Expected a quick sale

aaz01

We put our house on the market 3 weeks ago and expected a really quick sale, but feel like we're getting inundated with time wasters.

Our house is 5 years old (includes remainder of NHBC warranty), perfect condition, neutral colours throughout, fully upgraded everything from the builder.
Every time we have a viewing we remove every last bit of clutter from the house, it looks stunning. We don't smoke and no pets. Flooring is like new... Nothing at all needs done to the house.

It's in a really quiet location, big green areas all over, plenty of parking, our house backs onto woodland with a view on to a pond with ducks and swans, etc. We're not overlooked from the front or back, big garden, 3 car driveway, FTTP broadband (300Mbps).

I'm a photographer and did the pictures myself using wide lenses with low distortion and professional lighting setup - they are far better than normal estate agent photos.

It's in Scotland, within commuting range of both Glasgow and Edinburgh.

The estate agent estimated £260k value, the home report value is £255k, we would accept £250k, we've gone with offers over £235k.

Two houses in this development already sold earlier this this year in January... Similar layout and number of bedrooms but 10% smaller, closer to the main road, more overlooked, not NEARLY as nicely prepared as ours... Both 'offers over £235k' like ours. Both sold in under a week, one for £247k and the other for £248k, so I think we're being really fair with our pricing as we wanted a quick sale.

The EA is well respected locally and gets many quick sales in our area, often in under a week.

We've had 10 viewings so far...
3 never answered calls from EA.
2 said it's over their budget (why view it then?)
2 said they'd rather buy in a different town (why view it then?)
1 said the garden doesn't get enough sun (it's South facing, sun literally all day)
1 made a verbal offer for £250k but refused to make it formal... Eventually told us they had an offer accepted on a different house and pulled out.
1 made a formal offer for £245 but with a move-in date of December which is FAR too late for us

I feel like for our local area this is a huge number of uninterested viewers and real lack of serious interest. Things usually sell fast here.
The estate agent seems to agree, they said they expected to set a closing date after just a few days because they thought there would be several good offers.

I realise nobody can give proper advice without seeing our house, but I'd rather stay anonymous online so don't want to share the link.

Is it because of school holidays or something? Do people just stop looking for houses when they gave holidays on their mind?
And what's the deal with all the low-value viewers? Maybe we've made it look too "done up"in the photos and people just want a nosey?

I know 3 weeks isn't much on a national scale, but I can't remember the last time I saw a house in our area sit on the market for more than a few days.

Crashy_Time

New builds lose their value, and people are freaked out in general about the prospect of a No Deal Brexit/JC government/ 2nd Independence ref. IMO.

LawAbiding

I went through 3 weeks off time wasters and my patience was tested, I nearly started to reconfigure the second floor based on feedback from viewers.

Then I had a buyer come, and offer full price!

The house we buying has been on market since August 2018.

You just got to wait for the right buyer...

LawAbiding

P.S share the link and details via local buy and sell pages on Facebook.

My buyer saw it on there not rightmove or my sale board

davidmcn

10 viewings in 3 weeks (and one offer) still sounds pretty good to me. We are in peak summer holiday season for the central belt so that will be part of it.

muhandis

It’s easy for me to say, but I would give it a good few weeks post summer before starting to worry.

diggingdude

It could be one of a million things impossible to know without knowing the property. Just keep at it and maybe it will pick up over the next few months

boo_star

Crashy_Time wrote: »

New builds lose their value, and people are freaked out in general about the prospect of a No Deal Brexit/JC government/ 2nd Independence ref. IMO.

They're certainly not worried around here.

Houses, at least FTB level houses are still being snapped up within a day or two of viewings starting.

aaz01

Thanks for the replies.

I wouldn't say people are being cautious around here - we live in a small town but houses usually sell really fast. A few houses in our development (all under 6 years old) have sold in the last year and all got a decent price well over what was paid new, and sold within a couple of weeks.

At 3 weeks on the market, we now have one of the slowest selling houses in the area, even though we priced it for a quick sale and prepared it immaculately.

PasturesNew

It's a slow market, I sold to my 4th viewer, 3 weeks after it went to market. No viewings for the first 2 weeks, although "one of the most popularly viewed houses on RM" the agent said, "but 0 viewings, which is unusual".

I say "sold to my 4th, 3 weeks after" ... BUT .... they didn't actually make any offer for a further 7 months because .... they were still waiting to sell theirs. They didn't make any offer at the time..... they just knew mine was "the one" and said nothing.

You can only receive/accept an offer from somebody who is actually in a position to buy - and maybe you're not waiting for YOURS to sell, but somebody wants it and is waiting for THEIRS to sell first.

If you're stuck like that, and NEED a quick sale, then you'd need to drop the price so that people who had you on their "I can't afford that/no point viewing it" list suddenly see they can afford it.

If somebody has £250k, they might not view something listed at £260k as they might assume you'd not be ready to drop the price to within their range and if they offered £250k you'd want more.... so they don't bother.

Dymphna60

@aaz01 -
Maybe the EA is being too enthusiastic. Persuading people to view who really aren’t going to buy your house . Wrong town , too expensive ect .
Remember the people that have bought the houses similar to yours can’t buy yours . Some of them probably missed out the first one or 2 so they were already on the EA books waiting for another to come on the market, so very quickly sold .
Just now nobody is waiting to buy your house so you are going to have to wait till somebody wants it . That could be tomorrow, next week you don’t know.
I am sure people are seeing your house on Rightmove and thinking what a lovely house and such lovely photos but if it’s not where they want to live or is in their price range they Won’t buy it .