Moving Home - Zoopla Hurts!

HJS86

Runninghorse, I tried to get it back up and it just kept going down

firsttimetom

All the other flats that have sold for £51k will really restrict the offers that come in.

The people you are aiming your flat at (mid 20's couples) are very tech savvy. All my friends and I that are looking at buying houses always check out prices in the local area - in blocks of flats where most are a similar design it is very easy to make a comparison.

If I looked around your flat tomorrow and like it, I would be putting in an offer no higher than 55k if I really liked it and maybe 50k if I thought it was 'ok' (probably nearer 55k as your flat does look really nice). I would have to get a low offer accepted because when it came to sell, or when other flats in the block come on the market, they will also go for about this.

What would also put me off (and this is not intended to be snobby) would be if the other flats are owned by a housing association.

Unfortunately flats seem to have taken more of a battering than anything else during the recession. The reason being that they are seen as the 'first step' and if prices fall then the 'second step' tends to fall into their price bracket and the 'first step' gets over looked completely.

I do wish you luck selling. It just seems you 'caught the falling knife' so to speak. Hold in there, but be prepared to wait, another seller mentioned 5 years and I'd be inclined to agree with them.

HJS86

firsttimetom - thanks for your advice. We were concerned when we found out that the others had gone for 51k, but they weren't private sells so didn't think it would make so much difference as it wasn't a 'normal' set of sales if you get me?

We'll stick it out for a while I guess. Is so disheartening when all our friends are moving, (two last week and one in the next couple of months) because instead of getting on the ladder straight away like everyone told us all to, they rented at really high prices, but now have been able to take advantage of this brilliant buyers market without the headache of selling something that's worth tuppence compared to what we paid for it.

Damn recession eh!! lol

I think we've decided to leave it on the market until September, then pull if off for winter. Then put it up again at the beginning of the year 2012 at whatever price we can let it go for by then, prob about 70,000 which chances are will still be too high. Fingers crossed.

alezzandro

HJS86 wrote: »

I think we've decided to leave it on the market until September, then pull if off for winter. Then put it up again at the beginning of the year 2012 at whatever price we can let it go for by then, prob about 70,000 which chances are will still be too high. Fingers crossed.

In my view, without an EA, you haven't even entered the market, yet. I think you give too much importance to websites such as Rightmove and others. People may look at them, but many still rely on EAs to do viewings. If I can find a flat analogous to yours in your area with an EA, for example, I probably won't be bothered to chase you up to see yours, especially if yours is not cheaper than the EA one. Why should I take the burden to deal directly with the seller, when I could have someone else who does that for me?

Many people don't feel comfortable dealing directly with Vendors and if you are a buyer you don't have to pay the EA fee.

In addition, are you sure that all your potential buyers are really that tech savvy to go on Rightmove to look for a house?

HJS86

alezzandro wrote: »

In my view, without an EA, you haven't even entered the market, yet. I think you give too much importance to websites such as Rightmove and others. People may look at them, but many still rely on EAs to do viewings. If I can find a flat analogous to yours in your area with an EA, for example, I probably won't be bothered to chase you up to see yours, especially if yours is not cheaper than the EA one. Why should I take the burden to deal directly with the seller, when I could have someone else who does that for me?

Many people don't feel comfortable dealing directly with Vendors and if you are a buyer you don't have to pay the EA fee.

In addition, are you sure that all your potential buyers are really that tech savvy to go on Rightmove to look for a house?

Hi alezzandro,

Thanks for your post

I think its a matter of opinion really. Before shelling out the £400, we had 4 valuations from well known estate agents, and rather than offering the normal 1%-3% commission that we were budgeting for, all of the Estate agents advised that their minimum fees were £3000-£4000 pounds, whereas we were expecting and had budgeted for £800 i.e. 1%. We felt this was extortionate considering the majority of the time, its left to the seller to show people around the property even when an estate agent is involved.

We're assuming that our most likely buyers would be people like us, but 2 years behind, i.e. new couples looking for their first home. The majority of young adults are tech savvy and when I asked all of our peers where they would start looking, they honestly all came back with rightmove or findaproperty.co.uk, not one said the estate agents or the paper.

The website we have gone with do act as virtual estate agents. If a potential buyer is interested, they don't contact us direct, they contact the company who provide more information about the particulars and so on. They then pass us the details to make an appointment thats convienent to come and see the property. Similarly, they act as the middle person when and if an offer is made.

They also provided a board for the front of the property and offer 365 days worth of online activity, which can be paused if we would like to withdraw from the market, which is what we will be doing in September.

We're hoping we've made the right decision for us here, though due to price it seems we wont be able to fully test the worth of the company until a few years yet!

DannyboyMidlands

I would second that. I only use Rightmove. 90 odd percent of EA's use it so there is little point in looking in newspapers or whatever. If I miss the say 10% of properties that only advertise elsewhere then so be it.

If the price was right I wouldn't have any problem at all in dealing directly with the seller. In fact I think I'd prefer it.

ruggedtoast

I would always go on Rightmove first to look for properties. Its been a long while since I've stood with my nose pressed up against an EA's window looking at pictures of places that turn out not to exist when you get inside.

PPPingu

Rightmove and GSPC rule the roost up here (Glasgow), although If I'm passing an EA I might have a gander at their window (I realise that I'm doubling up on bird-related metaphors..)

alezzandro

@all.
What I mean is that, although Rightmove is a very important website (and you should never go with any EA that does not use it), by not using a local EA you are ruling out some potential buyers.

Of course it's much better to sell without intermediaries, because you don't have to pay fees, but if the alternative is not to sell at all as HJS86 suggests, it might be worth giving it a try. In the end, you pay only if the house is sold and you are the one who decides when an offer is worth accepting.

HJS86

alezzandro wrote: »

@all.
What I mean is that, although Rightmove is a very important website (and you should never go with any EA that does not use it), by not using a local EA you are ruling out some potential buyers.

Of course it's much better to sell without intermediaries, because you don't have to pay fees, but if the alternative is not to sell at all as HJS86 suggests, it might be worth giving it a try. In the end, you pay only if the house is sold and you are the one who decides when an offer is worth accepting.

Hi there

The EA's arent really an option for us, due to the recent information we've discovered from helpful members on this board. If our property really is only worth £60,000 in this current climate, we cannot let it go as our mortgage company have told us we are not allowed to go into negative equity. Any estate agent we went with would not market the property at above £75,000, so it wouldn't help us in the slightest whether we were on their books or not.

Even in a few years time if we're in a better position, I don't think we will access the services of EA's as I don't see them really making a significant difference. If people are out there to buy, they will search themselves and I often saw properties in our price range before estate agents called me to say they had something which matched our criteria.

Its the price that were asking that is causing us not to sell at the moment