[Diny]

Folks

Just as a matter of interest ....... how many of us are being held back only by the sale of our houses?

I've lost track of who's hanging in limbo. I know that Kim 39 is in the same boat as us, and I know that he's chomping at the bit even more now that he has his visa. And even more now that he's on the 'wanted list'.

So, just as abit of a morale boosting exercise, knowing there's others out there being held back by the UK housing market - add your name to this thread if you have everything else sorted besides a sale.

Our house went up for sale end of September.

Diny

[Kim39]

Hey Diny, i know you have mentioned my plight so i will start your thread off. House has just been revalued from original price in June of £150,000, down to..........£144,950. Come on house prices falling? i don't think so. So i have lost £5,000 in 5 months. Agent has given us a realistic price considering our situation, but to be honest i will be prepared to take another £4,950 hit on it, because i have that important stamp in passport and i am a wanted man.

Kim

[Junnifer USA]

Maybe this will help you feel better -- knowing that you probably will not have to wait this long!

We put our Application into NZIS on April 01, and only heard the first word - YES - On December 09. 8 months. Now that is a long wait.

Our house has been on the market for 18 months (we put it up before we even applied, Took a $60,000 hit on it (oh my God!) and just got it under contract Friday Dec 17. Closing on Jan 07, 2005. (If they don't close they dont get the huge deposit back!, We figure we can make up the money we lost by getting started in a new life!

Be patient, it will sell. And much faster than ours did -- btw: want to see our place? www.homestoauction.com
Jen and Bill

[Kim39]

:eek WOW............. 18 months to sell that place. Your having a laugh, but there again if its up for a million dollars then its quite possible :laugh Its one hell of a house,you have a beautiful home. Shame you can't ship it out eh.
If this place took that long to sell then there's no hope for mine :laugh

Kim

[Dinnaefash]

We too are just waiting for the house to sell. :( Had it on the market from August; 2 offers, both of which fell through. :no Took it off the market for the winter, and will try again in the new year. :hopeso

[Danpoll]

I am still here Diny I have had a second full offer with comments like" this is going to be my house" all well and good but they both have to sell. I can only hope that one of them has a first time buyer if not.

But come Febuary Plan B comes into action. which is borrow against the house move the sister in and clear off.

I have now had enougth, and its time to go whether rich or poor.


Dan

[Junnifer USA]

Thank you for the compliment on the house. Just to let you know, it was $275,000. Buy, we had 2 years of unbelievably slow road construction outside the neighborhood to expand hwy and bridges.

It looks nice because we esentially set it up as a showhouse. Removing most personal items, and setting up one display in each room - flowers (fake) in a vase... We half emptied out all the closets to make everything look bigger and more spacious. There was no clutter anywhere. We wanted the impression that you could move yourself in it in a weekend. It worked.... because we sold our house faster than anyone else living through this construction disaster -- thanks too the local government screw ups!
THe house is 21oo sf. 3 bed 3 bath 1 study. And, put the inspection report and pics on the web. It should have sold in 1 month in a normal market.

Don't give up!! We are hoping to meet y'all in NZ!

[Diny]

Jen - what a lovely house !!

18 months? That's a long time. Houses in our village usually sell within about 3 weeks of going on the market - not now though - thanks to a housing 'crash'. Folks keep telling me that the market will pick up in January - watch this space.

Our house can be viewed here: www.thelittlehousecompany.co.uk

Property ID 04926.

Thanks for your postings - good to know there's kindred spirit out there.

Diny

[Pamela]

Diny Waiting

Fed up with Bloody waiting :laugh :laugh but we have to be patience don't we, I am sure things will move in the HAPPY NEW YEAR :nice1.

Pamela.

[veronica]

We are in NZ but are trying to sell our house in the UK. Went on the market in June and we had a buyer in the first month, the chain of 3 house fell apart twice, but got cobbled together again as our buyer really wanted our house and we did the honourable thing and stuck with him. It was due to exchange end of Oct. but the week before that it all fell through and now we are kicking ourselves, feeling we should have put it back on the open market. As you can imagine this has left us with money issues. We will be putting it on multi agent listings come the new year and will have more than our fingers crossed. Would someone with press connections get out there and start putting positive market stuff on the tabloids please.

[ukiwibird]

:hopeso Add us to the just waiting to sell the house list. No-one has been to view, but it's only been on the market for 2 weeks. I didn't think there would be much interest before Christmas. :hopeso fingers crossed for a quick sale for everyone in the New Year. Trudy

[welsh chic]

I too am waiting for the house to sell

It went on the market Nov 18th and we had our first offer November 27th.

Then our buyers " buyer" pulled out, needless to say we are well peed off about it, so it is now back on the market.

