Totaly fed-up of Trying To Sell House
 

Hi all

Long Time no Here ( MY FAULT )

Where do i start

We have PR, the house has been on the market for 12 months, We came over to Bay of Plenty last September met up with members of this comunity and had a fab time in NZ. Then came back to UK after two weeks of bliss, computer blew up, car broke down and we are still trying to sell house even though redused by 30k. Still we have one year left to come over and still we are both in good jobs here BUT ONE DAY, THE SALE WILL HAPPEN then the depression will lift and i will have pleasure in telling my boss where to stick his truck and move to where we want to be NZ.
GOD i feel better now.
:thumbsup:

Re: Totaly fed-up of Trying To Sell House
 

Bad news, it took me 18 months to sell mine. Seems like the housing market is conspiring against you.
Can you not rent the house out? Then if the market picks up you could sell it quicker later on, and not lose so much money.

Re: Totaly fed-up of Trying To Sell House
 

Your house would sell if you put it up at a price that people would buy it at.

If you be happy with that price is a different matter...

Re: Totaly fed-up of Trying To Sell House
 

keep the faith - your house will sell, stay positive!!!

Re: Totaly fed-up of Trying To Sell House
 

Just trying to offer a practical spin on things. Is it that you have not had the people through the door or is it that they have come but not come back or made any offers?

Was only chatting about this a few days ago, and saying how important it is to stage your house. I love watching all of the House Doctor type programmes and find them quite motivating. It might seem really obvious but have you done the whole de-personalising, de-cluttering, etc. Not wanting to teach granny to suck eggs, but a huge amount of people think buyers will see the potential behind all the clutter, but they don't, and need to be sold the lifestyle, etc. so making sure you are making the most of your living space. Get the coffee on and the bread in the oven the next time you get people through the door. I know I know nothing of your circumstances and you may blast me for even suggesting these things, but I like to help and all I want to do is offer some words of encouragement. So for that, please forgive me.

Good Luck, LB

Re: Totaly fed-up of Trying To Sell House
 

liza's advice is good.. i dont understand why people would want to view a house and see all the clutter, i know it would put me off

on another note, renting is doing very well in the uk right now or certainly where we are from.. we have an agency we use and as the properties are coming in to them the now they are renting out in a couple of days , so certainly a market there

and then just sell once market picks up again , as it will at some point

Re: Totaly fed-up of Trying To Sell House
 

There you are. I have missed that cuddly cat avatar. :D

Have some karma for your frustration.
Here is hoping you sell the bricks and mortar soon & you are dishing the dirt on how you told your boss to stick it up his kyber.

Re: Totaly fed-up of Trying To Sell House
 

Yes, a house is only 'worth' what people we pay for it. A lesson many are learning these days. Still incredible that I talk to people and they say things like 'I wouldn't sell for $x, my house is worth $y'. Don't think they've grasped the market concept.

Re: Totaly fed-up of Trying To Sell House
 

We've been on the market since last Jan - started had £399,000, had an offer for £380,000 then they pulled out. We've continued to drop and drop and drop, we've had 5 more people keen to buy but they either couldn't sell theirs or couldn't get mortgages.

BUT - WAIT FOR IT - We now have 2 offers but as stated above it's all about price - we are now on the market at £299,000. One offer was last week for £250,000 - I DON'T THINK SO!!!!! and the other is a 'starting' bid at £270,000. We've asked the agent to get it up as close to the asking price as possible but of course, given our luck, the person offering is now on holiday in France - AHHHH! Still, the market is definitely picking up, but only because prices have dropped SO far down it's frightening. We've had a flurry of viewers in the last 3/4 weeks (over 8 with another this afternoon). A lot of these people (over half) have been people in rented who are now looking to buy again as prices are now affordable and mortages more available.

I know the market in the UK is very dependent on where you live. We do well in Herts and benefit from people coming out of London looking for decent schools. My grandparents old house in Teeside has had no viewings at all this year!

Good luck, keep tidying(!) and lets just hope sellers in NZ are prepared to drop as much in price as we've had to in order to get a sale from us when we eventually get there!

Re: Totaly fed-up of Trying To Sell House
 

Such a shame you have had to drop your price MOSO - it's shocking! Having dropped your price so much already I can understand your reluctance to shift from it's existing asking price. Our property is probably worth about
£245/250k right now so the agents say, but due to a small extension that my OH is doing (for a much needed 5th bedroom for our youngest who is still sleeping in with us) they hope it will be more like £275/280k by next year when we come to sell.

