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

superbabe612

Finally, we've completed the sale of my father-in-law's house. We put it on the market on 27 November 2010, we accepted an offer on 21 April 2011, and we've exchanged and completed today - after 8 weeks of stress, demands, scares and almost collapsing (the chain, not us!).

I'm impressed with the 8 weeks but, boy has it been a struggle to get here! Good luck to everybody - it IS worth it! :j

ocalllo

superbabe612 wrote: »

Finally, we've completed the sale of my father-in-law's house. We put it on the market on 27 November 2010, we accepted an offer on 21 April 2011, and we've exchanged and completed today - after 8 weeks of stress, demands, scares and almost collapsing (the chain, not us!).

I'm impressed with the 8 weeks but, boy has it been a struggle to get here! Good luck to everybody - it IS worth it! :j

Well done - its such a great feeling :j

harz99

harz99 wrote: »

Short version - sold Friday 13th, holiday to today and now have keys to new home.

For interest I will post the full SP in a few days when we have phone and broadband (on Wetherspoons free wifi at the mo).

As the OH and I are now almost settled in our new abode, the promised (long) update for anyone who may be interested:


Following a medical problem early last year which has had a significant bearing on our lifestyle, we decided that what we thought had been our final house move/purchase to retirement, a new build in a quiet semi rural area, was not going to work in the longer term.

I started researching the market mid 2010 with a view to going up for sale last autumn; in the event it was spring 2011 before we finally went up "for sale".

My research had showed that the type of house we owned had being selling slowly on our development, but steadily with a typical time from initial marketing to sale of 3-6 months. Prices having risen from their 2005/6 levels by about 25%.

By Feb 2011, those sales had all but stopped with some properties being on for 6 months or more, and those that had sold seeing a fall back to around 15-18% above their 2005/6 purchase prices.

Family commitments had by then prevented us from going to market, but had not stopped us from looking around for a suitable new home. We found a small new development by a reputable regional builder and monitored asking prices and availability over the winter.
The builder was suffering slow sales and had, unlike the larger national companies, started to revise their asking prices lower to achieve sales.

So we finally got to the "for sale" position in March this year. We used the largest, most prominent local EA (no nationals in our part of the world) and even managed to persuade them to put us on RightMove which was not the done thing until recently.

Our EA came up with an "offers around" marketing price some 26% higher than we had paid in 2005/6, which if achieved would have given us a theoretical profit before expenses of around 13%, allowing for the various improvements we had made during our period of ownership.

Privately I didn't think we had any chance of selling at that price. During the first month with the EA we had achieved no viewings whatever. However we had also asked a national house builder to give us a part-ex valuation against one of their houses.

The three other local EAs all came round, did their valuation bit and gave the usual 3 prices back to the builder, but also stated that they did not see a quick sale as being achievable on any of those prices, so no offer from Mr. national house builder.

WE did however manage to get the sales rep to spill the beans on the lowest of these prices, and thus had an idea of just where we might need to go down to to sell. Coincidentally, this was in fact break even point.

So, as our EA had not even managed a viewing in a whole month, we decided it was time to give notice (4 weeks) and change agents. At the same time we went down to a reduced "fixed price" for those 4 weeks, at our break point, and told the EA in simple terms to either find us a proceedable buyer within that time or we would go elsewhere.

Lo and behold, a couple of days later we had our buyers and 5 weeks later had moved out, put our furniture in store, and were awaiting the okay on our hopefully last new build house.

The builders had accepted our reduced offer on their marketing price, which had the effect of reducing the new property by exactly the amount we had dropped on our sale. So we got the house we wanted, in the town we wanted, at a price acceptable to us.

So, here we are nearly a month later, very happy and apart from a few minor snagging issues which have all been rectified without hassle or delay, life is rosy.

Before the usual suspects start crowing about having to reduce to sell etc., we did so because we needed to move, when we sold we achieved our original purchase price plus all we had put in to the property, plus our sales and legal costs. Good enough for me.

Very best of luck to all those still waiting for a sale, and congratulations to those who have recently, finally got there:beer:.

ToriF

Waiting...and worrying.

So I accepted an offer on my house 6 weeks ago.
They did the survey within a week.
I filled out all the forms for my solictor and returrned them the day I got them.
They sent the draft contract to my buyers solictors 2 weeks ago .... and now we wait...