Our buyer is still wanting to buy our house, so much that they have now dropped their house by £5000 in hope of selling it before some one comes and puts an offer on ours,so fingers crossed summit will happen soon AGAIN !!! :hopeso

Dawn......itching to book a flight out of here

[Diny]

Veronica

PB and I have long claimed that the housing market is in the hands of the media.

A few negative words from them and everything grinds to a halt. A couple of positive reports .... way hey - it goes crazy.

So - I second Veronicas request .... PLEASE somebody print a couple of positive repots in the press.

Diny

[acisman]

Yes we are in the same boat. House went on market last month and we have only had 2 enquiries. We accept that this is the wrong time of year to sell a house, so we are looking forward to the new year when hopefully things will pick up. Whether we will get our asking price is another story, but we are prepare to take a drop.

The real worry is finding someone to buy the place and then to find that they have not sold their place and we get caught up in a long chain. It certainly is a worrying time, although we have until July to arrive in NZ.
If a sale isn't going through by May, we will go for renting the place and see what happens to the market. It will mean renting rather than buying in NZ, but in someways that is not a bad idea for the first year.

I guess there are a lot of us in the same situation and my view is that there is no good worrying about it. We will be in NZ by mid June regardless.

Dave

[Diny]

Often regarded as somebody who has some pretty weird ideas, here's something that I've decided will really help in the sale of our house.

We have 2 boys, age 7 and 9. They are growing like weeds. Over the last couple of weeks I've noticed that they really do need new school trousers, both of them have a good section of sock showing between hem and shoe. I've been holding off getting them new ones 'cos they won't be needed in NZ (no uniforms at their age).

But ... have decided that I will go and get them some today. Fork out on new school pants and you can bet your bottom dollar that it'll be money wasted 'cos the house will sell and we'll head off.

OK - it's a long shot, but worth trying.

Regards ..... desparate of Staffordshire.

[Rimbo]

Diny,
no no no :no
to make Mr Murphy and his Law appear, you have to buy somthing of greater significance.
Treat your self to a new Car! I guarantee your house will be snapped up by a cash offering millionaire the very next day!
:mrgreen:
John.

[Soon2baKiwi]

We're waiting too! It's been on the market for a little over 3 weeks and we've had four viewings but no offers. One young couple haven't got their mortgage arranged yet but have said they'll be back if the house is still on the market in January. :( It is a bad time of the year generally but I've been told by our estate agent that sometimes people visiting relatives over Christmas want to move back to an area and it's worth keeping the outside looking good and inviting to a prospective buyer. Jesus, I'd go out and do the can-can if I thought it would help ;)

Anyway, Happy Christmas to each and every one (in my best Jimmy Stewart).

Norah

[Kim39]

Thinking of changing advert to: Fiat Punto for sale £144,950 with house thrown in as part of the deal. May work :laugh :laugh

Kim

[deebat]

Junnifer -- It's a small world... I just saw your house and was stunned to recognize the town of Bluffton, SC! I lived there from '97-'01, right off the May River on Rte 46. I find it hard to believe that it took 18 months for your house to sell, considering the popularity of the HHI area. You certainly did a great job on the website, though.

Congratulations on the sale!

Best,
Dan

[Annierobrigado]

Be patient, it will sell. And much faster than ours did -- btw: want to see our place? www.homestoauction.com
Jen and Bill

wish your home was in new zealand so i could have a go on it too :mrgreen: it is a wow home, and it would be right up my alley coz i've lived near a golf course all my life, and in a community away from the main bustle.

yeah, but of course, if it were in new zealand, you wouldn't put it up for sale now, would you?

have you seen some of the homes that would interest you in new zealand? i saw one some time ago that had also 4 bedrooms, spacious gardens and a spectacular view of the lake (i forgot now which), which was also for auction. wonder if it sold already? www.open2view.nz.co.

hope you find your way to nz soon. good luck and see you there!

annie

[leslie]

we've cased the scene and figure its not worth selling pre late january. i suggest taking your house off market for 2 months so its 'fresh' - we learned this the hard way when we were desperate to sell (during the world cup). then again the uk housing market runs like stock market so who's to know anything...

did anyone notice the quiet announcement that rents are outstripping mortgages for the first time in several years?????? didn't think they wanted anyone to notice, they were so quiet about it ...

[Wiggles]

Hi All

Haven't been posting much lately as under HUGE pressure at work! Well, where do I start on this housing roller-coaster? Our house went on the market late Sep, sold within 2 days then fell through in 5 weeks! Their buyers pulled out.