Trouble that we will have and that you have too is the stamp duty threshold of £250k - now that you are closer to this, you will probably find you get viewers that unaware of your already substantial price cut, will try it on to get it for £250k. The agents said to us to consider such an offer but I think you have to be firm but also realistic. Like you say, you have plans for a certain way of living when you get to NZ - a poster on another thread recently suggested the market hadn't yet got to the bottom, but hopefully you will get a sale before that happens. Sounds like you have had the interest but it is more to do with the buyers own situations rather than a house that won't sell. Fingers crossed that you will shortly receive good news. We are still many months off any of this stress yet, and have lots of DIY jobs to do to get things up to speed - it is all to easy to feel defeated before you start - could do with some help from the House Doctor - she sorts a house out in an hour!!!!

Anyway, enough of my chat, wishing you and all the other 'sellers' out there the very best. Just gotta make sure you keep your houses nice and tidy and make every viewing count. Easier said than done .. I have 4 kids, so when the time comes, I may have a real battle on my hands to keep my house tidy - just like now really!!!

Good luck and :fingerscrossed:

Re: Totaly fed-up of Trying To Sell House
 

Thanks for the advice.
The next step is get a skip and do lots of car-boots and get rid of anything we are not going to take with us.
The house is fully refurbished with new everything within last year, so thats ok.
The house is a large victorian 4 bed detatched and estate agent tells me not to reduce price anymore as the market is slowly picking up and these houses rarely come onto the market here. Also house sales and interest is picking up.
I will pay stamp duty for anyone who comes through door and secures a sale.

Re: Totaly fed-up of Trying To Sell House
 

Sounds like your house has much to offer, so good luck with the declutter and car booties and stay positive. I'm sure things will work out, and if you're willing to pay someones stamp duty, you can't say fairer than that! :fingerscrossed: LB

Re: Totaly fed-up of Trying To Sell House
 

Yes, totally agree. At the end of the day you can't go against the market. It's the same here in NZ too, though plenty of people are still in denial.

There was a post on here recently saying the recession hadn't it NZ yet, which is ridiculous considering NZ recorded it's 3rd consecutive 1/4 of negative growth back as long ago as Sept last year.

Re: Totaly fed-up of Trying To Sell House
 

Thanks Lizaberry. Our price drop is shocking, but quite normal round here where prices were hyper-inflated in the south east anyway, but we were stuffed when neighbours sold an identical house without an extension for under £250,000 (an old lady going into a home) while we were at that time at £330,000 with a double storey extension so we had no option but to drop in order to sell.

The estate agents are working on this wonderful logic that people will sell their houses for far less than their asking prices (such as friends who started last year at £550,000 and eventually sold a few weeks ago for £410,000) but then the house they wanted was on at £850,000 and they got them down by over £50,000 so it works okay, but that doesn't help us going abroad!

We've had to rethink our location in NZ aswell. We were going to central Wellington but I think we're now going to head up the Kapiti coast where it's a bit cheaper, we'll have to see when we do eventually sell.

I'd definitely steer clear if you can of having a house worth around £270,000. It's either got to be £250,000 or £300,000 because of the stamp duty - roll on NZ where there isn't any!

Re: Totaly fed-up of Trying To Sell House
 

Just to join in with the general misery:

Estate agent's recommended asking price: £230k
Our asking price for a quick sale: £215k
Offer accepted after no interest: £187k
Surveyor's valuation: £170K

:(:confused::frown::thumbdown:

We either sell at £170k, or don't move to NZ. We've gone from a possible £60k equity to about £3k.

NZ better be chuffing worth it ;)

Re: Totaly fed-up of Trying To Sell House
 

I couldn't agree more - let's hope it's worth it, we're now looking at $400,000 houses rather than $600,000 we thought we could afford! At this rate we'll be in Gisborne where my husband was born rather than Wellington:thumbdown:

My husband works for the UK Government at the moment - he's most definitely not an MP though but do you think we could claim for a 2nd home in Wellington (obviously without a duckhouse or moat, I wouldn't want to be seen as extravagant!)?

Re: Totaly fed-up of Trying To Sell House
 

Tell you what, claim for two and we'll rent one off you!

Our buyers are now threatening to pull out altogether, so NZ is fast receeding out of reach altogether :(

Re: Totaly fed-up of Trying To Sell House
 

Just been looking at another thread and MOSO has had a cash offer on the house. Yipeeeeeee........ there's hope for us all!!!!

