steve666

What he said.

We had a buyer from April 2007, the chain involved fell apart 4 times, all with obscenely ridiculous reasons given, and 2 with just 2 - 4 days before completion. Luckily our buyer stayed with it but it took till March 7th (I remember the date well) 2008 before the house sale finally completed, 11 friggin months of crap.

Summer1978

I'm so sorry for your bad luck Spanglish. I know someone else has already mentioned it, but are you multi-agency? At the risk of being stoned, I am an estate agent and the way your agents have handled your sale is completely unprofessional. After your 8 week contract you have 1 agent, 2 agents or 20 agents if you want. Get another agent or two on the job. And rather than reducing your price by £10,000 just do a small reduction of £1000 (this will give you the "New Price" ticket on your window display) and offer a cash back incentive to your agents. Tell them you are instructing another two agents but that the first agent to find a buyer and see it through to exchange will receive a cash bonus. It sounds underhanded but the sad truth is that a lot of estate agents are bone idle and need the kick up the behind to actually do their job. Remember, they are working for YOU!

Also, get them out to do completely new sales particulars. I'm guessing you've been on the market for a while which would suggest your photos were taken on a cloudy winter/spring day. You'd be surprised what new photos can do. An external shot with a blue sky and lots of sunshine does wonders for a buyer's first impression of the property.

Keeping my fingers crossed for you! Good luck!

Snave

If you are really, *really*, desperate then use National Homebuyers: http://www.nationalhomebuyers.co.uk/
We did. We were royally pee'd off with the price we got - but it got us out of a nasty position.
To recap: We rented the house out for six months, the tenants were going to buy it at the end of the lease - then walked away. After another six months of the house being empty with a For Sale sign up we had a flood in the kitchen (burst header tank). We just wanted it out of our minds and National Homebuyers bought it with in one month of us contacting them.

happylandings

May I ask what % off the true value you got?

pcuz

Sorry to hear that you have had such grief in trying to sell your house.

It sounds like you have had pretty poor advice from your estate agents accepting an offer from somebody who sounds like they are on shakey grounds.

A couple bits of adivce change agents first of all. And lower your price now, You will get intrest if you drop below everybody else and you will encourge intrest in your properry. Prices are dropping and will not go up again for some time.

The UK housing market will only get worse. Be smart and take what you can get if you want to move to Canada now. Otherwise sit tight and wait a few years to see what happens with the housing market. It will turn one day.... and you will make good money...If you want to wait for that day.

If Canada is the move for you then take the pain lose a little money. I guess like most people you will still be making good money on the rises in recent years. Resist the temptation to be greedy. Make the money and your pounds will go a long way in Canada.

Be sensitive that for some people having to sell a house is a nice problem to have. Others can't even afford to buy a house in the uk!


Good luck for the future

P

pcuz

A couple bits of adivce change agents first of all. And lower your price now, You will get intrest if you drop below everybody else and you will encourge intrest in your properry. Prices are dropping and will not go up again for some time.

The UK housing market will only get worse. Be smart and take what you can get if you want to move to Canada now. Otherwise sit tight and wait a few years to see what happens with the housing market. It will turn one day.... and you will make good money...If you want to wait for that day.

If Canada is the move for you then take the pain lose a little money. I guess like most people you will still be making good money on the rises in recent years. Resist the temptation to be greedy. Make the money and your pounds will go a long way in Canada.

Be sensitive that for some people having to sell a house is a nice problem to have. Others can't even afford to buy a house in the uk!


Good luck for the future

P

Snave

We bought the house in 2004 for £128,000. We ploughed close to £15,000 into it refurbishing it. We put it on the market for £180,000 in 2006 and finally sold it to National Homebuyers for £130,000. Yes, we didn't even get back the money we'd spent on it. But they pay all charges including solicitor's fees - and like the OP we were desperate, especially after having the kitchen flooded and having to pay for all the damage as the insurance won't pay after a house is empty for 90 days.
Yes - ouch.

Paul Wildy

Thats really wise advice if you ask me. It sounds like there are a lot of people tempted to "hold out" for a better offer or wait for things to turn around but I think its safe to say that the market wont turn around in the short term. It will probably be two years at least before the market bottoms and prices will continue to head slowly downward during that period. All the evidence points to it taking a few years. Official govt forecasts say drops of about 8% this year and probably another 10% in 2009. Also look at what's been happening in the US - prices are in their third year of downward movement. And look at what happened in the early 90s too - it took about 3 years before the market bottomed after the last boom. So we are basically just at the beginning of the downward trend and things will almost certainly get worse.

I know that all sounds a bit depressing but its better to be realistic - if you have what seems like a low offer now then take it because chances are that the next offer will be lower and if you wait until 2009 people will be offering lower still (they arent going to offer more if all the other prices have dropped further). It really is better to cut your losses in a situation like this. Look at how the stock market works - when prices start heading down traders sell at a loss as quickly as they can because they know that if they wait they will get even less.

Having said all of that, I wouldnt go with the likes of National Homebuyers unless you are really in a hole like Snave - those guys specialise in profiting from giving you substantially less than your house is worth on the open market. If as pcuz suggests you undercut the rest of the market by a sensible margin you will get a sale and should still get more than National Homebuyers and similar will offer.

DebbieK

We are starting to worry now too... our house has been on the market since November of last year and we have yet to have a person round to look at it! Not been over valued, just nothing moving in the area at all. I would not mind but the place is immaculate, and even though we made sure it was all in tip top condition we have continued to spend money on fresh planting, new carpets etc as they start to look like they might be a little tired. The estate agent reckons that if we could just get one person in the door we would get a sale, but I am not holding my breath any more.

happylandings

Hope things are now working out for you. Cheers and all the best.

spanglish

I just would like to thank you all for the good wishes and also give you all an update since last week's happenings.

The estate agents contacted us this morning saying that after talking to the mortgage lender our buyer wasn't denied the mortgage after all, he will still be able to borrow, but not the full amount.

So, we found ourselves in this situation where we could either drop the house price by a further £12000 or sit on the house for God knows how long until it finally sells. After not much deliverating (as we haven't got much choice really) we have decided to lose £12000 and get it over with asap.

And all being well, we shall after all the griev and heartache, be in Canada in a couple of weeks.

I will keep you posted.

destinationnovascotia

For what it's worth I this you are doing the right thing,

If someone offered my anywhere within £60k of our asking price I would have their arm of right now.

Good luck with the move.

Tableland

I feel for you on this one, spanglish. As someone who has been through this misery before I know how it feels. Unless you can lower your asking price to a place this buyer can meet, you have no alternative but to forget this buyer and refocus on making a sale to someone else. Do not dwell on things from the past that went wrong, but think only about how to make the future work. It will be hard, but do not give up.

Tableland

This must be the worst time for a generation to be trying to sell a house and move overseas what with the housing market and the weak pound. Do we get medals if we make it through this?

DebbieK

It is totally awful... we are desperate to even get somebody to look at our house. We live in a part of the country with the lowest house prices (West Cumbria) but the buyers are under the impression that as down south houses are going for 10's of 1,000's less than asking price they should also be able to offer £50 - £60k under asking price.. but lets be real, where else would you be buying a four bedroom house in immaculate condition for £180,000?