This happened first week of Nov and EA said it should still sell. Well, the next 2 weeks I could quite easily have run under a bus! 2 offers, both crap! The second offer was for full price, BUT there house was not even on the market & they wanted us to take ours off! Yeah right :roll: Then, we sold again and their chain seemed to be a good one. They had the survey done on the house and their sale fell through later that day! I felt so sorry for them as they desperately wanted the house! Felt sorry for us too :laugh

This happened second week of December! Great! Well, next step, the people who made the other crap offer above stepped up to the plate & upped their offer. It was under our asking price only by £1500 so we said to the agent that if they dropped their commission, they had a sale. They agreed! Our buyers had the survey done yesterday.

We do consider ourselves extremely lucky and hopefully this sale will go through with no problems. Until it's signed, sealed and delivered though, we are not celebrating! :uhoh

The one thing that seems to have stood in our favour is we are 20mins into London by train, but we live in a little 'village' and it feels almost like the country. The other, is that the local little school which our house is zoned for, came second in the year 6 league tables in the borough and is in the top 100 schools in the country. It's a big selling point!

I'll keep you all updated on the trials and tribulations! Just to let you know though, our EA said that January is the best month of the year sales wise - it has been for the last 10 years! Good news people!!! :hopeso :hopeso for all of you!

Cheers
Wiggles

[Diny]

Good on you Wiggles !!!!!!

Although I am so jealous I feel like sticking pins in your eyes (not really), I hope this sale goes smoothly for you. Fingers crossed.

Happy Christmas !!

Diny

[jam]

Our house has been on the market in NE England since August 04, as we were hoping for arrival in Auckland Jan 05, we've not had an offer that could complete, so it's been frustrating.

To add to our frustration, we have just had our PR approved in principal and have 6 months in which to send off our migrant levy to get the visa stamps. We are also preparing ourselves for the house to take longer, by utilising the further 12 months from date of the visas being issued to buy us some more time.

If it takes 18 months from now to sell the house, we'll be in need of medical assistance, we have also tried the rental route here, but it's as flat as the selling market.

Here's hoping the market picks up in the new year - i don't think my future employer will wait another 18mths, as the jobs been mine since June 04, although as I'm a nurse shouldn't be too much problem, but we had things organised and it's all so disappointing, but thats life, and all things come to those that wait (hopefully). Maybe the possibility of an interest rate cut being discussed at the last Bank of England meeting may be a green light to those waiting to see what interest rates will do in the new year.

Even though the house isn'y yet sold the good news phone call from our case officer on Monday re PR in principle is a brilliant xmas pressie.

[Danpoll]

all the signs for the economy are good for the new year. remeber that the prat pack will be looking to be re-elected come May. So the tax payer wont get hurt petrol will come down and come may the whole country will be singing the joys of spring. Interest rates will drop 1) to coninside with Euro entry regualtions and 2) to help bolster poor xmas expenditure that and to rectify scare tactics to curb spending in November.

So Things in 05 should be better than late 04.


Dan

[Lisa.C]

Hiya
Channel 4 news ran a story tonight that the Bank of England are set to reduce interest rates in the new year :nice1

[Diny]

The good news is:

We've had an offer on the house.

The bad news is:

It's 37,500 under the asking price.

Stuff that for a game of soldiers. I spoke to the woman tonight, she says she loves the house and can really see herself living here. About 6 months ago she put an offer in on a house further down our lane but she missed out on the sale 'cos she hadn't got a buyer for her house (at that stage). When she made us the offer tonight, she said that she was basing it on what she would have paid for the other house.

What a stupid comment ....... the other house is in a row of 5 properties which are exactly the same and are built with just a wheelie bin sized gap between them. Hardly any front garden and a postage stamp size drying green out the back - all overlooked and alot smaller than ours.

Ours is twice the size of the other house, big front garden, big back garden, driveway for 5 cars, doesn't look like any other house in the village as the guy who built it designed it himself. I know it sounds like I'm blowing smoke up my own a**s but it's kind of riled me. Do these people think that we'll say "oh go on then ..... what's 37,500 quid between mates".

Back to the drawing board. However, the above 2 postings have made me feel a touch more optimistic.

Diny

[veronica]

we had someone make an offer that was £50,000 less than the asking price and it really embarassed the agent as he has to present all offers. As he knows my daughter socially he really squirmed when he had to tell her. hmmm but then knowing our Kerry perhaps he was nervous about what she was going to say to him, she doesn't tend to mince her words.

[Wiggles]

Good on you Wiggles !!!!!!

Although I am so jealous I feel like sticking pins in your eyes (not really), I hope this sale goes smoothly for you. Fingers crossed.

Happy Christmas !!

Diny

Thanks Diny :laugh

Actually you can stick pins anywhere you like ONCE the house has completed. Unfortunately, until it is set in stone, we will not be celebrating. Having a survey done still doesn't mean a thing - it's good, but still not a done deal as we discovered with buyer's no. 2. (Shame for them)

They do need a change in the house buying laws in this country. It is ridiculous that people can change their minds at any time.
I'll keep you all updated on our progress and please do likewise.