Re: Totaly fed-up of Trying To Sell House
 

I do hope so as i am sick of it all now. :fingerscrossed:

Re: Totaly fed-up of Trying To Sell House
 

HI, guys, can i join in this for a moan?? We've had our house for sale about a year and had one viewer last sept, who arranged 4 viewings with us, she came twice by herself and then cancelled the following 2 on the morning as her hubby couldn't make it!! aaargh! we have had no viewings since! having got pr at end of march we have only just, in april decided to advertise it in local papers and although we have noticed people driving by stil no viewers! its very frustrating and we have considered reducing it but looking at everything else in the area we are pretty well priced. do we go for the reduction or sit it out now that things seem to be picking up elsewhere?? we can afford to sell it for less but i think that people would have viewed it and bid less anyway?? good luck to everyone!

Re: Totaly fed-up of Trying To Sell House
 

This is the one thing I really know about :D

We've had houses for sale for ages and they've had marketing campaigns where nothing happened. Some of these were from last November/December. In the last couple of months we've taken them to auction and they've sold. One before the first open home! I know there's a resistance to auctions but when you're selling they're a great way to concentrate buyers. You've got a set period and even if it doesn't sell on the day there will be people to negotiate with.

If your photographs were taken in any time other than summer, take some more and run a completely new campaign. And even if they were taken in summer, take some more from different angles. Make it look like a new listing! Get rid of all existing advertising. Change your agent or make your existing one give you a new listing number on their website with a new hero shot. Change the copy. If anyone wants to send me their copy I'll change it for them to attract buyers. I write copy for houses that I've never even seen here so if I've got something to work with .....:D

The difference between 'over there' and 'over here' is that we take our marketing very seriously. You don't just employ an agent and hear from them once or twice in 3 months :frown: (our experience). I'm so intertwined with my agent that our clients don't care who they hear from so long as it's one of us. And we don't rest until that house is sold. If you were living here and got used to the way things work and then went back to the UK you wouldn't put up with the crap that agents give you over there.

So just make them work for their money. If you've been with an agent for a while (even if it's your brother in law) tell them you're going to give it to someone else. If that doesn't work, then do it. Go with another agent - we found Remax better than all the little tin pot agencies. There was talk that they only got commission payments whereas the others got a salary - maybe hunger is the key???

Anyway - I could go on and on and.... :o If anyone wants my help just pm me - I'm not saying that it will work but fresh ideas can't hurt.

Re: Totaly fed-up of Trying To Sell House
 

Totally agree with above - we changed agents as we'd been with the old one for nearly a year and we got the impression they didn't care anymore. It was also a big agents and we found that communication between the people in the office was terrible e.g. 'didn't X call you to tell you they'd cancelled?' etc.

We are now with a smaller agent. There are 2 salesmen and 2 admin people so it's much friendlier and communication has been FAR superior with regular phone calls, updates and most importantsly ideas such as paying out more for a full page advert with them in the local paper (which we didn't take up!).

They also provided floor plans with the old one didn't. These are very useful, if like us you have a room that sounds odd 'bedroom 3: 15ft by 7ft(narrowing to)' doesn't make sense but seeing the L shape on a plan makes it much clearer.

They also changed the main picture regularly both on their website and on rightmove.co.uk so that sometimes it was the normal full frontal shot of the house but other times the lounge & skylight which was a good idea.

And the last factor is of course price... but enough said it's too depressing!

Good luck to everyone selling

Re: Totaly fed-up of Trying To Sell House
 

In total agreement with everything you and Batty have said ........ our son works for independant family company, small offices across south west and naturally we choose them to market our house!!

We started to market the house last October, probably the worst of all timings, had loads of viewings, mainly people who hadn't read the details properly and who were waiting to see how the market went, no offers so we took the house off of market over Christmas. Re-launched in Feb at reduced price, again loads of viewings... no offers, reduced price again and just before Easter a couple who had viewed in November re-visited and offered....yipee!! cash buyers in rented so no chain, like you we had to decide to either reject and hold out for more money (we're about 80k short of what we bought house for 2yrs ago) or grab the offer with both hands!!

With New Zealand calling we are now biting our nails waiting for exchange of contracts........ keep getting told it should be this week so :fingerscrossed:

Sorry, gabbled on a bit there! but just wanted to say its not always the big corperate agencies who give the best service, we were lucky cause our son kept us well informed, but I know the service we recieved was no different from any other vendor with the same agent :)Floor plans, updated photos, open home days (if wanted) are all part of the norm.

We just wish the process of buying/selling a house here was more simplified as it is in NZ!!

Good Luck all with houses to sell :fingerscrossed:....... keep hold of your dream:)
Bx