House selling and time wasters

Congratulations, Sally97.

Good luck in your new home.

A young couple of students from the nearby university came to view my house. They looked at my shed and said 'is that a sauna?'

Good luck Onajane.
We put our house on the market in march accepted an offer within a week, took us until mid april to find somewhere. Finally exchanged contracts today. It has been an emotional rollercoaster. As Franbern said lots of ups n downs.

I am surprised that rentals are only available for 12 months. I would have thought in your situation you could easily get a short term let in holiday rentals out of season at a reasonable rate..

When we rented between houses, we found a house where a tenent had vacated it 4 months early and the owners were delighted to find someone willing to take on the property for only 4 months.

Onajane I do not envy you with regard to the next few months. There will be ups and downs times. But, hopefully, all will eventually go through and later this year you will be in your lovely new home. Good Luck

In Northumberland we have six monthly rentals available, which then go onto a rolling monthly contract. Airbnb would have been an option for you in the autumn/winter as owners are often willing to reduce the price for a longer booking.

Congratulations on your offer being accepted, your buyer will be delighted you have completed the chain, fingers crossed you are in by Christmas. I hope it all goes smoothly for you.

Rentals available are for 12 months minimum, so we'd be looking at £12-18,000. Houses are also dearer where we'd like to move to to.

This aside, luck has been with as as
house we liked and didn't get offer accepted on has came back on market,and agent rang us and our offer has been accepted.

? Mixture of excitement and nerves now the big move looks like it's on ?

If I was selling a house and anyone tried to look into any cupboard or drawer in the house that was not included in the sale. I would stop them doing it and complain to the EA.

Vintagejazz

Out of curiosity do any of you look in drawers and cupboards that aren't part of the fixtures and fittings? I'm tidying up everywhere just in case.

No. As someone else said if there are fitted wardrobes/kitchen cupboards/bathroom cupboards I would inspect them because they are part of the place I may buy and I would want to see how big they really are. Chests of drawers, side tables, etc definitely not.

All the bedrooms in this house appear to have fitted double wardrobes - but one wardrobe is actually single because part of it is where some pipes run and you wouldn't know that unless you looked.

Perhaps rent an Airbnb for a while in September when more people come onto the market. If you work, could one of you go up/down? You'll be on the spot then, able to get to know the local agents who will like the fact you will be a cash buyer. You could get the heads up for somewhere coming on the books before it is listed.

Unfortunately, not everyone can see past other people's 'junk'.

I think it makes sense to declutter and have the house shown off to its best. You can probably get away with not doing this if buyers are wanted a house in a specific area as they will buy for the location, irrespective of the state of the house.

Decor is a personal thing. I know of someone who viewed a house and loved it but didn't but it because they didn't like the wallpaper in the living room!!!

I was watching Fantasy Homes by the Sea at the weekend. They are very old programmes from around 2013. They took one woman to a house that was furnished almost 100% in white e.g. white sofas, white painted furniture. She dismissed it because she couldn't live with so much white around. Did she not realise that the current owners would be taking their furniture with them

But OnaJane, surely, if you rent while looking for a house, probably for only a few months, the proceeds from your house, will be in the bank on a short term savings scheme and earning you interest, which, even though interest rates are not high, should go a long way to paying the rent and would taking a couple of thousand pounds out of your capital to rent a flat to ensur you get the house you want, really make the difference between buying and not buying a house?

We did this quite some years ago when interest rates were higher and actually made a profit on the whole process.

Rentals as too expensive. We don't have a mortgage and so we don't currently pay out anything on our house, so finding an extra £1000-£1500 per month for rent just isn't viable.

CanadianGran

The owners are not present for viewings here. The listing agent will have the details for the house, and do the viewing.

Biglouis, I think that was very rude of you to not allow access. Owners have to sell for a variety of reasons and making it more difficult is very mean-spirited. Legally, 24 hours notice must be given, even if it is a note on the front door, and the tenant must allow access. I do understand it is inconvenient, but why make the process harder?

Well said CG.
Tenants should also consider that they might need to approach a land lord or estate agent for a reference when applying to rent a further property, why would anyone put themselves in such a bad situation ?
Do as you wish to be done by.

I agree with your suggestion to Onajane Razza
A friend who moved here (Scottish Borders) from Cornwall a few years ago to babysit her then only DGC, rented for a year until she found the right house for her. (on the level, good views, decent garden etc) She paid top dollar for it but no regrets.
She now has 3 DGC and is still babysitting.

Would you consider going into a rental in your new area Onajane? I had to as I sold at auction, and was very lucky to get this bungalow. I'm sure the vendor chose me out of the four offers because I was a cash buyer.

We're in the middle of selling our bouse, accepted an offer.

Despite EA vetting prospective viewers first,to ensure they had sold and had sufficient funds, we still had over 30 viewers in 4 weeks.

Many gave feed back that house was wrong size / wrong area / too expensive got them, not what they were looking for etc.

Due to lack of houses on market people are looking at anything vaguely suitable out of desperation.

