A cash buyer with an agreed price is a good thing IMO. If you had a buyer who need a mortgage who was offering closer to your prce they could still reduce their offer depending on what their mortgage offer and survey said.

Plus, well £15K - that can disappear or reappear inexchange rates. If the amount is enough to get what you need here then I would take it.

Take it take it take it - only if you can afford to though. By saying this I mean afford the time with when you want to get to Canada and also afford the resettlement funds for living in Canada. Perhaps the house being sold would lift a great weight off your shoulders and be a massive thing to stroke off your to do list. Bear in mind that the housing market has reached its peak and is starting to slow down and it would be hard to turn away a serious buyer.

We will be in the same position over the next few weeks so I will watch this post with interest. Good luck with your decision.

Valuations from Estate Agents are at best only a guide, at worst a hook.

You may well set the asking price, but the selling price is set by the buyer - the one who will be paying for it.

Remember that a house is only worth what a willing, able and informed buyer is prepared to pay, and is only sold when you have that buyer!

Over pricing will put your house in front of the wrong market segment who are expecting more house than you are offering and will walk away disapointed.

A few things I've learned from selling a few houses inm my time.

Rob.

Hi - this might be a bit late for some, but for those putting their house on the market to move out here, my recommendation would be...keep the fact that you are leaving the country quiet! We moved out last year, put the house on the market before we went, and deliberately didn't tell the estate agent we were moving to Canada, we just said we were moving "out of area". When he questioned that further, for details of what to tell potential buyers, we just said tell them it's not a problem, if we sell before we find something else (in our "new area") we will move out and rent / stay with family etc.

That seemed to keep him happy. We told our solicitor (and our neighbour knew but was sweet in keeping it under his hat), but estate agents will definitely tell buyers that you "need to sell cos you are moving abroad"...

When we had actually finally signed contracts with a buyer and it was all going through, our estate agent was a little surprised to learn that we were moving abroad, however our buyer was rather irate and called our estate agent, complaining that, quote "if I'd known that I wouldn't have offered anything near the price I paid for the house"...

Morale of the story being, a) estate agents can't be trusted with info, even when you are paying their commission (they just want the sale), and b) people will offer an amount based on your position (against theirs), it's part of the negotiation.

My view is money is money whether it's in pounds or $$s and setting up home again in a new country (esp here as it can be argued that the cost of living is actually higher for a lot of things that you have to buy again) can be expensive. If anyone finds that Canadian money tree growing $$$s let me know where it is!

House prices in Canada are booming in BC so you'll need all the $$$s you can bring across, and wages aren't always comparable to the UK either.

I would, like some others have said, play it cool, shrug and act like if he doesn't want to pay nearer market rate for your house then you are in no rush and will happily wait for other buyers to (ok, so he doesn't know you're tearing your hair out trying to move out here)! If he wants the house, he will pay more if it is a viable business deal for him. Otherwise, have to find other buyer who falls for your house (ie an emotional decision rather than a business one) and then will pay whatever to secure the sale.

Sorry for the sermon Good luck with whatever you decide.

All that shrugging doesn't mean squat when you aren't showing the buyers round the property. An d telling all our viwers we were emigrating didn't generate one offer in 4 months, so the argument doesn't hold water in our case, despite reducing initially by £25,000

Hi Bear-diesel

We sold ours for almost 2.5x what we paid for it but we did it ages ago, knowing that when the time came, which is now, we'd be ready to go.

Meanwhile the equity is making us a tidy packet in the bank whilst we rent the wing of a beautiful country home, which we hardly pay anything for each month as we help to look after it when the owners are away.

That doesn't help you any, so not sure why I've added that but I have read of so many people waiting to put their homes on the market and having last-minute problems. We weren't attached to ours, we were considering emigrating after all, so we thought what the hell, market could crash and we'll have nothing so lets get rid, pay everything off and it was the best decision EVER! We get no bills through the door.

My advice...try to get them to meet you half-way, an extra £7.5k must be better than nothing. What's the saying about a bird and a bush?

Good luck with everything and hope the nursing goes well. Thought you were meant to be starting very soon?

Yeah Jo

I am now in the same position - a private buyer is I think trying to take the P**S out of us too - so frustrating but Why should I drop a £170K house by £20K just cos she cant afford 2 mortgages

Hi
Great news ,congratulations, all the best on your move to Lethbridge

Thanks, I've spent the last half hour find post of people selling so i can spread some "Selling Karma" about.

Spread some to me please Lyndon - and congratulations on the contracts. Enjoy Alberta.

Excellent news - best of luck.
I look forward to reading your blogs from Canada.

Rob.

We had a cash buyer who could complete in four weeks too We dropped our asking by 10K for him hubby flew out here to start work, I flew out 6 weeks after hubby and we completed in 9 weeks (and ended up dropping a bit more 'cause so called enthusiatic I can complete in 4 weeks' buyer realised we were now in a slightly desperate situation threatened to pull out

Hope your cash buyer has a little more concience than ours did - good luck matey.

We left the uk with our house sold, but the bloomin buyer pulled out as she couldn,t sell her house :curse::curse:

So of to Canada we went, struggled like hell to keep paying our mortgage and house insurances on one salary here, then low and behold the effin estate agent let it slip to a viewer that we were in Canada, that prompted an offer of 10 grand less that asking price which was already dropped 5 grand :curse::curse: again

So we took a 15 grand hit to sell our bricks and mortar

If I were you I would sell the bloomin hosue and be shot of it

I have payed for it financially and would not recommend anyone paying for a house in the UK whilst all the family is getting settled in Canada.

Eddie