ABCDiamond

Just thought i'd mention one of my house selling experiences, as it may assist in your situation.

We had some viewers, with the agent leading the "tour", but it didn't feel it was going well, the buyers didn't seem to be getting interested enough, so I took the agent to one side, and left the buyers with my wife.

They bought the house

I do feel that the owners can often push the property more, and give the buyer better answers, not least because they are more motivated than the agent, but also because they know the house better than the agent.

Sleeping Beauty

our estate agent has never done any viewings. they did mumble something about right at the beginning, when they are all sweetness and light and are trying tot get your business. however, i would sooner do this myself.

good luck, any further update yet?

DagBoy

This one is easy - when he points that out you just say thanks for your concern, but what on earth made you think you were going to be one of the agents?

As for the rest - report him to the professional body for estate agents (oooh I do hate using the words professional and estate agent in the same sentence) for the stamp duty suggestion and dump him for being a tosser and try and find an agent that cares. I was really lucky - I had an excellent agent (small local firm) who looked after everything for me (I was over here and it took 18 months to sell because of a dispute with the neighbour) and they did all the showing, kept an eye on the property, liaised with my solitors and insurance firms and kept me updated by email.

Anyway - good luck with it - everything is so much easier over here in Qld.

Cheers,

DagBoy

soapy©

I used a few tricks I got from my brother. A lot of people don’t mention they are moving to Oz. We did, right or wrong it doesn’t matter now. But here are the tips I got.
Pointing at the long window to the back garden and saying………..if we were not moving to Oz, our next move was to fit patio doors there. Then in the attic….if we were not……..
We would have converted the attic. Shit like that. They fall for it, they cant help it

coxfamuk

Further update:

Well, the people came back with a counter offer which we refused again. We reduced our minimum by £5k, meeting them half way and are waiting for them to come back with an answer. We went into our agents and expressed our immense dissatisfaction at the suggestion of avoiding tax. They wholeheartedly agreed and said that they had already told the viewer that they would not be party to it. Apparently, the viewer said that he would go above board and pay the stamp duty (so was obviously chancing his arm). So we are really now just waiting to see if they are prepared to up their original offer by £10K as we have dropped our original asking price by £20K and are prepared to drop it another £5K but no more. Hopefully, we will hear tomorrow.

Thanks for all the encouraging words and excellent suggestions and please keep your fingers crossed we will be opening our champagne tomorrow night!

Sarah

Sleeping Beauty

thanks for the update sarah. fingers crossed for them upping their offre and everything going smoothly.

michelle

coxfamuk

I agree with this, but sometimes it has not been practical for us to be here, so we have just let the agent do it. I think in future though we will do it ourselves (if we don't sell it tomorrow, that is )

coxfamuk

Update : spoke with the agents this morning and they said that they have left numerous messages with the viewers. They feel that the viewers are playing a bit of a dutch auction, trying to make us sweat. (secretly, it is working because we just want to sell the house). However, we have said that we have met them half way and if they want to play it that way, then we will simply walk away - we are certainly not going to be held to ransom.

It is so annoying though because the market is so dead and you do start to wonder if you should just cut your losses for the sake of £5K, but when we first started to look into going to Australia, not realising how dead the market was to become, we based all our workings on getting £300K for our house (we have a mortgage of £200K), we have dropped £25K and to drop another £5K would just mean too much money lost on the other side. We feel that for the fact that there is no chain, our house is bigger proportioned than any other in the area and they can just move in, surely that must be worth the extra £5K. So here we sit feeling sick because we may be so close to selling, but yet so damn far.

Good luck to everyone else who has houses to sell. It is a horrible jungle out there with cut throat people who can sense blood a mile off and are wantonly going for the jugular.

Sarah

charlie brown

hi, hope it all terns out well in the end , thay are trying to make you swet. i am sure that it wil be alright . cb no worries as thay say

Lindsay Clan

Keeping our fingers crossed for you Sarah, hang in there - it will all come good in the end!!!

Lorraine

Aus4us

Hi!!

We can totally understand where you stand
At some point you have to draw the line, at the end of the day the house is valued at a price so why should we have to sell it well under value to secure a sale!!!! So bloody unfair!!!!
We have gone through the same rollercoaster of questioning selling MUCH lower to get the sale but decided not to at the moment.
It is just a nightmare!!
Hope things get better soon

Roni

coxfamuk

Thanks very much. It is a real rollercoaster. We are in a quandry as although we haven't got the visa yet, we do not want to be in a position to be able to go, but can't because we haven;t sold the house. Dave and I had to have a real hard talk this morning and look at what the market is doing in our area and to be honest, it has hit a real slump. I think in the last 4 months only a handful of properties have sold and none in the last 2 months. People know it is a buyers market and there is no guarantee it isn't going to get any worse.

The buyers wouldn't budge on their offer of £270k which is £30K below what we were hoping for but perhaps this is indicative of the current market, as unfortunate as that is. We have asked for a reduction in commission from the agent to try and win some money back, but we are not hopeful (they have to ok it with their manager). I think there is a good chance we will just accept the lower offer and be done with it. They can sense it I think and have played us very well, but at this point, we don't care. We are looking at it as one less stress we have to think about (only, God help us if we don't get the visa!).

Anyway, will let you know how it goes.

Sarah

x nomad

That sounds like a very sensible and pragmatic approach - before I say anything else, yes I occasionally post on HPC so stop reading if you want. I am also thinking of spending a couple of years in Oz or New Zealand so read this forum for advise. Dont be too despondant about getting cash of your EA's - I managed it when I sold my flat (I also ended up dropping a considerable amount of my asking price and this was at the so called peak last July) however I had specified at the start that the EA would get 1.5% only if they got full asking price as I knew it was unlikely or 1% if not. However margins are tight at EA's at the moment - they have to meet their targets and make their commision so there is more of a chance of getting cash of than you think.

Although its disapointing you may find in retrospect it was a good decision - I dont know if there will be a price crash but one thing I am certain of is in the coming months there will be more properties on the market and at best the market will be stagnant for the next 6 months.

Good luck in your move - you will find the boot will be on the other foot depending on where you are going to in OZ as they are having similar problems to us but are more advanced in the timescale.

Feel free to slag me off

bridiej

I think "stagnant" markets seem to vary depending on a) where you live and b) price of the house.

Another house that went up for sale around the same time as ours also sold very quickly, again because it was sensibly priced. Our neighbours are STILL trying to sell (14 months anniversary coming up!) and veiwers are now a trickle purely because they wont drop the price.

I also think that some of the larger houses are generally not shifting as quick, as it seems 2 / 3 bedroom places are selling but 4+ bedrooms are just sitting there.

Let's hope the interest rate is cut again to try and get things moving.

x nomad

i wont comment on the above as a HPC poster - I am bound to wind you up, but your right some areas appear to be Ok. I wouldnt bank on that interest rate cut if I was you though - also start to look out for a massive credit crunch coming soon, and negative YOY accross the board by October - will shut up now though as all this is speculative and off topic.