We're buying totally out of area and it's been a nightmare as something will come up, we'll book to see it a couple of days hence (as it's an overnight stay realistically), only for viewing to be cancelled as house has sold.

One of my daughter's & Hubbie recently put their house on the market. The first lot of photos done by EA were dreadful (Daughter had bene away at Conference and Hubbie's idea of tidying for pictures was slovenly to say the least. So, second lot of pictures had to be done.

House on market. The blurb that went with it somehow managed to miss out all the really good things about the house (eg: solar panels on roof, car charger on driver, new boiler, closeness to train station, bus station, beach, etc. etc.)

She has now re-written that description and has turned it in to a property that would definitely catch the interest of people. Surely, EA's have some sort of training as to the best ways of describing a property.

When I was selling my house, I had EA do all the viewings and I would go out. However, one young couple asked to come back that evening for second viewing with parents - and I (Stupidly) agreed to this. I was by myself and they arrived with both sets of parents and proceeded to take over my house, separating up and being in different rooms at the same time. One Mother stayed at my side telling me that the price was too high and kept on mentioning a much lower price over and over again, insisting that I agreed to that. She was totally in my face the whole time. It was quite horrific, and I am not normally somebody who is easily scared.

The following morning I phoned the EA and said that I did not care what sort of offer they put in I wanted it refused as there is no way I could inflict these people onto my lovely neighbours.

Another lady arrived,with EA, but I had not gone out, she seemed to love the house. Then told me she was buying it for her son. I could not imagine a more unsuitable house for a young bachelor, it was very much a family home. Insisted on doing another viewing with him and his horrified reaction confirmed this. But she still could not see that and kept trying to negotiate with me.

With regards to looking into cupboards, etc. Yes, I might do this, and expect viewers to do this with fitted cupboards, (ie in kitchen or bathroom or even bedrooms), but definitely NOT those that are not fitted. I did look at a new build which appeared at first glance to have a goodly number of kitchen cupboards, until I opened them, and one for leccie meter, others for integrated goods, etc. leaving just one small single base cupboard and two wall cupboards actually to be available.

The owners are not present for viewings here. The listing agent will have the details for the house, and do the viewing.

Biglouis, I think that was very rude of you to not allow access. Owners have to sell for a variety of reasons and making it more difficult is very mean-spirited. Legally, 24 hours notice must be given, even if it is a note on the front door, and the tenant must allow access. I do understand it is inconvenient, but why make the process harder?

Selling in the north of Scotland we had open viewing and after lunch one Sunday two couples came together to view it . They had obviously had a very liquid lunch and they giggled all through the viewing . In another house we had already sold and had left my mother in charge of the children and gone to do some shopping . Two ladies came to the door and asked to view the house. My mother explained that is was sold but undeterred they asked if they could see it anyway . she did not let them in . That same house when we bought it on moving day we discovered that the house had no light bulb all the toilet extra were gone including a wall mounted heater which left a large hole in the wall . We were young and inexperienced so did nothing about it but I have never forgived the people who left us in March with a tiny baby with the house in that condition .

When we put our property up for sale the EA brought round a couple one afternoon, and the woman said in a loud voice, “Oh, the bathroom is downstairs !” The EA rolled his eyes and said, “Madam, it’s a BUNGALOW. “
They didn’t make an offer.

Vintagejazz From the number of houses I have seen bought up by young people who then spend a lot of money doing them up to their taste, young people are as enthusiastic as ever to renovate houses. Some are tradesmen and get all their mates to help, others have moved from more expensive areas and when ever a real project comes up, there is a real competititon to buy it.

There are a lot of renovation programmes on tv, showing young couples renovating properties. And as I said, a house may be immaculate, but not to a buyers taste and the moment they get in the door, a maajor renovation starts.

When we sold our last house we were persuaded to let the EA oversee the viewings. We gave them a list of all relevant dates and information relating to fixtures and fittings, renovations, building work etc. We then had a constant stream of people phoning to ask for all the information that the agent should have had in her hand! She never even turned up for some viewings, so we sacked them and did it ourselves. One couple who viewed went straight out into the garden. They raved about it and hardly seemed interested in the house. They didn’t buy the house. Reason? The garden was too small!

I realise how fortunate I was when we sold our little terraced house several years ago. Went on the market one weekend, a couple came round but I knew they wouldn’t have it as they were on a second viewing of another property which I could tell was what they really wanted.

On the Monday night the EA sent round another lady, she was heavily pregnant, two weeks overdue, she had sworn she wouldn’t do any more viewings until after the birth. She wasn’t long looking round, could tell she liked it, asked if her DH, a lorry driver, could come to look another day to which I said of course.

Lo and behold, the next morning, the EA rang with her offer, slightly below our asking price, but still above what we would have taken, which we accepted.

Her DH never did view the house before buying!

She told me later she had rang him after her viewing, and said “Tom, it’s the one!”, and he said just go ahead and get it.

On the other side of the coin my DD put an offer in on a house in January which was accepted. Then nothing happened. The owner has still not engaged a solicitor and meanwhile mortgage rates are going up. The estate agent doesn’t know what is going on. Houses fore sale are like hens teeth in London at the moment.