I'm getting really pi**ed off with the whole selling the house thing, house has been on since April, we've had a handful of viewing and one offer which fell through <Grrrrrrrrrrr> we spent some money and decorated before we put the house on (creams etc etc)and still no one seems to want what we are selling ?, Anyway enough rambling, has anyone put there house up for auction and sold ? if so how much did it cost, how much below market value did you get, or any other advice you can offer.............please

We investigated trying this, but after researching thoroughly by looking at the histories of everything that had sold by auction in our area over the past couple of years we gave up on the idea. Most typically seemed to go for about 1 third below mmarket valuation. Ouch.

After 9 months of useless estate agents we sold ours through the internet.

Ouch, 1 third below, not keen on that, i've just started advertising on the internet as i have no faith in the estate agents at all ! , out of interest what site did you use ?

www.propertybroker.com

hi
i also used an internet site called http://www.mypropertyforsale.co.uk/s...ropertyForSale

i had 6 viewings and an offer within four weeks, unfortunately the buyers still hasn't got his mortgage sorted & we fly out to oz i november. So i am going to put it up with anestate agent to see if i can can an offer!

good luck
simon

Sounds like the problems that we had with our buyer. Eventually he got his mortgage sorted out, but his lawyer let slip at one stage that the delays were caused by mortgage problems. He even had a tree survey done as well as the standard house survey to delay things.

In the end we put the house back on the market with an estate agent and just like magic his mortgage was sorted within the week.

This isn't schadenfreude but it doesn't get remotely frustrating until you've moved over, bought another house here, have depleted your savings in the UK paying off the mortgage, taken a year or so to sell the house for GBP30k less than original asking price to the fifth bloody person who says they want it and watched the exchange rate collapse from $2.35 to $2.05!

Or to put it another way, once you are in a position that you HAVE to sell then you have to accept a certain amount of getting screwed. Assuming no untoward things with the house (like subsidence, a motorway through your backyard etc) then bluntly it comes down to the market and the price. If it's not selling then you have to bite the bullet and drop the price. Better that than auction IMHO as you will really get shafted then. A good estate agent is a boon but hard to find. I ended up booting one out and then going with two on a reasonable commission deal. They worked pretty hard to sell it so earned their money. Wait until you sell in Canada and fork over 5% for nowt!

we dropped our price a bit and had an 'open house' and that worked well. Ended up with a bidding war!

I hear what you are saying, and dropping the price will be our next action, i was only thinking of auction as a possible solution, i just get so fed up with estate agents, first lot were a complete waste of time despite coming on recommendation from a friend, the new lot seem slightly better, but time will tell ! i also get fed up with the viewers that have no intention of buying your house and only seem to come for a day out..........Hmmmm 5%, i can't wait for that one !

'Open house' sounds like a good idea, did you advertise that yourselves or through an estate agent?

Also thanks to everyone for the links, i will be checking these out later, i figure the more places i can advertise the better !

We were with Halifax who were better than others I've used. I pushed for a feature in the local paper through them and got one but it went into the wrong area as we are between areas! I told them I wanted an 'open house' and they put me in on their page of houses in the paper for two weeks running at the top of the page with a banner advertising the day and times. There was also a banner on my internet pic on the rightmove site and their site. We had 4 lots on the day and 2 offers under asking price which came up to asking price. I think it's good for keen people to see others interested in your property too as you are less likely to get silly offers. Good luck with it.

People follow success, if there has been a lot of interest potential buyers will think "oohh that must be a good/house/deal" and want to buy. It's our herding instinct I'm afraid.

So it would be good for you if you can development excitment and herding about your house! Ask a few friends to come and visit to get your visitor stats up.