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

Pinkjenny

Can I join in? I've been reading part I and II of this thread and was sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for pawpurrs to exchange.

Our story:
Purchased house August 2006 £190k
Put on market July 2010 £205k
Reduced to £195,000
Offer 1 received February 2011 of £187,500 which we accepted
Buyer 1 pulled out because they saw something else
Reduced to £189,950
Offer 2 received June 2011 of £179,500 which we accepted
Buyer 2 pulled out over very minor issues on the survey, which he pondered for three and a half stressful weeks)
Reduced to £179,500
Offer 3 received August 2011 for £179,500

Our buyer is a cash buyer, and doesn't want a survey. The survey is being done on the house we wish to purchase today. I am sick to the back teeth of the lazy attitude of the EA, they seem to shy away from asking buyers any direct questions at all. We are with our second EA now, and if this falls through, I shall be changing again.

It's just been an absolute palaver so far.

tleefox

Right then ladies and gentlemen, we accepted an offer on our property yesterday. House has been on since April, originally @ £220k. Against all of our agents advice we dropped the price twice, the second time in the middle of July to £210k.

Accepted an offer yesterday of £203k which we are very happy with.

We are first time sellers so have no idea what happens next; we have appointed our solicitors and given their details to our EA. Our buyer have an AIP in place and are doing the full application over the weekend (he works for Lloyds TSB is so if getting a staff mortgage). Annoyingly our EA is on holiday today, but just pleased to be getting somewhere.

Anyone shed any light as to what the next steps in the process are?

ceegee

I have twice written a long post re my house-selling difficulties, but neither has appeared.......I keep getting logged-out whilst I am writing! I shall try a small post now....house for sale 10 months; a few viewings; 2 offers.....one buyer pulled out just before exchange and the other had to pull out when her purchaser was taken ill.

Hope this post works!

madhouseof4

Was supposed to exchange contracts today..... buyers searches were only requested late last week have meant it didn't happen. Very frustrating as we are buying a repo and everyone was VERY aware of our 28 day deadline.

ceegee

ceegee wrote: »

I have twice written a long post re my house-selling difficulties, but neither has appeared.......I keep getting logged-out whilst I am writing! I shall try a small post now....house for sale 10 months; a few viewings; 2 offers.....one buyer pulled out just before exchange and the other had to pull out when her purchaser was taken ill.

Hope this post works!

Some further information.....the house belonged to my late parents, my Mum passed away last year as she couldn't live without my Dad, who had passed away. She had wanted to go for some time and I knew that the end wasn't far away....she absolutely hated being alive.:(

But this is with regard to the selling of their little bungalow (this is very hard:()

As I dealt with all of the formalities following my Mum's passing, my very domineering sister decided that she would deal with the house sale. She is so out of touch with reality, that the house is still on the market after 10 months. The EA has confided in me that he finds her difficult to deal with, which she is, but I respect the EA's confidence and will not tell her this.

I am cutting this short as I seem to get logged out if I am writing a long post. The house was overpriced for a good 6 months (my sister's doing!) It is now more reasonably priced, but has been on the market for 10 months, which ain't good.

We had an offer in the Spring, but the buyer pulled out just before we were to exchange....he decided it was overpriced. Then in July we had a reasonable offer, which we accepted, but our buyer's buyer became ill so that fell through.

Two more people are interested but they have their own houses to sell.

I'll end it here for now, in case I get logged out again.

ceegee

I spoke to our EA yesterday and asked how things were, generally. He said that August is always a very slow month for the housing market as people concentrate on holidays and enjoying the fine weather. Things pick up in September and carry on through October. Part way into November it tails off and then starts to pick up again in February.

Every day I check on Rightmove for similar bungalows and I have noticed that an awful lot of the sales are falling through and the houses are coming back on the market again. It seems to be the way of things now and it is very stressful.

Having just read the whole thread, can I thank everyone who has given encouragement and support to others and can I also send best wishes and postive vibes to those who are still struggling along in these difficult times.


PS Off to check Rightmove.

jaxjax123

ceegee wrote: »

I spoke to our EA yesterday and asked how things were, generally. He said that August is always a very slow month for the housing market as people concentrate on holidays and enjoying the fine weather. Things pick up in September and carry on through October. Part way into November it tails off and then starts to pick up again in February.

Every day I check on Rightmove for similar bungalows and I have noticed that an awful lot of the sales are falling through and the houses are coming back on the market again. It seems to be the way of things now and it is very stressful.

Having just read the whole thread, can I thank everyone who has given encouragement and support to others and can I also send best wishes and postive vibes to those who are still struggling along in these difficult times.


PS Off to check Rightmove.

I have noticed the amount of houses that fallo through are massive. Our estate agent told us the stats are only 30% of houses have gone under offer this year and 50% of those have fallen through. So I'm not the best at maths but it would seem only 15% of houses sell and complete.
On the up side I have a viewing tomorrow and another on Tuesday.

ceegee

jaxjax123 wrote: »

Looks like 15% to me too, from those figures. Very grim indeed.

Whilst we have 2 people interested in the bungalow, they still have to find purchasers themselves and so have not put offers in. The offer that we accepted in Spring was from a cash buyer, but he then decided the house was too expensive and pulled out. Chains are dreadful things and are appropriately named instruments of torture!

I hope your viewings are good, jax, and that you get a good offer from one (or both!) of them. Do let us know how it goes.

I am keeping my fingers crossed for a pick up in activity next month.

tyllwyd

Yep, we've had two sales fall through this year, and I can see lots of other houses have too. It's a tough market out there, and I have the impression people are very jittery, so any small problem and they are pulling out. As a seller it's a nightmare.

We've had a guy round this morning doing some work for us in the garden - he's taken out some old tree stumps and a big bush that was taking up too much room. We've now got some bare patches in the lawn, but you get a much better view down the length of the garden so you can see how big it really is.

We're off the market at the moment since the last sale fell through, so we're going to have a go at taking some new photos ourselves over the weekend and go back on the market for our last push at selling before we give up. We've given ourselves a deadline of the end of September - if things are still this bad by then, we're going off the market for a few years and hope that things stabilise. We've got enough equity in the house that we don't really care whether prices go up or down, just that everyone has enough confidence for sales to actually happen.

cwcw

Property for sale for around 6-7 weeks so far, done 14 viewings (many time wasters) and had 1 offer (too below an already realistic asking price and at an early stage, but they wouldn't go any higher).