Help me sell our home

lincroft1710

ProDave wrote: »

Well you mention "Barn / Shed" Faced with that description, people will be disappointed to find just a small ordinary shed.

In that part of the world the word "barn" is used to mean a shed. Probably less commonly used than it was 40 years ago.

Potton is an odd little place, it has a small market square with shops, but otherwise is more like a village. It is about 4 miles from Biggleswade and Sandy which both have stations on the Kings Cross line and 12 miles from Bedford which has very frequent trains to St Pancras. It is only 17 miles to Cambridge.

Littlebobo1981

There is some fence missing ( we decided against fencing that area on the basis i wanted to be able to watch my son play in the garden ) anyway the fence is going back up ..hoping to get it done asap..

And yes it is an odd little place but we love it

RobertoMoir

lincroft1710 wrote: »

Potton is an odd little place, it has a small market square with shops, but otherwise is more like a village. It is about 4 miles from Biggleswade and Sandy which both have stations on the Kings Cross line and 12 miles from Bedford which has very frequent trains to St Pancras. It is only 17 miles to Cambridge.

It's not that far from me tbh. It should be relatively popular commuter territory, we've seen North Beds become more of a commuter hotspot lately. We Exchanged on a house yesterday and sold ours, and when we put that up for viewings we had people from London down for a look and we're not that near the local train station... but it's a nice run, seat guaranteed, to Kings Cross and back from our local station. Potton itself is a nice little place, albeit a bit "odd" as you say, but not in a bad way.

Cakeguts

Littlebobo1981 wrote: »

There is some fence missing ( we decided against fencing that area on the basis i wanted to be able to watch my son play in the garden ) anyway the fence is going back up ..hoping to get it done asap..

And yes it is an odd little place but we love it

Does that mean that your son was playing in your neighbour's garden?

Littlebobo1981

He does run around my neighbors garden on occasion and has also been known to join in the odd water fight with us in summer too my neighbor has also also held parties in our garden and BBQ's etc, as i said we all get along very well !

moneyistooshorttomention

Agree with all the points about having garden clear and distinct and having floorplan/explanation re garden - and your house is still worth less because the garden is offset (maybe not so much because of it not being bang outside back door - but having to go over someone else's land to get to it).

In the description - my reaction to "Rewired x years ago" translated into "Yeh...I had my current house rewired - or so I thought - but I've got an electrician checking his way through it right now (having had a couple of things going wrong since) and he tells me it hasnt been:eek::mad::eek::mad: - as there are lots of old wires still in use." So there's rewired (as some of us thought we had) and really rewired. On my last house the vendor told me "Rewired 7 years ago" and it hadnt been. If its had a proper rewire - then I'd provide the proof that it had really been. NB; Not enough to say "It was done by an electrician in the NIC/EIC" - as I've found on checking that my first one is no longer in that (presumably chucked out by them!).

Re water meter to be fitted - I dont know why this has been mentioned? As a buyer I'd be assuming that, of course, it had already been done and I'd wonder why it was being mentioned as yet to be done. Suggest you get it done.

Littlebobo1981

No Idea why they have mentioned the water meter TBH, it's just something that we have been waiting on and received a letter saying it was being done so when she asked i advised her they are going to do this ?

As for the rewiring we have the cert ...my dad's a trainer for the NIC so i'm confident that it was done properly and we have all the docs to back it up

Husband has said that we will change agent in the new year ..until then we are going to focus on getting bits you have mentioned done and having yet another go at getting rid of 'stuff' do think we will look at the price too but this does put us in a real difficult position when looking at other properties locally

Going to look at potentially ripping out the kitchen but just worried about the cost ..as believe it or not we have already spent 2.5k on the kitchen ..

Anyway really appreciate all the comments, wished i had posted on here before we put it up tbh as stupidly i believed estate agents gave a valuation based on what other 'similar' properties went for ..this is the only property in the area like this so not sure where they plucked it from !..

Other issue is that we have had an offer accepted on another property with the agent we have ours up for ..should have possibly mentioned that ?!

JoJo1978

If you are planning to change agents anyway I would seriously consider withdrawing it from the market now to 'rest it' and give it a chance to drop out of people's current searches. This will help it to appear fresh and new when it goes up again. Trust me, anyone who is already seriously interested but not booked a viewing yet will call up your current agent.

When you go up with a new agent don't lock yourself in a contract for more than 6-8 weeks so that you're more in control if you want to change again. Before coming off the market request that your current agent provides you with a full list of enquiries and viewings. When we received ours it was obviously made-up in parts and confirmed we were right to change. The person actually buying our house now viewed with the first agent but waited until it went back on the market again and refused to deal with the first agent (despite this being the norm.)

Are your agents doing viewings or are you showing people round? If you think you can sell its quirkiness better why not suggest that you do the viewings, or maybe the second viewings. Your passion for why you loved it and made it work will shine through, even if in their head they have reservations from the online info. Those photos are key though, you won't get people in the door if they are put off at the online stage.

Good luck, I also empathise. We were on with our first agent for 4 weeks before we even got a viewing. We were locked in contract for eight more weeks and had five further first viewings, no seconds or offers. We took it down for two weeks, changed agents, re did photos and completely changed the description. Five viewings in a week and 3 offers. We hope to exchange next week, finally, after going on the market in May.:rotfl:

Littlebobo1981

Yeah we are locked in at the moment so can't remove it yet

I always thought that having me doing the viewings would really put people off..plus i kind of feel like i'm paying them but yeah wouldn't hesitate if they thought that it might help sell the home !

Anyway, don't have much choice to wait until after xmas now so can get what we can done in that time and then take it off for a few weeks and put it back out there looking more organised and hopefully it will sell !

JoJo1978

Oh yeah just remembered - in the last two weeks of our contract with first agent we requested they remove from their website and withdraw from Rightmove. We were technically still for sale with them but no one seeing it.

In that time we went and sighed the paperwork with new agents and started the contract a day after our old one ended IYSWIM. So we never really came off the market although it would have looked to online viewers that we had. Don't expect the old agent to do anything in those last days though...they realised then they were being ditched!

Also don't worry that the house you've offered on is with them. Your offer is to the vendor, just through them. If they lose you as a vendor they should surely work extra hard to make sure your purchase goes through so they don't lose them as a vendor too?! Business is business