Diary of a House Search

lessonlearned

Just a quickie - you can check the stats yourself on RM. They might give you a better picture of what's happening. I do think it is the first port of call for most people.

Those Zoopla figures look low to me, however don't panic, RM's are likely to be much higher.

I know you are impatient to see some action but it is still early days.
You are still within your 14 day window.

Time yet......

No house hunting or EA chasing today.

Have now got enough viewings booked for the present. Nothing booked for my parent's property.

Apparently when they went to view the complex yesterday both my parents needed to be ferried round in wheelchairs. Regrettably I do believe their days of independent living are drawing to a close and a nursing home is the way forward.

How on earth my sister and I are going to take this forward I shudder to think. Apparently my dad was very emotional yesterday - whilst my poor mum was away with the fairies. I think he is well aware of what is required - he just can't bear to face it.

I cannot begin to tell you how awful it is to see you parents like this.

As for my poor OH. I had a call from one of his old friends, who wants to see him asap. I mentioned to her that I have been unable to contact J. one of OH's childhood friends. J is very sweet but vague and flaky at times.

I didn't need to explain why I needed him to visit OH sooner rather than later she had the good sense to understand without me having to spell it out....

Right - time to shake a leg, no time for wallowing in self pity. Time to start the day.

Off to see my physio today. Fancy paying to be tortured :rotfl::rotfl:

Laters ......

BabyMad

Hello Lessonlearned!

Thank you for your diary, I have enjoyed reading it to date and wish you luck with your property searches, I'll be following with interest.

I am in the process of trying to sell my house and wondered how you see the Rightmove statistics and how many viewings you've had on Zoopla etc please?

I've been quite pleased with my EA so far - a small, new independent agent who is running his own business jointly with his business partner. I'm hoping as it is their own business it is more important to them and no sale, no fee, no wages will motivate them. The communication is good but I think I will get a friend to phone up and request an out of hours/Sunday viewing as all of the viewings have been during the day so far which I'm surprised about.

lessonlearned

Hi just had a thought.

When I put my house on the market I paid my EA an extra fee of £200, up front non re-fundable, so that I could have a premium listing on RM. This is where your advert goes in a special box, with a red flash and it ensures your property remains at the top of the page or above the headline thingy or whatever - ifyswim. Anyway it means you get a prominent position. Just like paying for a boxed advert in a newspaper.

Anyway I thought for the sake of £200 it was worth a gamble, especially as I negotiated that if I paid the £200, they would chuck the EPC certificate in for free, which they did. If you don't ask you don't get.:D

I think the facility to view your own RM stats is probably only available with premium listings. I'm not entirely sure.

If my memory serves me well I think I averaged between 100 to 150 hits per day. To my knowledge my property only appeared on RM although TBH I can't recall and I didn't check so am assuming my EA didn't use Zoopla. I could be wrong.

Money is registered with Zoopla.

Babymad - glad to hear that you are getting on well with your EA.

I think you could well be right - the small independent EA's are likely to be more flexible and more imaginative than the chains. I think the big nationwide chains have to toe the line with their head offices and this leaves little room for flexibility and innovation. I also think that the indies can be better equipped to adapt to their own local markets.

I started my EA career within a small independent firm. There were six offices in our little chain, all local. Each office was more or less autonomous and did it's own thing. The reason for this was because the areas varied so much, what would have worked in head office smack bang in the city centre would not have been appropriate in the sleepy little seaside town where I was based.

My immediate boss was an ex-army man, a bit of an impoverished aristo, delightful, charming, easy going and bone idle. He left the bulk of the work to us "girls" - two of us and we more or less ran the show. Mind you we weren't bothered we just did what we liked. And he was always treating us to cakes and biscuits. He always gave us extra days off, Christmas Shopping Days, Royal Weddings, it's snowing, the sun is shining, whatever.

"You girls go off and enjoy yourselves, I'll hold the fort". He spent most of his time smoking and reading the paper. When he did stir himself he would swan round the town and hang around the swanky hotels. Mind you he did drum up business that way .......

His boss, the head honcho who owned the chain, was a different matter. He was a religious nut, a miser who counted every penny, if he smiled it would have cracked his face.

Head Honcho despaired of our slapdash and spendthrift ways, having the heating on, too many lights on, having cake with our tea, and sin of sins, laughing and joking with our customers. He particularly disliked our "office cat" who liked to sleep in our window display. Miserable so and so.

