How long until I can panic about not having offer

choccie3

Hi
I am new over here - am usually on DFW board but am hoping you can help put my mind at rest. DH and I own a house that is let until end June. We currently live in rented accommodation an hour away (because of work). We want to sell our house and buy a new build where we rent now.
We were "assured" by all the agents that we got valuations from that our house would sell in 2 weeks as it was either an ideal first time buy or investment purchase (near train station, 2 universities etc).
It has been on the market now for just over a week and we have had 3 viewings but no offers. We have 2 more viewings booked for this week. At first I wasn't at all worried as I thought these things take time and this is my first experience of buying/selling a house. However I am now worried as one friend sold her flat in 2 days and another shared the following theory with me - once it goes on right moved if it isn't gone in a week - worry or drop your price. His reasoning being that anyone who is looking to buy checks rightmove more than the local agents so they will know there is a new propertly available and if they don't want to see yours early on they never will!
Please advise - should I panic?

tomstickland

Do you have a rightmove link?

Alexei

DON'T PANIC! :beer:

A week really is no time at all.
In my area (Basingstoke) the average time from going on the market to accepting an offer is 3 weeks (according to the stats on primelocation.com). From looking at other areas, it seems like this is pretty low and in other places the average is much higher. I guess accepting an offer is different to *receiving* an offer, but still - I really think there's no reason to panic after a week!

Have you done your homework? If you had several valuations, and your asking price isn't way above the average, then you should be fine. Look at sold prices on rightmove, make sure similar properties have sold for a comparable price recently, and then sit tight for a few weeks. As long as the property is being marketed well by the EA, I'd expect it to all work out fine.

Apart from anything, reducing your price so quickly will be seen as a sign of desperation by some buyers, and they may try to bargain you even lower.

choccie3

Remember it has tenants living in it!!!

tomstickland

Looks like a good location and tidy little house. The following jarred though

Currently tenanted until June of this year and producing a healthy return for your money, this could easily accomodate 3 letable rooms to boost the annual income further OR simply make a comfortable home close to town - the choice, as they say - is yours!

Far too chummy, I'd prefer basic facts.

Great little city garden with decking area and lawn to the foot, enclosed by a natural stone wall and currently housing many pot plants.

Looks like breeze block in the photo. Less cheery stuff and more facts needed in my opinion.

I've just had a look at nethouseprices.com and there are 3 sales.
22 Oak Street, a flat, sold for £150K in 2002 and then for £192 in 2006.

One house, no2, sold for £140K in 2003.

choccie3

Thanks I really appreciate your comments. I know what you mean about the cheesy lines - I cringed too. All the properties with our EA are like that!
The house on nethouseprices is ours when we bought it!
Sorry I don't know what breeze blocks are and what do you think looks like breeze blocks?

Alexei

I agree with tomstickland, the property sounds pretty good.

The photos IMO are pretty poor - out of focus and not showing the house to its best. No good photo of the living room, nothing of the bedrooms/bathroom - as a buyer this always makes me suspicious of what's lurking upstairs. I think better photos would make a difference.

The outdoors photos in particular don't look good at all - I know they're trying to show the open land behind, but it doesn't really work. Would a photo from an upstairs window do a better job?

Having said that, you are getting people in for viewings so they can't be putting people off too badly!

choccie3

I think you are right about the quality of the photos - I have been looking at others on right move and their photos are better. The one that looks like trees is the view from the bedroom window. I think it is very odd that they didn't put a picture of the loung in as IMO it is the best room (huge window and stripped floor boards). Might speak to the agent about it. I know why there are none of the bedrooms - they are crammed full of our tenants belongings and furniture!
On a positive note - I have checked right move STC and ours does seem to be correctly prices (we got 3 valuations of £230K and 1 of £250K!!!)
Am going to keep the pressure on the agent - I think we made the mistake of not really contacting him last week and leaving him to get on with it but I don't think he did a lot!!

tomstickland

Breeze blocks are lightweight thermal blocks. I meant concrete blocks really.


If it was me then I'd rewrite the descriptions and tell the agent to use them and take my own photographs.

Doozergirl

The house seems to be in the right price bracket from what I can see to compare it to. This house is SSTC at a similar price and it doesn't look in the greatest condition so yours looks fair in comparison. http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-6813177.rsp?pa_n=10&tr_t=buy

The pictures are really poor, I can barely see the front of the house (though I can see the front door, which I think is horrid (sorry, it's just so dated and not in keeping at all ). The picture of the trees just makes me think the garden is small and I thought that was breeze block in the garden too. The kitchen is nice however, I like the wooden floors, the big windows and the fireplace. It looks like it's mostly neutral colours; I like the red too but it's not that popular on this board!

I can also see a lot of clutter. I appreciate there are tenants there, so there's not much you can do about that but you do have to appreciate that it won't particularly seduce buyers!

Average time to sell a property is just under seven weeks with 12 viewings in my area; I think your supposition about rightmove is wrong. I have new additions emails to me every day but I also check back over everything that is available at least once a week. Agents do seem to take properties off and relist them to give higher profile too. I have contact from agents, I always check the property paper each week and I scout for FOR SALE boards. There are also plenty of people out there who are just starting to look...

so don't write yourself off! But get some new pictures taken!

seven-day-weekend

I'd buy it if I could afford it. I'd love to relocate to Bath!

Unfortunately, my three bed terrace in a similar sort of area in Wolverhampton would probably only fetch £150k tops....

Seriously, I think it looks a good house (apart from the breeze blocks) and I'm sure it's far too soon to worry.