Yogi-Bear

Hi Agr,

If only it was £10K - I wish! We agreed a sale price reducing it by £20k in the first place.

He wanted £30k off at first and we rejected the offer, the house has been fully rewired, New combi boiler & rads, D/Glazed, New roof, they would have no worries whatsoever, all the building controla construction paperwork, etc etc....

We agreed a £20K off the sale price. It's dragged since July because these pair of so & so's could not get a mortgage to suit what they wanted to borrow, but we had an agreement and said we'd hold on for them.

They finally got their approval at the end of November, and then had the ordacity to ask for another £10k off!!!!!!!

My oh my, if only it was £10k! If we did go the £10k, in total with fixtures/fittings it would mean we've dropped some £38,000.00 !!!

I don't blame them for trying for a deal - wouldn't we all? But this is not a deal, it's taking the P**S

We'll see..........

Y

agr

I agree. I am just closing a deal on a house in Edmonton and it has been a very low-stress experience. My offer, once accepted, is legally binding and defines all the dates for removal of conditions, completion etc.

But that didn't stop me ruthlessly exploiting the position of the seller to get the best price I could. The market is still falling, and I need to minimise the future dip in value.

I would be just as ruthless if I were buying in the UK because I have experience of negative equity that I do not wish to repeat.

I would advise anyone selling a home to spend a lot of time thinking in the shoes of the buyer.

agr

Yogi, you still have my sympathy, but all the numbers you are quoting are relative to an asking price that is picked out of thin air (because all asking prices are).

The value of a house is whatever someone's prepared to pay for it, and that's determined when contracts are signed, not until. If the result is negative equity for the seller, then that's a very unfortunate outcome. But in the majority of cases seller becomes buyer and the proceeds are put into another house, probably in a similar market where a bargain can be had.

PS Did you reject any other offers while holding on for this buyer? Would you have accepted a higher offer nonetheless?

Rainey69

I totally agree...... i think this is the problem when selling houses, especially at the current market. Ours was put up with an asking price of 135,000 but we walked away losing around 15,000. Pain in the bum when we had spent money and time decorating all through etc etc, new doors, windows, just to get close to the asking price. Something, even a house, is only worth what someone else will pay for it, which can be heartbreaking when you have spent a lot on it. The only real way i could look at it was......yay! i'm outta here. No matter what, you can always pick yourself up and start again. So long as you have eachother, what more do you need.

I hope it all works out for everyone making the journey, i think you just have to let a lot of the stuff go over you heads coz when you get here you look back and breathe a sigh of relief, and also realise, none of it really matters anyway.

agr

I'll drink to that.

nikki dreaming

Hi

I agree with a lot of other comments on here, we have sold our house fortunately, however dropped £35k on it from the initial asking price.

Whilst it was really hard, particularly in the 4 week period we were waiting for our buyer to get the mortgage agreed, we had to drop a further £5k we took the view that at least we have an offer that should proceed through, if we reject we may not get any other offers, or if we did some time next year there is a very strong chance that the amount we have had to drop to now is more than what we could have on the table in 6 mths time if the current trend continues.

On the other hand we accept the situation as it is, forget what the house went on at 6 mths ago as in a way its semantics to a certain extent and move ahead with our plans to be in Canada in 2009.

For us, if we rejected the revised offer which in the end was £10k below what we set out with as our bottom line , and we didn't get another offer we would have kicked ourselves when we had the visas in hand, but couldn't go.

McBotts

Hi - my first posting!! We are in the same boat! PR ready,job offers , area to live in NS chosen on a visit last summer and we cannot sell our house. We are going over in February to say hello to Immigration and hopefully have a ski at Wentworth but boy oh boy we are wondering if we are doing the right thing. Do we loose excessive amounts of money on our house? Do we rent our house out and not buy in NS but rent and risk moving the children again. STRESS++++ not to mention the bloooming exchange rate...... We don't want to miss out on an opportunity but !!!!!! What do we do???? This is a great website. We have been looking at it for months and getting lots of information from it. Thank you all.

moondevil

As you know we was in the same position....we took a 60k slap, was it over priced...erm no we put on market way under value
Would i sell it again for that price, yeah cause it got me out of there and my family is so happier here

The first few weeks are hard, but i am happier here, its not a dream, i have no rose glasses on.
That 60k could of neally bought me a house, but hey i work for it again, one poster told me that it wasnt our money anyway, which is so true, we took the slap and glad we are.

good luck - you have to do what feels right for you
and know me and rainey did and our familys are way happier, but at the end its your decision

R I C H

But the market wasn't valuing it at the price you thought it would make, so it was over priced. As has been said, it's only worth what someone's willing to pay for it, and that becomes the market price/value.

Nice to hear you're all happy here

Yogi-Bear

We met these people through a business colleague. They'd been renting for 2 years trying to move into the village as property comes on the market and it does it's either to small, and expensive.

Or, it's the opposite end of the spectrum. We're mid range so to speak, and when this colleague heard of our intentions, she introduced this couple who came around and made an offer inside 20 mins - his wife fell in love with the place, whereas he played his cards close to his chest.

So we had no agents fee's, no hips pack, and that was it. We arrived at the asking price by having several agents around and taking an average cost - to which they knocked us down £20k

So unfortunately for us, there's no other buyers in the pipeline but them, unless we advertise it!

To be honest, if someone had offered me £10k more, a sort of role reversal,
I doubt I'd have taken it as I'd just been glad to close the sale I'd agreed in the first place.

I think what's really cheesed me off, is that after waiting for THEM to finally get funds after all this time, then suddenly demand another £10k reduction at the final hurdle is terrible.

I feel sure we'll have to accept at some point, it's just a case of when!

What a damned nuisance!

Y

agr

Hi McB, welcome. Do you mean 'lose lots of money', or do you mean 'not make lots of money'? If you're going to sell your house for less than you have paid for it, then that's a tough one. But if you bought it a long time ago and even a low price represents a reasonable investment outcome, then maybe you just need to consider whether you will end up with enough capital to start your new life?

We move next month. We have nowhere to sell in the UK; our capital is in the stock market (where it has fared much worse than house prices over the past year!). We thought hard about buying or renting in Edmonton. We decided to buy (even though the market there is falling) because we're in this for the long haul. We are disconnecting from the UK economy and joining the Canadian economy. Whatever share prices and exchange rates are at the time we move, that's what we're worth. It's a bit risky, but we're making a commitment. Once we've moved, we're in a dollar economy and we'll go out to work and put our best foot forward.

PS there's lots of hot air about the exchange rate. It hasn't varied more than 10% from $2 all year, as far as I can see.

agr

Well, I'm no expert, but if the wife has fallen in love with your place then rejecting the £10k demand should be safe!

G586

+1

Wives buy the houses.

Rainey69

Hey there girl, couldn't agree more......would i have done it differently had i known what i know now????? Not a chance, life is never easy no matter what decissions you make, everything is a fight......lets face it, we wouldn't be the people we are, had it all been handed to us on a plate!

G586

You can still gazunder in Scotland, you just have less time to do it as there is a shorter period before contracts are exchanged and no chains.

The problem in England is that the process takes too long and that is the fault of the solicitors, who work at their own pace and the fact there are chains with people with different needs acting at different speeds and without much communication.