Buyers / Viewers from another planet

AnotherJoe

kangoora wrote: »

We had something similar on our 2nd house in the early 90s. We offered £82.5k on a house valued at £87.5k. The owner, a very nice lady, accepted but then had an offer at full asking price from another viewer a couple of days later.

She turned it down, saying she'd already accepted our offer and, besides, she wanted it to 'go to the nice couple with the young baby'

Good strategy. When my daughter was looking at a place and we knew there was some severe competition for it (there was a mini bidding war) I made sure when they went for a second viewing that they took their six month old baby with her just in case it became a close run thing. She did get it, don't know if that made the difference though,

Skiddaw1

A dear friend of mine flatly refused to entertain any offers from investors (this was a few years back when the market was buoyant and at the height of the BTL thing). She was determined to only sell to someone looking for a home (and someone who would be likely to be a good neighbour). Loved that.:)


It is odd though, how liking a potential buyer can make a difference. We were shown around a house by the seller- a lady who was quite vocal about how she hadn't liked most of the people the EA had sent to her and that she wasn't going to sell her house to any old Tom, !!!! or Harry (:)). She was most offended that we arrived for the (pre-arranged) viewing when she was listening to The Archers but she obviously forgave us at some point during the viewing because when we left she told us she'd be willing to sell to us if we wanted to make an offer. She commented that at least I wasn't wearing ridiculously high heels and didn't have nails like talons. :rotfl:

Pricivius

I sold a flat once and took the middle of three offers as I preferred the buyer and she had been trying to buy a flat in the area for months but kept getting outbid. The property went up for sale at 10.30 and she rushed to view on her lunch hour that same day. So I accepted her offer, although it wasn't a hugely significant difference between her offer and the higher offer, it was 4 figures. Back stories can be important!

Paully28

Once went for a viewing and the wife was fine and showed us round. The husband, however, just sat in the garden, and was very rude when we arrived, barking orders from the garden like 'shoes off', 'don't go in there', (exact words).

I have never wanted to give a person money less in my life, and told the EA this when he rang to ask me how the viewing went.

Not sure if they were a divorcing couple, or one wanted to sell, and the other didn't, but awkward to say the least.

Bluntman_1983

I'm pretty sure our 2 year old daughter playing with our vendor's much loved dogs made a bit of difference in her accepting an offer under asking (after already reducing quite significantly from what it was originally on for). Building rapport goes a long way.

My parents bought a fairly substantial house in the mid 90s that was a massive step up for them. The only reason they were able to afford it was because the old lady selling the place liked them so much and the fact that they had described in detail how they would put the time and effort in to doing the place up to standard and in keeping with the age of the property (grade 2* listed from the 1830s). She dropped the price to an almost unbelievable bargain level - boy did it need some work though! I lived in an unheated box room for 2 years before the central heating was extended beyond the front half of the house!

It became a beautiful family home and my parents still live there & love entertaining their grandchildren in it 25 years later. They have poured their hearts, time, elbow grease and a lot of money into bringing it to a standard that the vendor would have been delighted with I'm sure.

Skiddaw1

Bluntman, what a lovely post!

robatwork

Last time we sold was to a lovely young couple.

They offered after 1 visit - inexplicable to me but there you are.

On their second visit many many weeks later, they bought parents, sisters, brother and EA... about 8 people in the house giving various opinions. I felt like I was in a buying house sitcom. If we'd offered them tea & cake we wouldn't have had enough plates. Or cake.

greatgimpo

This one is a selling story. The next door's back garden was the pits with cables, hoses, boat masts, empty Calor gas bottles and loads of other junk that, I felt, could compromise me selling. The neighbours were away on holiday so I took a photo of the mess from my bedroom to see what was visible, nipped round and tidied up the garden, had the viewing, then re-untidied the garden to look the same as the photo so nothing was amiss upon their return a few days later. We sold it and moved 6 weeks later.

Skiddaw1

greatgimpo wrote: »

This one is a selling story. The next door's back garden was the pits with cables, hoses, boat masts, empty Calor gas bottles and loads of other junk that, I felt, could compromise me selling. The neighbours were away on holiday so I took a photo of the mess from my bedroom to see what was visible, nipped round and tidied up the garden, had the viewing, then re-untidied the garden to look the same as the photo so nothing was amiss upon their return a few days later. We sold it and moved 6 weeks later.

Class!!

Slinky

In a former life I worked for a few months as an estate agents. A particular property came up that the manager valued and did all the viewings for. We had no details to give anybody who saw the board and enquired about it, it was arranged viewings only. The vendors accepted an offer from a chap who intended to develop it. However the purchaser's wife hadn't seen it, so my manager asked me to go along with the couple so they could both view it.


I had been pre-warned, but entering through the open back door into the kitchen with chickens wandering in and out through the door at the back of the kitchen was a noose hanging from the ceiling. Through the kitchen into the hallway, with dogs wandering around all the rooms and dogshit adorning the dark red carpet. Off the hall was a large room, with the male vendor lying in a bed with his telly on at the bottom of the bed, and a bottle alongside him. 'Alright to look around mate?' said the purchaser and on we went. Another reception room with a snooker table and an old hot water bottle on top of it. Every room was stuffed with junk. Eventually we made our way upstairs, first floor was more of the same junk, but the top floor was suprisingly clear. Apparently they'd had a fire (the wife set fire to it) but the insurance paid out.


The wife took this all in her stride and they went on and bought the property. I wondered how long it took the vendors to drink the profit.