mandymoochops

House looks great on Ebay fingers crossed for you.

Here's what we did.

House on the market for 18 months - not a sniff so thought bollocks to it. Changed the mortgage to interest only and came over as planned anyway.

We have been in a house financed by the company for 3 months but have to move next month and are sending back $1200 per month for the mortgage.

We've found a house to rent but have no furniture, so over the last 3 months have been buying kitchen stuff - basics plates, iron, saucepans etc.

Rent on the new place will be $675 per month so with utilities on both houses we'll be paying out a whopping £2500 per month (and we still have to buy a car / basic furniture (bed, sofa ).

We have decided to go the auction route and get what we need for the bare minimum - not ideal but we're here, the house will sell eventually and its all part of the adventure.

My advice would be see if your employer can help with rental for the first 3 months, it helped us being able to get the basics together (xmas in between didn't help though!) but it allowed some breathing space.

FYI we came over with 2 suitcases, laptop, and £2000 to our name, if we can do it anyone can!

Good luck

thedignans

Hi there,
I think your house looks nice, i don't have any suggestions as to how to do anything else to make it more sale-able. I supose you could reduce the price again and take what you can get to get it off your hands, being a low price may attract a bidding war and it may end up bck up at what your looking for.
Anyway you have my sympathies and I hope it all works out for you.
We did not have that problem as we took a chance that we would be accepted and sold up about 18 months before we got our visas. In that time I fell pregnant and ended up with 4 of us in a 2 bedroom flat, but we got by.
Anyway good luck with everything and try to keep your chin up your new life is aobut to start.
Julie

the_tones_guy

Open day booked for 25th January

the_tones_guy

Okay - possitive steps.

Done:

• Listed house on ebay
• Phoned all agents just now dropped price to £239,000, but making them aware we can accept £235,000
• Open house booked for Saturday 26th Janaury

To be done:

• Unclutter the house and take new photos
• Arrange meeting with bank to negotiate a interest only mortgage over long term and wait for market to cheer up and then get a tennant in

Erm....

Not sure there is anything else I can do!

I did call the local housing association AND the local council and they are NOT running the lease your house long-term scheme.

Any other ideas, keep em comming.

Chris
PS. A BIG thank you for all your possitive messages and advice and the PM's too, I love you all.
C

Beebop

I think you have to be congratulated for taking all the comments on board and taking positive action.

The official defn of value is "what a willing buyer will pay a willing seller" so you are where you are - lots of people would be regretting "lost money" but it was never really there in the 1st place....

ImLivingTheDream

What a load of old drivel

Rob4BC

Oh dear, here we go:
Feng Shui = Homeopathy for Houses?

JonboyE

It is, and it isn't, all at the same time.

A lot of the principles of Feng Shui are very sound. A lot of them are just common sense - at least they are when someone points them out to you.

A western architect will design a house to maximize the natural light, views, surrounding land, and relationship to neighboring properties. A western interior designer will be very conscious of ensuring the home's spaces flow into each other, and that the flow centres on the heart of the home.

If practitioners would just use Feng Shui, and not the Chinese imagery, no one would question it. I guess all the "dragon influences" and "escaping energies" will appeal to the new age types who think that oriental mysticism must be meaningful because it is, well, mysterious. However, to most western ears it just sound like pretentious BS.

Apologies to Paradisefound. You wrote an interesting and informative post. Unfortunately, the way you wrote it is bound to provoke the reaction I quoted.

dingbat

Both a form of bollocks, really. But whatever floats your boat, or sells your house. I'm off to light a joss-stick and chant.

Judy in Calgary

I thought Paradisefound's post was excellent. A lot of Feng Shui principles are, as JonboyE said, common sense.

Daft batty's and other poster's suggestions (removal of bins and car from photo, removal of trampoline to create sense of space in back garden, addition of potted plants to add colour, addition of potted plants near front door, and on and on and on) were all good Feng Shui (whether the posters who made those suggestions knew it or not).

