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Quick Sale Good News Story

I have been a long time lurker on these forums and have learnt a lot from the helpful (and sometimes funny) people here. So I thought I should give a bit back and tell you my story of selling our house.

When people ask how long the conveyancing process will take, they are often chided to be patient as everything moves at its own pace. I believe my tale shows that everyone can move quickly if motivated.

Our house is 'difficult to sell' in that it's a nice 4 bed detached house but in the wrong location on a relatively busy road. It's 70 years old and needs a new kitchen & boiler (18 years old), but everything works and is perfectly usable.

Timeline:

4th June - Property on the market
11th June - 1st offer, buyer not put their house on market yet, so declined
22nd June - 2nd offer, £5k under asking price, accepted
1st July - Survey conducted, buyer happy with it
19th July - Contracts exchanged :j
8th August - Completion

So from offer to exchange - 4 weeks. It was a short chain.

Here's what we felt helped move everything along:
  1. Staging. We spent a couple of weeks decluttering. Moved loads of books, dvd's, photos etc into storage or threw away. I put a lick of paint on a couple of the walls, but nothing major - didn't even buy paint just used what we had.
  2. Pricing. We had 2 valuations and chose the lower with a view to probably achieving 5% under that.
  3. We chose a local estate agent who knew the area well and understood the problems our house had (Purple bricks has a similar house on the market at £115k more - not sold 4 months on).
  4. Viewings. Estate agent did the viewings, even though I thought I would do a better job. I took the dogs out instead!
  5. We agreed to move into rented accommodation so our buyers didn't lose their buyer who was pushing for quick move.
  6. Our buyers were very pragmatic, they didn't worry that the surveyor said the house may need a rewire - didn't ask for a price drop.
  7. We wanted to use the solictors in our small town but the buyers got there first! So we used the same firm, different branch a couple of miles away - meant the lawyers had no reason not to communicate with each.
I realise that not everyone will be able to rent like we will, or their buyers might not be so amenable, but it shows that the legal part of it can be done quite quickly.

Now we've just got to do it all over again for the purchase of our next home :D

Comments

  • Splatfoot
    Splatfoot Posts: 593 Forumite
    Fifth Anniversary 500 Posts Name Dropper
    Ah well done and congratulations. ☺☺ Those small details such as decluttering and painting work wonders! And obviously, your house was priced right. good luck with your future purchase, let's hope it's as quick!
  • AdrianC
    AdrianC Posts: 42,189 Forumite
    Eighth Anniversary 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Wow, that's quick. Glad it all worked out for you.
  • chunkytfg
    chunkytfg Posts: 850 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 500 Posts
    Thats quick. well done.
    Those who risk nothing, Do nothing, achieve nothing, become nothing
    MFW #63 £0/£500
  • ethank
    ethank Posts: 2,197 Forumite
    Holiday Haggler I've been Money Tipped!
    Well done. Congrats!
  • Congratulations, good luck finding your new homex
  • RelievedSheff
    RelievedSheff Posts: 12,691 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Sixth Anniversary Name Dropper Photogenic
    We had a similar quick sale.

    We part exchanged our old house against a new build that was complete and ready to move into. We spent a few days decluttering and painting prior to the valuations to ensure that we got a fair price. This worked and we got what we thought was a great price for the house.

    The developers, BDW, put the property our old house on the market straight away. We had five viewings in a couple of days and the property sold to the first people that viewed it within a few days.

    We exchanged and completed on the new build within four weeks of first seeing and reserving it. Just under four weeks even as we moved in over the Easter break so completed on the Thursday!
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