However, we were the best performing branch, with the highest sales figures in the group so he daren't say a word.

He just had to accept our little quirks and suffer in silence.:rotfl:

PS Just had a call from EA re viewing Mad Cat Lady's house. Apparently we have to postpone. She is attending a cat show this weekend and needs time to prepare!!!!

Obviously her cat activities are far more important than selling her property.........

Mad Cat Lady would seem to be an entirely appropriate nickname. I give up.

If she postpones again then she's out of the frame. Plenty more fish in the sea.

moneyistooshorttomention

Grinned a bit to myself re American standards of service for EA's from the sound of it.

I had a 2nd phonecall today from one of the estate agents in Future Location checking how I'm doing and duly told him mine is now on the market and he's planning on ringing me back again soon to check progress. I have the distinct impression that some of my househunting there will consist of him plonking me in a seat in his car and driving me round their properties - okay I'll go with that if thats the case. In his first phonecall to me he quite correctly identified the particular part of this Location that I have decided would be most suitable for me personally - and I hadnt said a word - or rather I had said quite a few words, but none about where in particular there I have in mind. But he told me quite specifically "THAT is the area I think you will like" Got me sussed in one then....:rotfl:

...and he does have a transatlantic accent. I think he's British, but has spent some time working across the pond...

jibbyboo

My 3rd viewing went really well! Got some time alone with the vendor before EA arrived, and was able to tell them about the downfall of the EA and the boiler. Their response "that's ridiculous, 5 minutes of gas will cost nothing".

Also took my handyman, and got him to turn it on, plus asked my plumber who said the boiler make is reliable.

I sneakily asked the vendor what the lowest offer they would accept would be - and slightly daftly, I was told "I would accept £XXX. Ideally I'd like £XX2, but I would accept £XXX".

MB is working everything out for me today. I now understand what everyone means when they say getting a mortgage and a house is one of life's most stressful experiences. It's the only thing on my mind at the moment, leaving very little room for anything else.

Looking forward to it being over and done with.

Hope everyone else is getting on well too!

J

moneyistooshorttomention

Crikey - that vendor hadnt been round the block at all had they to tell you the lowest price they would accept! I'm guessing they're still pretty young....

Hopefully I'll have my offer on the table to go with soon and can view places confident of having my buyer "in hand" and I'm still giggling at having been told who my first viewer will be by the estate agent and feeling a bit more confident than I was...Might as well have a giggle about it now, because if this one takes it then I'll have to summon up a bit of "dutch courage" first before telling my parents his name....knowing the reaction will be "pure ice" and "why didnt you at least wait for another buyer?".

jibbyboo

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Crikey - that vendor hadnt been round the block at all had they to tell you the lowest price they would accept! I'm guessing they're still pretty young....

Surprisingly this was a middle aged woman, probably in her 60s, who is a part-owner of the property (there are five-siblings that own it altogether). She's never lived there, so I assume must have a property of her own. It did seem a little naive to phrase it the way she did, and I put it to her "you probably won't want to tell me this but...".

Has made me want to offer a little more, but I can't put myself out financially solely because she would like extra.

moneyistooshorttomention

jibbyboo wrote: »

Surprisingly this was a middle aged woman, probably in her 60s, who is a part-owner of the property (there are five-siblings that own it altogether). She's never lived there, so I assume must have a property of her own. It did seem a little naive to phrase it the way she did, and I put it to her "you probably won't want to tell me this but...".

.

Ah....I see...she's only going to get a one-fifth share of the money anyway...so maybe sees no reason to do things anything other than the quickest/easiest way possible for her personally.

Leastways - till the other 4 siblings "have a go" at her because their money is less than it otherwise would be...because she didnt get the maximum price possible for this property.

I wouldnt want to be in her shoes when they realise that....:eek:

DaftyDuck

... unless, of course, she's actually got her wits about her, and the price she "slightly daftly" spurted out was £10k more than she thought she'd get....

jibbyboo

Well they had one offer of the minimum amount, and one £10k below which they said was a "daft" offer. But the person who offered the minimum and they were planning to accept has dropped off the radar, so hopefully stays that way - also hope nothing bad has happened to him either (I don't want to create bad karma!!).

Haven't heard from my MB all day though, which concerns me that there might be problems with my app.... _pale_