housenetwork - a review

WallyBird

googler wrote: »

So did any of them tell you WHY they valued it at their figure? Did you ask?

Did you look at any current houses for sale in the area, or of similar style? Did you look at any recent sales or historic sales?

How much time did each spend in your home?

Were they all local to your town or city?

What did you talk about with each agent?

Hi Googler,
They all said it was a lovely house and very saleable. Each spent about an hour in the house. They were all local. One said it was a hard house to value as it is quite unusual. One gave examples of current houses on the market (the middle one). We tried to let them do most of the talking.

The main difference seems to be that my husband chose the agents based on the prices of houses in their windows - one top of the range, one mid-range, and one with cheaper houses. The estimates they gave for our house were in the same order. It just would be nice to think the process was a little more objective. Alternatively, if these really are the prices they can sell at (and it varies according to the agent), why would anyone choose the ones who give the lower estimates?

Anyway, we went on Rightmove and looked at similar houses in our area, and tried to see where we fitted into the ranking. I think about £340 puts us with similar houses to ours.

In fact, we had already done this, but were wanting to see what the "experts" would say. However, with such a wide spread, it has not affected our original estimate. (We used Chickmug's method.)

WallyBird

cashndash wrote: »

We chose a price within the reasonable range that felt right, it sat nicely in the RM listing and I am really pleased that a very comparable house came on the market last week at the same price and it is under offer already!

Yes, that is what we are trying to do too. It is encouraging when you see something similar getting an offer so quickly! Good luck with yours.

thomasanchovie

WallyBird wrote: »

Had some estate agents round to get an idea of valuation - could not believe the difference: £259k, £310k, and £385k!
Hard to believe they were all looking at the same house.

I hate to sound pessimistic but we had a similar thing when our house was valued, (not quite as big a difference though).

Although we questioned the highest valuation because we thought it was too high, we ended up going with that agent as they seemed very confident and explained why they thought it was possible we could get such a high price, (The house has been completely redecorated to a high standard, has an extension, a garage and a larger garden than others nearby etc).

The agent started off really well, but within a few weeks they were talking of reducing the price, which we did, then we reduced it again but made it clear that if that price wasn't realistic then we'd look to rent it out rather than sell, (We're relocating due to my work). Every time I speak to them now they just want to drop the price to lower than any of our initial valuations.

3 months on and we've had quite a few viewings and some interest but no actual offers from anyone who is in a position to proceed. We could hang on at the higher price in the hope of getting that one person who falls in love with it, or cut our losses, put it up with an online agent which means we can drop the price down as low as possible and see if that gets us any offers. I think if we'd have put it on at a more realistic price in the first place we may well have sold by now as things are selling, albeit slowly, in our area but a little bit of greed took over and a bit of pride thinking that our house was worth that little bit more than some of the others that in our opinion weren't quite as nice. You live and learn though and in the grand scheme of things it shouldn't affect us too much, (Although all the perfect places we'd seen when initially looking at new houses are now a bit too far out of our reach), but we'll still find somewhere we like within our budget and hopefully the last few months wont slow us down too much.

thomasanchovie

WallyBird wrote: »

Anyway, we went on Rightmove and looked at similar houses in our area, and tried to see where we fitted into the ranking. I think about £340 puts us with similar houses to ours.

I missed the last page.

Looks like you made the decision we should have made 3 months ago, good luck.

WallyBird

Thanks Thomas. I hope you get a reliable buyer soon. We will soon find out whether our estimation is anywhere near what it should be! Spending the weekend getting the house ready for the housenetwork photographer, who is coming on Monday. Quite a scary process really.

cashndash

you need to be very thorough!! they don't move anything! One of the kids had left a jumper over the back of the sofa, it's in all the photos and features heavily in the vitual tour - ask your guy to call you in if he sees anything that needs moving!!

don't think it will make the difference between selling or not, but a minor irritation seeing as I was in the room next door!

We went on RM today, so about 24 hours after going live on HN, the said up to 48, so that was unexpected.

Just hoping the phone will ring now for a viewing over the weekend - the long wait begins :whistle:

googler

cashndash wrote: »

you need to be very thorough!! they don't move anything! One of the kids had left a jumper over the back of the sofa, it's in all the photos and features heavily in the vitual tour

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

cashndash

quite exciting here! no viewings but have seen several people nosing around outside!! Hopefully they will make the call to the agent and come along, pleased to know that people have found it already!

cashndash

woo hoo, we've got a viewing tomorrow afternoon!!! house has only been on the market 36 hours and on RM for less than 12!!

Contessa

That's very encouraging news about how effective HN is. I've decided to use them when my house is ready to be photographed-but first I've got 20+ years of family clutter to sort out! I've seen a house I really like, just what I'm looking for, on RM, but there's no chain so I guess my timescale would be too slow. Any ideas?