DIARY OF A HOUSE SALE - in a "static" house price part of the country

sammyjammy

lessonlearned wrote: »

Definitely second the advice to scrutinise the details thoroughly - the standard of English these days......:rotfl:

My original details when sent to me had the words "spacious and well maintained" three times in one sentance. When I suggested they use a thesaurus they didn't know what one was - as for punctuation.....

Lets hope you didn't have to use the word "sentence" in your particulars

lessonlearned

sammyjammy wrote: »

Lets hope you didn't have to use the word "sentence" in your particulars

Ooooops :rotfl:

Just a typo - I can spell.....

lessonlearned

sammyjammy wrote: »

Lets hope you didn't have to use the word "sentence" in your particulars

Ooooops :rotfl:

Just a typo - I can spell.....honest.:o

Edited - unfortunately I'm just useless with computers - hence posting the same thing twice.

sammyjammy

I was actually amazed I was the first to notice given the "conversation".

googler

phoebe1989seb wrote: »

Definitely agree with what Lesson said re: square footage - it always cheeses me right off when there's no total for square footage included in house particulars and I'd also prefer it if estate agents included info such as price per square foot too.

Sorry, but these need to be duplicated in square metres and price per sq m for them to mean something to all potential buyers.

lessonlearned

Of course - younger buyers will think in metric . It's just ancient old crones like me who still use imperial measurements. :rotfl:

moneyistooshorttomention

Loft - point taken re not stating words converted to storage room. It's just stating boarded/pull-down ladder/light - ie draw your own conclusions and realise that it is one iyswim.

Estate agent came back this afternoon and took 2 new photos of backyard and a new photo of front of house automatically (as this time there was no car parked in front:)). Rest of photos fine and with just enough "added personal interest" that house doesn't look bland (not the twigs or words like "Home" - but just a few touches to show character and colour - ageing hippy type in my case LOL).

She gave me paper particulars so far and I criss-crossed my way through them amending to exact wording I require and changing the measurements (my main bedroom is about 14' long, not about 12' long) and the kitchen was measured out as shorter than it is so that length needed amending too.

Pointed out that I cant put "safe" in front of "convenient location" - even if some people would understand me to mean "This house is highly unlikely to flood ever" as they would get in trouble if an odd out of the blue something or other came up and it did flood. Darn...wanted that word in there...but they will point out that its highly unlikely to flood ever during viewings.

I think it's just as well to have overall house measurement in both square metres and square feet. That way everyone is happy - people like me who think in feet and can't visualise that number of square metres and those who think in metres.

If all estate agents put a price per square foot, that would cater for the majority of customers way of looking at measurements. Actually though - even if only price per square metre was put up by all house details it would be perfectly possible for a customer to whip out their calculator and divide 50, 75, 100, 1000 square metres or whatever it was by the number of £s being charged and make comparisons of value for money spacewise between different properties. I do believe that - with ever more pressure on housing - that the time will come and before long at that when this will be the norm. Personally I think it's forward thinking to insist that square meterage/square footage for whole house must be given on house details and those who don't are living in the past or hiding how small their property is.

I expect my amended details are there now on my email - so must have a looksee in a minute and then forward them to a good friend in case they notice any points I haven't.

lessonlearned

Re EA's not showing total square footage or if you prefer "meterage".

This is just historical, no real reason behind it. There is nothing sinister behind this. EA's just use a different set of criteria when arriving at a valuation.

Location of course, as we all know, :rotfl: local amenities, general presentation, number of bedrooms - that kind of thing. They don't have to take build costs into consideration.

Of course as we all know there's no science behind an EA's valuation - it's often "Let's try £X and see how we go".

New developments' marketing literature and brochure do generally display square footages, but not actual price per square foot.

This is because prices change throughout the build period of the development and with each new phase of releases. This is partly to reflect increased build costs but also of course to take advantage of any market rises. The brochures and house particulars would have to be scrapped every time there was a price change and they are just too expensive to do this.

One of the sales negotiator's jobs on a new build development is to do a monthly Competitors Report so that the Production Dept can monitor build costs. Among the myriad of questions they have to ask the competitors is the price of each property, plot by plot, house type by house type. The negotiator then has to work out the square footage costs for each plot and report them back to their own head office. Of course not all competitors are happy to divulge that information. The negotiator has to build and maintain good relationships with the competition in order to get to the truth.......

In general in the UK most people - vendors and purchasers alike - even EA's - tend not to think in terms of square footages, unlike in the States or Oz, where people seem a lot more clued up about them.

The only people who pay them much heed are developers/architects/quantity surveyors etc. This is because they have to factor in build costs and maintain profit margins. No point building and then selling at a loss. EA's don't have to think in those terms - to them build costs are irrelevant.

I still think that figures can be useful though, because it is a good way of measuring, quantifying and comparing "space".

phoebe1989seb

googler wrote: »

Sorry, but these need to be duplicated in square metres and price per sq m for them to mean something to all potential buyers.

......apologies, was merely being concise - our details did of course have both square metres and square feet as I would expect any potential purchases to also have

phoebe1989seb

lessonlearned wrote: »

Of course - younger buyers will think in metric . It's just ancient old crones like me who still use imperial measurements. :rotfl:

I don't consider myself to be an ancient old crone (as I'm sure you're not either Lesson!) being in my mid forties, but still end to think in *old money* when it comes to measurements, lol!