?

xtra_time wrote: »

After 62 weeks on the market we now have an offer which i have accepted . They want it through by Christmas though so we gotta look for somewhere quick now. As a cash buyer he said they not getting a survey but his brother will have a look as he is a builder so fingers crossed he doesnt find anything wrong.

Great news! Gives us all hope that things can work out even after a long time on the market.

Well our viewer didn't show up Was a bit annoyed because as usual we'd spent ages cleaning, but also as it was the first one we would have done (all previous ones by EA) and I was feeling a bit nervous so was hoping this would reassure me! As it is I think I'll ask EA to do them in future as weekends are precious and don't have time to hang around all day for someone who might not show up :mad: Anyway, rant over. Let's hope the next one turns up!

Blodwen

Blodwen: On market for 16 weeks with old EA, 3 viewers (and buyer who then pulled out) in first month. First week with new EA.

NEH: On market 29 weeks, 3 viewers,1 ridiculous offer soundout, useless Solicitor who can't find the bed or the flat itself. Planning to rent it out from November.

Emilia15: On market for five weeks (feels like a lot longer), three booked viewers (although only one turned up!), price reduced by £8500 last week, EA who was dealing with us has mysteriously 'left the company', trying to deal with the chronic lack of buyers by adopting a zen-like stance and also by reading this thread

rosered100 - been on the market since March. Had an offer from the first viewer at 91% of asking which we accepted. They dropped out 2 days before exchange. Dropped the asking price to the level of our first offer. Total of 16 viewers, 5 of them viewed twice. Then 2 offers came on the same day a fortnight ago at 10% below our new asking price. We have reluctantly agreed to one of them as long as they get on with it. Havent heard a word from them since.

Grimbal: On market Oct 2009. Found non proceedable buyers. Found place to buy

Harz99: Going on market Feb 2011. Not yet seriously looking at places to buy.

Azkaban420: On market Oct 2009, accepted offer in May, still waiting to exchange/complete...found house to buy in meantime

Sonastin: On market Christmas 2009. Sale completed August 2010. Serious problems with the house I want to buy that are taking ages to resolve. Nothing else on the market that suits. Stuck living with my mother in the meantime

tyllwyd: went on market on 5 May (Election day - great timing!!) Dropped price once, four viewings so far but none proceedable. Enthusiasm for the whole idea of moving gradually ebbing away.

Snowlady07: On market since early Sept 2010. Realistically priced but no interest as yet

Squish_21 - Been on market 15 weeks. Had 1 viewing & 1 very low offer during 12th week (buyer couldnt get the mortgage amount they thought). On 14th week we have started offering '5% deposit paid by vendor', as its a 1 bed flat instead of a price drop. A price drop will follow in January if no more interest. Its tough going for us sellers!


Shabby_chic: Went on market March 2010, approx 10 viewings and a couple were interested but none proceedable. Cash buyer viewed week 14 and made offer £10k below asking, negotiated to £5k less and currently waiting to exchange though plan to complete on 24/09/10 (fingers crossed).

Ocalllo - on market since Feb 10, 3 views only 2 turned up. Chgd agent beginning of June, 5/6 viewings more - 1 x low offer, which we refussed, they came looked at hse again and pulled out! dropped price twice, gone live with new price 1 hr ago!!!!!

Maidmarian - On market from August 2008, dropped price 17%, 21 viewings, no offers. Asking price now below Zoopla and Land Registry indices. Took it off the market today.

Newstudent24-I put my 2-bed ground floor flat up for sale in May 2010, originally for 98,500 (which I thought was a little high at the time but the EA said it was a good price). I have reduced the price twice since then and is now on the market at 92,950. I have had a total of 5 people look at it - one of which was an upstairs neighbour who I think just wanted a nosey around....and a landlady who offered me 20k less than the asking price so I could carry on living here as a tenant. Luckily I don't have 'mug' written on my forehead!

Smiley79-have been on the market since Feb2009 yes thats Feb 2009, I have dropped the price several times to now way under what we bought it for 6 years ago. We have had 2 sold subject to STC which have both fallen through one a week before moving (6th Jan) and the second in April.

tiny_tear-on the market since Dec09. Have lowered the price a few times. willing to take offers. So far had one offer (too stupid to even make a counter offer) and one person who viewed THREE times - the last this weekend - decided today not to make an offer and gave no explanation to why... Just lowered the price another £3k...

Chyna-s- One market 1week, have had an offer already of 5% below the asking price.

JW - on the market 4 weeks, 3 viewers, 3 offers, 1 agreed but they pulled out, last offer made about 10 days ago, we said no and they have sat on it since. They came back today (20/9/10) with a higher offer which we have accepted so fingers crossed.

Jen: Been on the market 15 weeks 6 viewings, 1 second viewing and 2 cancellations. Our latest viewing took place this afternoon and they seemed positive but don't they all. I won't be holding my breath. But they are under offer and looking to move into the area so sound proceedable. Fingers crossed.

Paul97: On market for 4 weeks two viewings last week, both interested, but 1st one wanted to do a let to buy and can't get finance, 2nd viewing FTB, just had call from EA they have a mortgage in place and are interested, but will not make a decision until weekend after they have looked at other properties. Keep everything crossed for us.

Clarrisa62: We have had our flat on market for nearly a month. 3 viewings, last lady liked but has opted for a slightly larger flat.