Best wishes all
Wiggles

[Junnifer USA]

Helllo again!

I know that feeling of taking a price that is really too low. We did -- after 18 months! Finally, we decided that the opportunity to start a new life was worth the loss -- and that we would make it up later... if not in cash then in quality of life. Its a tough decision.
We close in 2 weeks. So far, I have no regrets about the price we took cause....we are outa here!
J

[Wahine]

Actually you can stick pins anywhere you like ONCE the house has completed. Unfortunately, until it is set in stone, we will not be celebrating. Having a survey done still doesn't mean a thing - it's good, but still not a done deal as we discovered with buyer's no. 2. (Shame for them)

They do need a change in the house buying laws in this country. It is ridiculous that people can change their minds at any time.
I'll keep you all updated on our progress and please do likewise.

Best wishes all
Wiggles

Like you, Wiggles, we are in process of house sale. We refuse to get even remotely excited until we have exchanged. And yes, the house buying laws do need changing!

We've had the survey done, been thru negotiations with estate agents and buyer and I think we have made a deal. Have dropped 12k since putting it on market in August, but am happy with that just so long as we get out of here. Estate agents surprised us by lowering their fees by £500 - said they were feeling a bit Christmassy, can you believe it? I still hate them.

Anyway, fingers crossed for everyone and Happy Holidays to all.

S.

[Karoline]

Will it be an oncoming train?!

I have got buyers, had to sell my house a couple of thousand euro's below the morgage price and will loose my savings to a large extend. :wah
I took their offer because 12 houses are for sale in the neighbourhood and Dutch economy is not going well and predictions are that netto income will decrease next year, so better sell now for a low price than get stuck next year.

They want to get into the house 1st of feb. Plan is that my Kiwi goes back to NZ to repair his van and arrange accomodation for us and i will stay two months with my parents to be able to save my salary and get some of my savings back...
If all goes well by April it should be possible to go to NZ. :hopeso
All depends now whether the buyers can afford it (finances). At least they don't have the problem of selling their own house, they are renters at the moment.
Exciting times and a very busy january ahead.....
:hopeso that everything will work out as planned.
Hope you guys are not too jealous...I can't believe my luck at the moment and i am not really partying yet, because there are still a lot of things that could go wrong....

Karoline

[jam]

It's a difficult equation to try and balance - wait to sell the house to get a good price, or wait and maybe eventually accept an offer that is lower than the price you would expect, but you can get on with your new life!, and that offer could have been made 6 months earlier if the price had been reduced? :oops:

We are in constant conversation with our estate agent about this, and they have persuaded us to wait and see how the market goes in the first quarter of 2005. :hopeso

This is quite a condundrum, as we all want as many $ to take to NZ, but is the wait going to provide the return?

It's crystal ball time! :roll:

[veronica]

We have just had a friend from the UK staying with us who is on the edge of the property market (something on the finance side) and he says that prices have become more realistic but actual property value hasn't dropped although it has levelled off. He feels that property won't rise like it did over the last couple of years, that it will stabilise then rise slowly. Hope he is right, as you can all see property value is on occasions vastly different from the asking price. Unfortunately the agent that values your (or our) property at the realistic price of £250,000 doesnt get the job when another agent values it at £300,000 (but then after 3 months on the market suggests that property not moving, reduce the price, etc,etc.) This is what causes a lot of the distortion on the market figures. So :hopeso that 2005 will be better that the media tries to make it.

[Timbo]

We are in the fortunate position of having LOADS of equity in our modest little place here in Epsom. If push comes to shove, we will drop the price in order to drum up some interest. However, this could also have the reverse effect I suppose, in that potential buyers see that you have dropped the price and assume there is a problem with the property.
It seems that we have another of those little catch 22 situations with regards getting out to NZ. Ho Hum.
:uhoh

[jam]

Hi Veronica

Your sentiments re pricing from estate agents are quite true, our 3 valuations were across a 70K spread, we opted for the middlish value as that agent is a surveyor and priced it as per the going price per metre (?) and we thought it to be very realistic.

We have gained a lot of equity, but feel people will chance their arm, which is okay if when the time comes to buy in NZ, we too can get a good reduction, but that is pie in the sky stuff. If we were staying here, you can expect to get offers, of course, but our potential buyers don't seem to want to reduce their house price, so why should we reduce ours?

The only reason to reduce is to try and estimate that if we don't consider an offer, and in 6 months end up reducing to that amount, we could have took the offer and been in NZ and getting on with things, as life seems to be on hold right now.

Time to let my brain cells have a rest :wah