Put my house on sale about a year ago after I realised I could afford to move to a nicer place after a long time when I couldn't. The house is in need of some renovation (new kitchen and bathroom at least) and the price very much reflects this. It sold within three weeks, £5K below the asking price, which I was happy to accept. Buyer came round twice with an architect and a builder, measuring things and generally being intrusive. Then he pulled out. So back on sale. After a couple of months I accepted another offer. £7K below the asking price. Then they pulled out with no reason. Finally sold it again in last autumn, £10K below asking price, but just want to move on by now, I'll take the hit. Signed the contract just before Christmas, at least on my side... My estate agent called up the solicitors in mid-January to see how things were progressing so they called the buyer, and oh - they're not going ahead. No reason given, blocked my estate agent's number so they couldn't even ask them why.
So now, the estate agent of the house I'm supposed to be buying from senses their fee disappearing into the distance and wants to get in on the act, so I now have two estate agents trying to sell it. They get plenty of people in fair play, but any offers are only about 80% of my (now reduced) asking prices. When I decline, they go up £2000 and give me a sob story about how they can't afford any more. Well, don't waste time going to see houses you can't afford then!
Every day I come home from work and there are cupboard doors open, furniture moved, carpets pulled up. One viewer poked a hole in the plaster in the living room, a finger-sized hole that wasn't there before, and another "broke" the toilet today (the hook connecting the handle to the piston sometimes unhooks if you yank it too quickly). But hang on, why would you flush the toilet in a house you're viewing? What else are they getting up to?
Now I have "a few" questions I have to answer for somebody who's been viewing. By "a few" they actually mean TWENTY-TWO, including such gems as:
Why are you moving? NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS
What are the neighbours like? Well, I'm going to say FANTASTIC
What month is the boiler service due? OH YEAH, THE HOUSE IS EXACTLY WHAT I'M AFTER BUT I REALLY WANT TO MOVE SOMEWHERE THAT HAS ITS BOILER SERVICED IN MAY, NOVEMBER DOESN'T WORK FOR ME I'M AFRAID
People keep telling me that moving house is stressful - it isn't, just really really annoying.
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We’ve sold ours and found somewhere to move to...in a relatively short space of time too...everything is going smoothly thus far but I’m sure something will happen to fuck things up before the end of it.
To put another point of view on things, my ex put our old house on the market just after the new year (she bought me out years ago). It sold within a fortnight at £10k over the OIRO price the agent advertised it. So I guess that tells you a couple of things:
The ex’s house is a high demand area. What’s the market like where you’re selling?
The house was in good decorative order with a decent fitted kitchen and bathrooms and has had sensible additions like a loft extension to maximise it. Would it be worth sinking a bit of money into yours to do some updating? You might find you get a better offer if people can look at it without thinking “I’m going to need to put in a new kitchen” etc.
I use them in my business because they deter wankers.
The reason your ex's house found a buyer is because it was correctly priced. There is always high demand for correctly priced houses, irrespective of location or condition.
I would get the work done and increase the selling price. Its easier to add £20k to a mortgage than try and save the cash for renovations.
Sure, people will want to redecorate to their own taste but a lot of buyers will just want a house in clean, decent move-in condition and then they can do the decorating in their own time. He could put in a white bathroom suite and a neutral kitchen and it would give the house better appeal. It wouldn’t cost a fortune and I’m sure he’d recoup the cost in the selling price. It’s a matter of him having the time, money and energy to do it I guess.
We've just sold our house and the one we've bought needs modernising...and with the Equity we'll have from the sale of ours, we'll have approx 30k to renovate.
As @GuyR said, to buy a "finished" product, it has to have been done to your personal taste, which, more often than not, it isn't.
On the valuation thing. It's not necessarily just the buyers going low, there's a trend for the surveyors to also be under valuing, apparently. We had this problem on the house we have now bought. We bought for 10% less than the original asking price (they had just lowered) and the surveyor valued nearly another 10% under this. So the surveyor was about 20% under what the estate agent originally valued it as. Apparently, at the time the lenders were nervous that house prices would fall and were applying pressure for the surveyors to be more conservative with their valuations, not sure how true this is though.
I think at the moment it's a buyers market. Nothing in our area is moving. Why anyone wants to buy pre-Brexit I have no clue. I'd say it's a big old risk. You might find things improve post 29th March once people know what's going on.
With regards to people poking about, stick a fake severed hand or something in one of the cupboards. If someone is tyre kicking that much they're never going to buy the place anyway. You may as well have some fun with them.
I can't help about the shape I'm in, I can't sing I ain't pretty and my legs are thin
But don't ask me what I think of you, I might not give the answer that you want me to
I had the house valued by two different estate agents originally, and both valued it the same. Both were very confident they could sell it at that price, and indeed, the one I chose managed it in three weeks. So I don't think it's overpriced.
Most of the people who are interested are developers who want to make drastic changes like convert it to two flats to rent. I've seen a few houses that have been bought by developers to sell on and they all look the same - white walls, grey carpets, bare bones kitchen etc. These do seem to appeal to first time buyers though. I have considered doing something like this, but I could do without the hassle and extra expense of finding somewhere to rent for six months while the work is going on.
The problem with selling them to developers is they're easy come easy go. They have £200K in the bank and they're overcome with greed at making a profit, if they see a house that might make them more profit, they change their minds very quickly. This is what happened to me three times.
My problem now is I've spent almost £1000 on search fees and arranging a mortgage for the house I was planning to buy, and I can't afford to drop much more than what I've already dropped it to already. Might have a think about that over the weekend though.
Repainted, emptied the flat and reduced the price for quick sale. Still took 5 months. Then finally we get another buyer, then we get to the contract stage again and they pull out. We had a sink hole appear about 100 yards down the road, so the woman thought it was a sign of the apocalypse and didn't want our flat.
Now we feel beaten and are considering not bothering with selling and just try to deal with living in a 1 bed flat with a kid (don't ask, I tried to get the Mrs to agree to move before we decided to try for a baby, she didn't listen)
and yes our price was in-line with similar properties but in Watford there are literally thousands of new builds going up so the local market is flooded.
House went on the market on the Thursday. We phoned the estate agent on the Friday afternoon. They said they'd already had a verbal offer, and they wouldn't even arrange a viewing for us unless we were in a position to make an offer.
As it was, we were, had a deposit stashed away and an agreement in principle from the bank. Viewed it on the Sunday, it went to closing on the Tuesday at noon. We offered 12.5% over asking and apparently snuck it by a bawhair over the next highest bid.
Seems to work a bit better here? I keep hearing about how f*cked the English system is.