NyimaR: Under offer for 2k less than I paid in 2004. First time buyer so at least there's no chain and I'm planning on putting a short break in the chain to make this go through as quickly as possible. Need to figure out where I put my FENSA certificate. House hunting this weekend.

jw2003

Blodwen wrote: »

Try not to worry - could it just be that she wanted to have an extension or something done? Maybe the builder told her something she wanted to do couldn't be done/wasn't a good idea? Or could be that everything was fine and they didn't need to see anything else?

That's what I am hoping as we do have planning permission granted

pollyzanna

Hi everyone,
So sorry for those who are having a tough time and pleased for those who seem to be heading in the right direction.
Anyway, everything seems to be going ok for us. Our buyers had a survey done last Monday so we're hoping that was ok and they are asking questions about our cavity wall insulation (guarantees etc) so hopefully they are still interested!!!
The property we are buying is just waiting on a mortgage valuation - how much that is depends on how much deposit we need to put down. It's a renovation project so we want to keep back as much cash as possible. We're just getting a basic valuation for that and then getting a full building/structural survey down separately. Hopefully the basic survey won't flag anything up to put the mortgage company off!!!!
The vendor of that property is buying a place from a couple who are emigrating early December so in theory we'll be in before Christmas (we have cash buyers).

tawse57

not_loaded wrote: »

How nice to hear a balanced opinion on the difficulties of pricing and selling. Thanks.

Overall, I feel that most people are just trying to get on with their lives, and need to sell to do that. Reading this thread (and part 1) clearly shows the good intentions of sellers all over the place.

I do wonder about the fantasy ‘pump up the price’ sellers, as to whether they seriously want to move on. But at the end of the day, it’s their prerogative to price in that way.

I am told that the fantasy prices are due to either one or more of the below:

1. Pure greed - trying it on.

2. Delusional - fantasy, ego, my house is worth more than the neighbours, status, good old British snobbery and class.

3. Enormous amounts of debt from having re-mortgaged to buy things.

4. Estate agents telling sellers any price they want to hear in order to get them onto their books and not on their competition's books.

I also wonder if some estate agents are caught up in snobbery about 'I must be important if I deal with expensive houses' kind of mentality.

How do I know this - more than one estate agent has told me this.

Must be true then.

not_loaded

tawse57 wrote: »

I am told that the fantasy prices are due to either one or more of the below:

1. Pure greed - trying it on.

2. Delusional - fantasy, ego, my house is worth more than the neighbours, status, good old British snobbery and class.

3. Enormous amounts of debt from having re-mortgaged to buy things.

4. Estate agents telling sellers any price they want to hear in order to get them onto their books and not on their competition's books.

I also wonder if some estate agents are caught up in snobbery about 'I must be important if I deal with expensive houses' kind of mentality.

How do I know this - more than one estate agent has told me this.

Must be true then.

Yes, I suspect that some of those are certainly true. I suppose though that one man’s ‘greed’ is another man’s ‘need to get the best I can, and I’m not in a hurry’. After all, they can always reduce later on – it’s pretty impossible to increase later on of course.

I think a lot of people are ‘too busy’ to work on the pricing themselves and just opt to believe the shiny suited EAs. When we were ready to go on the market we had six EAs round over two days to give us market advice and (obviously) pricing advice. (the story’s been told way back on this thread) Some neighbours said ‘wow, six, we just had the one round’. Looking at what the six said (we made careful notes) it’s quite clear if you extract one from the six you get maybe the middle ground, or maybe one of the extremes, and boy, were there extremes! We’d been doing our homework for months and could easily see the tactics of some of them.

I feel a key reason for the vendor overpricing is that they view RM prices for similar property and don’t twig that they’re looking at ASKING prices. I guess they haven’t done their homework and are blinded by the huge profit they ‘see’ coming their way.

To me pricing it fairly has to be the way to get it sold and get on with your life.

Grimbal

Can I just second points 1 to 3 as we are experiencing those with our potential vendor. We're now under offer (with a chain free buyer - whoop!) & put in an offer of 490k on a place on at £547,500. We think it's terribly overpriced as in a 5 bed, only 2 are dbls, with another 2 having such restricted head height that you couldn't put a dbl bed in there.

So, our first offer was turned down. Most usually are, so after discussing with EA, I felt that we'd go in with a F&F offer of £499,950. The vendor is not happy at all with this! I'm sooo frustrated - can he not see a 90% offer which brings it up to the stamp duty threshold is something that he should be really happy about?

I can't for the life of me understand why he is not biting our arms off. To summarise:

1. We have a chain free buyer
2. He's been on market since March, and not dropped his price
3. we're offerrng him 90% of asking
4. our mortgage is in place & we can move quickly
5. he's not _ever_ had any interest. He has a difficult place to sell with those rooms with the 2 low eaves
6. It's a falling market, and coming up for a slow market till Xmas.

Sorry, just needed to vent. It looks like we're going to lose the house we love due to a completely unrealistic/greedy vendor

not_loaded

As I said above, at the end of the day, it’s their prerogative to price in that way.

I bet their EA despises them, as from what you’ve said, they appear to be totally unmotivated in selling it.

Grimbal

Oh I know, it's totally their decision at the end of the day. Just frustrating is all
Their EAs will be going around tomorrow night to see if they can talk some sense into them - they see our offer as a good one, with a solid backing of procedable purchasers. So, hopefully by Weds AM we'll have definitive answer one way or the other.

ocalllo

good luck - i hope it works out for you