The only difference between those other posters and Paradisefound is that PF actually came out and called it Feng Shui.

I also agree that the eBay text that mentioned the move to Canada had a note of desperation about it. I thought PF's suggestion about ways in which to sweeten the deal, from a prospective buyer's point of view, but without mentioning the move to Canada, was constructive.

I didn't bother to post before this, because any suggestions I would have made already had been covered by other posters.

I'm posting now to state that I agree with PF's advice and to share my opinion that PF's advice in any case is consistent with previous posters' advice, and indeed takes that advice to another (improved) level.

By the way, the house next door to us was on the market this past autumn. My husband and I went in and had a chat with the listing realtor during a Sunday afternoon open house. It was a very quiet afternoon, and my husband and I were the only people there. So we ended up having quite a long chat with the realtor. The three of us discussed the fact that the owners of the house had good taste and the fact that the beautiful interior decor added to the appeal of the house. The realtor said that, because the house was so attractively decorated to start with, he had not found it necessary to recommend any changes to the owners. However, he said that, in the case of an empty house, staging it (renting furniture, lamps, paintings, etc.) adds about $40,000 to the price that one can get for it. (He was talking about the Calgary market.) In that whole discussion, the realtor never once mentioned the term "Feng Shui." But everything he said was consistent with the principles of Feng Shui.

Oh yes, in all that, I forgot about you, Tones. Sorry about that. All the best for the sale of your UK house and your move to Canada.

Londonlady108

Good luck - I know how frustrating it can be - send out positive thoughts - believe it will sell and it will!! eventually!! I had a house in Spain that had a "niche" market - took about 18 months to sell - wow - luckily we did not really need to sell, and when the buyers came it was just what they wanted and they paid asking price in cash. I will watch your ad and wish you luck.

the_tones_guy

Cheers for that,

References to Canada now gone.

BTW, just had 2 offers for it, both 1p, oh I laughed!

C

Ontheboatout

That's strange....it seems to have kept Disney Inc. in good stead. They're not the sort of company to spend cash without a good reason.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/04/...ess/disney.php

There's probably many others (Richard Branson uses it, did I hear?) but they keep it quiet because of responses as in this thread

There are very many eastern immigrants living and coming to Canada and I think perhaps there should be more openmindedness about Eastern Culture if you plan to move here.

Proof of the pudding is it appears to have worked against all odds. Interesting.

Londonlady108

I lived in Taiwan for a year - trust me Feng Shui is no laughing matter there - big buildings are started on certain days and deals postponed. Stories of bad FS are all around and are not taken lightly - when you think about how many people in live in China and how many Chinese live around the world - that is a lot of people who believe in it! Acupuncture has also been proved as real science - and that is older than time, food for thought.

Judy in Calgary

Quite a funny thing happened here on my street. A house down the road was sold. Soon after the moving truck had arrived and the Sold sign had been taken down, workmen arrived. They tore up the front yard (garden), and created a complete new design. This even involved removing one big old tree and substituting it with another species.

I could see immediately that Feng Shui principles were being followed, down to the letter. It was as if someone had taken out a Feng Shui text book and used a checklist of design elements.

I hadn't seen the new owners, but guessed that they might be Chinese. I floated out that hypothesis to my husband.

Then, one Saturday, I saw a Caucasian man working in the garden, and I assumed he was the husband / father. I came home and told my husband that the guy who had moved in down the street was Caucasion and not Chinese, as I had guessed. But I said, "Oh well, maybe his wife is Chinese."

Then, a couple of weeks later, I saw them both working in their front yard. I parked my car, walked up to them, introduced myself, and told them which house I lived in.

Then I said, "I love what you've done with your yard. I see you've designed it according to Feng Shui principles."

The blonde, blue eyed wife looked puzzled, and said, "What's that?"

I explained that it was an ancient Chinese system.

She laughed and said, "Oh, that's funny. I'd never heard of an ancient Chinese system. All this stuff is just what I like."