I know its not been long at all so I should just chill .. but its a little stressful just waiting with no idea whats really going on as its all in the hands of others.
Must learn to be patient!

tyllwyd

Oh, I'm annoyed now. A house roughly similar to ours went up for sale with the our estate agent about a fortnight ago - priced £50 less than us, so I'm sure they had ours in mind when they decided on the asking price. And now it's under offer and we are still sitting here waiting :-(

To be honest, I can see why - the other one is a modern house, so all nicely finished and the safe option, but ours is more of a project, so we need someone who really loves the house to come along. It's still frustrating though!

Poorhouse

tyllwyd wrote: »

To be honest, I can see why - the other one is a modern house, so all nicely finished and the safe option, but ours is more of a project, so we need someone who really loves the house to come along. It's still frustrating though!

The same thing happened to me and I asked the EA. They said the people just got a good feeling about the other house! I suspect a much lower offer was accepted as the other sellers are in a completely different situation from me and I refused 2 extremely stupid offers when I put the house on.

About to call the EA and kick butt again!

Fingers crossed for you though

justjohn

Well, We done it....Accepted an offer. 21k profit and we had chopped the property in half(and retained some for ourselves).

Who said the housing markets dead.

Only on market since end of April. Lets hope sale does not fall through lol

tyllwyd

I'm starting to think we've got the incredible repelling house.

Nine months ago, someone viewed the house three times, loved it, was going to rush their own house on the market to sell quickly - and then disappeared. I've just spotted their house on the market, but apparently they now want to buy about 20 miles away.

That wouldn't bother me, but something similar has happened five or six times now - people view, lots of positive feedback, but they go off to buy in a completely different town (thinking about it, in a completely different county even). I'm becoming convinced it's personal!

noisypinkbubble

Hi everyone. Felt like I should join in, having been reading this forum obsessively of late!

I bought my house in 2003 for 31.5k. 1 bedroom end terrace cottage, no double glazing, central heating, hideous old bathroom and tiny kitchen. Since then I’ve had double glazing fitted, central heating including new boiler, and completely redone the bathroom (nice and modern now). Having lived here all these years, I decided I didn’t want to anymore, basically, I feel like I’ve outgrown the house, and wanted to move out and into rented property instead as being a homeowner doesn’t really suit me, and the bills are too much for one person. The mortgage currently sits at 43k with all the work I did, there’s 8 houses in our row, and the most recent one sold in 2009 for 60k, but it requires no work, where mine needs some tlc (ceiling replastered downstairs for example).

Baring in mind the market being pretty dire for sellers I put it on the market with my initial agent for 52k, in August 2010, thinking I might get 48 - 50 for it. The first agents were rubbish, barely marketed it, never mentioned despite repeated correspondence that it was no chain (which does make a decent difference IMO) and got 3 viewers in between August and April. 3 No offers came from these. I moved to a new agent with higher fees, but a better reputation in May, and have had 3 viewers since the new agent took over. The listing IMO is much better, pictures more reflective of the size (although one bedroom it’s very large, the 3 other houses I’ve been into were all split into two rooms) I reduced the asking price when I took with this new agent to 49.9, thinking I could take a bit less – and the third viewer who came put my first offer in, of 40k. I had to decline, obviously, and they increased to 43 – but again I’ve had to decline because my mortgage plus agent & solicitor fees comes to 44.5, and I have no spare cash / way to generate any to offset it. I advised the agent I would accept the 44.5 (I’m keener than ever to move) but they were unwilling to match. I was frankly gutted, because I’m so desperate to leave – but I can’t sell for less than the 44.5

The property was valued last year (for mortgages purposes) at 56, but I think we’re talking actual worth of more like 49/50, saleable value on the other hand isn this climate is anyones guess – the new agent were at least straight forward and said ‘if you want to sell it quickly we need to be thinking around 45k’ which has led to me bringing the price down again to 46.9, in an attempt to get more viewers in. Remains to be seen if that will work – but the whole thing is driving me insane. I *wish* I had the money to sort the plastering myself, or to redecorate, or whatever, but I genuinely don’t have money spare. It’s a bit gutting, and the stress of being on the market for almost a year endlessly waiting is awful.

It’s so nice to see people are actually selling, it’s like a tiny ray of hope in the distance!

SazM030306

We've just lowered ours again to just under 75. Fingers crossed it attracts somebody!

I might start a thread on shared ownership/part exchange as there are a couple of houses we've seen offering this, and I don't know much about it.