Any tips on selling a house?

Jude · Post by **Jude** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 11:55 pm

Selling and buying are both nightmares - my best advice - go and read Which? magazine on buying and selling houses -

Don't trust Estate Agents (sorry EA) they tell you someone from Suffolk is comming over to Glos to SEE YOUR house - and strangely they then call up on the day about 20 mins before said viewer is about to arrive - I'm sorry but htey re looked at the details and have decided not to come after all.

Maybe it's just Glos and Wilts - but this is happening now at a friends who is trying to sell, and another who has dropped the price by Â£20k already and had no nibbles... To be a buyer you need to have sold, or have cash, the be a seller you need to have a buyer and you need lots and lots of patience.. Good luck - you will need it!

englishangel · Post by **englishangel** » Sun Sep 10, 2006 10:17 am

Jude wrote:Selling and buying are both nightmares - my best advice - go and read Which? magazine on buying and selling houses -

Don't trust Estate Agents (sorry EA) they tell you someone from Suffolk is comming over to Glos to SEE YOUR house - and strangely they then call up on the day about 20 mins before said viewer is about to arrive - I'm sorry but htey re looked at the details and have decided not to come after all.

Maybe it's just Glos and Wilts - but this is happening now at a friends who is trying to sell, and another who has dropped the price by Â£20k already and had no nibbles... To be a buyer you need to have sold, or have cash, the be a seller you need to have a buyer and you need lots and lots of patience.. Good luck - you will need it!

Don't worry about it, was ever thus.

I was once at a dinner table with a bookie, a Labour MP, her local councillor husband, a journalist and someone who worked for the Inland Revenue, we had a great time.

Vonny · Post by **Vonny** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 8:46 pm

Apologies to EA as well but the first estate agents we had for selling our house were downright liars. They had (probably still have) a regular customer who was a French millionaire. He basically buys up houses/flats and lets them out. He often buys properties without viewing them. He put in an offer on our house without seeing it and we were assured by the agents that this was how he works and he was a very valued customer of theirs (of course

) and how he had NEVER let anyone down whilst buying properties. Well, surprise surprise we were the "first" people he ever let down

This dragged on from May until September and I was the most stressed I had ever been in my life. I didn't eat anything for 2 or 3 days at the height of it all I felt that sick, yet the agents kept asuring us that all was going through OK. They lied to us that searches had been done, lied that the mortgage he would be having was arranged. It was all rubbish.
Then to top it all, after the house sale fell through (when they finally admitted he wasn't interested in our house) our neighbours knocked on the door and said that they thought we should know that the plumber they had had in a few weeks before was interested in buying our house and had gone to the agents and put in a higher offer than we had accepted. The agents did not tell us this. I thought they had an obligation to inform the vendors of ALL offers that were made

The whole thing was a complete nightmare and I wouldn't touch these particular agents with a bargepole. The next agents we used were so much better and didn't charge as much commission.

englishangel · Post by **englishangel** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 8:10 am

Vonny wrote:Apologies to EA as well but the first estate agents we had for selling our house were downright liars. They had (probably still have) a regular customer who was a French millionaire. He basically buys up houses/flats and lets them out. He often buys properties without viewing them. He put in an offer on our house without seeing it and we were assured by the agents that this was how he works and he was a very valued customer of theirs (of course ) and how he had NEVER let anyone down whilst buying properties. Well, surprise surprise we were the "first" people he ever let down This dragged on from May until September and I was the most stressed I had ever been in my life. I didn't eat anything for 2 or 3 days at the height of it all I felt that sick, yet the agents kept asuring us that all was going through OK. They lied to us that searches had been done, lied that the mortgage he would be having was arranged. It was all rubbish.
Then to top it all, after the house sale fell through (when they finally admitted he wasn't interested in our house) our neighbours knocked on the door and said that they thought we should know that the plumber they had had in a few weeks before was interested in buying our house and had gone to the agents and put in a higher offer than we had accepted. The agents did not tell us this. I thought they had an obligation to inform the vendors of ALL offers that were made
The whole thing was a complete nightmare and I wouldn't touch these particular agents with a bargepole. The next agents we used were so much better and didn't charge as much commission.

Yes they do you have grounds for an official complaint.

We have one going through at the moment where the purchasers solicitors told us (the agents) that they had applied for searches 6 weeks ago (usually take about 2 weeks) then last Monday told us they had used an agency (common practice) which had done the search on the wrong property. We suggested they 'fastracked' a bit more expensive but can be done in 24 hours, they said it would only be 5 working days , yesterday they said Friday. The vendors think the purchasers are stalling while their sale catches up, but we only know what the sols are telling us.

loringa · Post by **loringa** » Wed Sep 13, 2006 10:15 am

englishangel wrote: We have one going through at the moment where the purchasers solicitors told us (the agents) that they had applied for searches 6 weeks ago (usually take about 2 weeks) then last Monday told us they had used an agency (common practice) which had done the search on the wrong property. We suggested they 'fastracked' a bit more expensive but can be done in 24 hours, they said it would only be 5 working days , yesterday they said Friday. The vendors think the purchasers are stalling while their sale catches up, but we only know what the sols are telling us.

It appears to me that this is fairly typical; my wife attempted to sell an investment property earlier this year in order to buy another one elsewhere in the country and thus needed a quick sale. She put it in the market at just below market value and quickly accepted an offer below the asking price on the proviso that the purchaser exchanged within 4 weeks and completed within another 4. She accepted his offer solely because he assured the Estate Agent that he had nothing to sell and had his mortgage arranged. Though leasehold, there is nothing particularly complex in the arrangements or covenants surrounding my wife's house. After 2 months the purchaser hadn't even had a survey done and his solicitor was full of excuses about him recently changing his job and having a problem with his previously arranged and (presumably) 'buy-to-let' mortgage. Even when he finally had the survey completed, they appeared no nearer to exchanging even though my wife had already signed the contract and lodged it with her solicitor. The purchaser's solicitors came up with excuse after excuse but no firm dates. In the end she pulled out of the sale because all the properties she was interested in purchasing had, by then, been sold. There then followed no end of protestations, recriminations and complaints from the purchaser and his solicitor who seemed to think that there was nothing in any way untoward in their failure to meet the terms of the sale. Bottom line - this was not the fault of the Estate Agent but entirely that of the purchaser and his solicitor who were evidently rather less than honest about his circumstances from the word go. Had she been aware that he neither had a mortgage agreed nor any likelihood of getting one within the required timescales then his offer would never have been accepted.

englishangel · Post by **englishangel** » Wed Sep 13, 2006 7:04 pm

We have had something like this on a flat. The vendors were selling their house (in a chain) and the flat (no chain) the purchaser said he had cash. They both went under offer at the same time, the vendors moved into their new house over a month ago, the flat hasn't even exchanged.

We also have a tenant buying the property she lives in, so far it has taken 10 weeks, nothing to do with us, the vendor or the purchaser.

Leasehold does take longer.