The 300k debt-free diary!!!

Shineyhappy

Well assuming that people would want a bargain you have to add some extra on to allow them to knock you down. If you would accept 250 + 10k then I would put it up for sale for 280 but state open to offers so people may then offer you 250 = 10 and also think they are saving 10k. Your best bet is to speak to the agents so they know thats what you will take.

Or you could drop the price to 260k and try selling it privately maybe?

pandapaws

It has been on at various prices from 269 to 287 since Feb, and currently on at 279, having made it clear that we'll consider offers.

Have come up with the idea that instead of dropping to below 250, we might just drop the price slightly to 275 and offer Stamp Duty Paid - that way it can be aggressively marketed (do estate agents do aggressive marketing, or any marketing for that matter?!) as 'Reduced in price, Stamp Duty paid, quick sale required' or something similar.

That way we'll be getting more than if we'd just dropped the price to 250, even after paying out either 2 or 3% (depending on what agents advise/we decide), it benefits buyer as it is less hard cash they need to find, and it might just get a little bit of interest in a completely stagnant market!

This is starting to drive me totally insane!

Shineyhappy

Have you had any feedback from the agents? I would ask the agents for as much critism as they can offer. Do the rooms need repainting? Does the bathroom need cleaning? Is there too much clutter? I think people expect perfection nowadays so I would spend time House Doctoring and cleaning as much as you can.

How long has it been on the market for?

pandapaws

We've had loads of feedback - the agent lives in a very similar house to ours and said ours put her to shame! To be honest, it is a tip most of the time, but for the photos etc we did a real clean up, and we spend at least a full day cleaning and stashing so the place looks pretty-much perfect. We even do gardening now!!!

Been on the market since March, and changed agents last month. It really is a stagnant market around us at the moment, nothing selling at all. This has been confirmed by every agent we have spoken to.

I asked for advice on the house-selling board a couple of months ago, and got the same comments - several people had a look on rightmove for me, and all responses were fairly positive - everyone came back to price as the only thing that might make a difference (if you're really bored, see: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=527166).

Agents have confirmed there's nothign wrong with the price, and I rang them today to ask about dropping it, and they told us not to. We are going to offer stamp duty paid and they're going to arrange an open weekend and advertise it in the property paper, so we'll see how that goes.

I'll PM the Rightmove link to you Shiney, and if anyone else wants to have a nosey just give me a shout and I'll forward it - any feedback welcomed!

lunar

hope you have more luck offering the stamp duty, at least that way you wont loose as much as if you dropped the price. your pregnancy seems to be passing quickly, you will be a family of 4 before you know it!

pandapaws

lunar wrote: »

hope you have more luck offering the stamp duty, at least that way you wont loose as much as if you dropped the price. your pregnancy seems to be passing quickly, you will be a family of 4 before you know it!

NO CHANCE!!! After sitting up for 3 hours last night with a nearly-3 year old screaming for no reason other than pure badness (honestly, he does that!) there's absolutely NO WAY that there'll be another one after No 2! And starting to wonder if having a No2 was a ridiculous idea in the first place given how much hard work No 1 is!

Just filled in my spending diary - d'oh.:eek:

chocaholic110

pandapaws wrote: »

NO CHANCE!!! After sitting up for 3 hours last night with a nearly-3 year old screaming for no reason other than pure badness (honestly, he does that!) there's absolutely NO WAY that there'll be another one after No 2! And starting to wonder if having a No2 was a ridiculous idea in the first place given how much hard work No 1 is!

Just filled in my spending diary - d'oh.:eek:

He he, are you having a pregnancy moment? Think she means family of four as in you, OH, No1 and No 2, not that you will be having two more babies after this one!


= family of four.

pandapaws

:rotfl:

Every moment is a pregnancy moment these days!!!

Will pay more attention in future when hubby is teaching 2yr old to count to 10 (as I'm clearly no longer fit for that job!)

pandapaws

Ok, we've been sort-of naughty, but sort-of sensible: we've just bought a new car!

It isn't actually brand new, but a 3yr old Citroen Picasso. Cost £4995 and got an excellent 0% deal over 5 years on it, which will cost us just £83 a month. The salesman didn't actually want to sell it to us once he had realised that he wasn't going to make a penny as we refused numerous warranties, GAP, PPI and about a million other extras they tried to sell, and initially tried to tell us credit at 0% had been declined, but approved at 14.9% - yeah, right!!! So we insisted he put it through again and funnily enough, it was accepted!

Felt a bit bad, as it has taken our debt back to over 80k by quite a bit (fully updated sig & SOA to follow ASAP), ...BUT we'll be saving well over £100 a month in fuel alone (old car did about 20mpg, this one averaging 40ish so far) and it is just like new, fully serviced, mint condition. Spoke to previous owner (eldrely Motability lady with nothing to gain by lying) and she says she never had any bother with it, so that'll hopefully save us shelling out on repairs which would have been inevitible otherwise.

And it is SO nice to have a decent car again! With toddler and baby-on-way, we need a decent sized, reliable, clean car and the old one was on last legs. We'll be keeping our other old car for as long as we can, until it packs in (its done 190k), but sadly will always need 2 cars for work. Old one that this is replacing is virtually worthless - might get a couple of hundred on Ebay but nothing to get overly excited about sadly.

So (the self-justification:) it was a bit naughty to purchase on finance when we're trying to clear debt, but it was a reasoned, thought-through purchase of something that we needed, at a good price. It isn't our dream car by any means, but I love it more than if I'd bought something fantastic, simply because it was sensible and won't totally derail our plans!

Tomorrow: MUST do that revised SOA, as loads of things have changed this week. Dreading looking at the total though.

lunar

its the long term that you need to think of with the debt, which is what you have done, if it will save you so much in fuel and was something you needed then it will pay for its self in time and your debt will come down further as a result.

have you had any news on the house yet?