[vixxann]

Thought I might start a poll on this one to give, us here in UK still trying to sell, an idea of averages or extremes ;)

The poll indicates time taken to sell house - it might also be useful if you can mention if and how much you had to reduce the original sale price. if you've any other relevant facts then let us know...

[zardell]

Sorry Vix, but last July we sold ours privately through word of mouth within 2 days of deciding to put it on the market.

Had 3 estate agents round to give us valuations.

Out of the blue, the potential purchasers knocked on our front door and asked us if the rumour that we were selling our house was true and if so, how much were we asking for it, we told them the top valuation price plus an added £5,000 and they bought it without haggling for a penny.

So you see, there is light at the end of the tunnel...........

You hate me now don't you........;)

:exit

Julie

xx

[Marie P]

We put our house up for sale in the july ,nothing happened for a few weeks and then we had one viewer .

Luckily they wanted our house and it all completed at the end of November .

Marie x

[Kim39]

Took close to 18 months to shift ours. Had job offer in June 04 and the house moved on the 31st Oct 05. We did have a pull out though in the July.


Kim

[Mickstim]

What a good idea for a poll Vicki. Just hope it doesn't leave us 'not sold yets' to feel even more disheartened. I also wonder for people who sold on the first day or in the first week - did it leave you feeling that you had undervalued your property?

Barb

[thezorbster]

Sorry for all those still desperately trying but we sold ours within 2 days of going on the market at full asking price. We had a great agent who pushed us to put it on for a lot more than we would have dared too, we thought he was being mad but it went to the first viewer who walked through the door. The agent did say that by the time we had completed, the market had slowed a bit and he wasn't sure whether it would have gone so quickly, I guess we were just incredibly lucky.

[M&J]

We put our house on the market in May and within a week and only one viewing we sold it for a little under the asking price. Now her it gets a bit complicated so concentrate. The buyer had sold his property to the tenant in our house, simple we thought. Well after 3 months of our tenant haggling with our buyer for price reductions and too many other things to mention we finally thought we would exchange early September. Then 3 days before the tenant went to our buyer for a £20,000 price reduction, he had already has a £3000 reduction, on a property valued at £130,000. As you can imagine this was turned down.

So to cut a long story short we have waited a few weeks to see if our buyer can resell his house but if nothing by Monday then it has to go back on the market!!!:wah And to make things worse we can't get the tenant out until the end of November, so even if we sell really quickly we can't exchange until after he has moved out.

All very frustrating, lets hope it sells quickly!!

[zardell]

What a good idea for a poll Vicki. Just hope it doesn't leave us 'not sold yets' to feel even more disheartened. I also wonder for people who sold on the first day or in the first week - did it leave you feeling that you had undervalued your property?

Barb



YES !!!! Even with the added 5 grand !!

Julie

xx

[gil]

First put ours on the market in August 05, had 3rd viewing in Aug 06 (first two viewers weren't interested as no. 1 thought it was too big and no. 2 too small :confused:) and we completed on Nov 17th, flew out here Nov 18th :eek:

Did we get disheartened? Yes! Did we drop the price? Yes, by £40K.

Hang on in there, it WILL happen :yes

Gil

[Tia Maria]

Ours sold quickly too. We had valuations from 3 agents which were all the same so we were confident it was the right price. Our house was all finished downstairs - but needed work upstairs, we asked the agents to value it with this in mind as we didn't want it being used as a bargaining tool later.

We did the usual de-cluttering (a lot!), took our own photos on a sunny day and requested the agent didn't over-sell so that viewers were pleasantly surprised when they saw it in reality, rather than disappointed. (They really over sell here in NZ, tint the sky to make it look bluer and use cameras that make rooms appear wider and say thing like 'room for a tennis court' in a standard back garden! :laugh ).

We wanted a quick exchange with a delayed completion which would allow us to book flights in between, with peace of mind that the house had sold. To us this was worth a reduction in price but we did not tell the agent this. In fact we told the agent we would rent it out, (with a different agent), if it had not sold within 8 weeks. This was to stop everyone thinking we would take a silly offer as our planned emigration date got nearer. We genuinely researched this option also, so it was there as back up and we didn't get desperate.

Agents are always trying to work out the lowest offer you will take as ultimately a slightly lower commission is better than no commission at all. So you really have to stand firm and say 'this is the price we need to do what we want, otherwise we will rent'. Obviously this won't help if your house is overvalued but it will stop people thinking you are an easy target because you are emigrating.

This probably sounds like a lot of planning and we were up many nights sorting our stuff and discussing all this before the agents came round. But it is probably the biggest asset you own so it is worth the effort and stress!

Things went the way we wanted, we took a lower offer which allowed us to do what we wanted, on condition they exchanged quickly and delayed completion.

Not sure if this helps but that's our story, I might add even though everything went relatively smoothly I still found selling the house more stressful than emigrating! :(

Good Luck to all of you still selling!

Cheers

Tia

[bartons]

We put our house on the market end of May this year and had an offer just under the asking price a month and 10 viewings later. From a first time buyer. We couldn't believe our luck and thought we'd be out within three weeks, but it took 10 weeks till exchange of contracts, and according to the estate agent this was a "smooth" sale. We found the waiting for the exchange/completion more stressful than finding a buyer! Anyway, four months after putting it on the market we're in NZ at last.

[Nicola]

Two years ago it took us 12 weeks with one estate agent, then shifted to another estate agent who sold it in one day.

[BaldyBeardyBloke]

Sorry, no horror story from us, quite the opposite.

We put our house up early with the idea that if it sold quickly then, yes we'd have to rent in UK for a short while, but at least the thing most likely to hold us up was done and dusted. If it sold, we rented, then got rejected by NZIS we'd just have to suck it up and either risk going anyway and look for work in NZ, or simply take it on the chin and but a new house in UK.

Anyway, we sold really quite quickly (especially given it was over Christmas). Not only that, we got asking price and the buyers had no house to sell (expanding asian family) and were happy to wait a few months for us to get a decision from NZIS.

Bonus. Everyone's a winner.

[Sam B]

Well we got an offer of the full asking price from the first people to view - so it took a day really, and this was after we had arrived here. I wasn't surprised, it was a beautiful stone cottage with loads of character and it was in tip-top condition with a big garden in a nice part of Cornwall. It just made me think we should have asked for more, but we went for the highest valuation of 3 anyway.

And then the exchange and completion - nightmare! They really dragged it out, loads of stupid questions, endless searches, claims that there was a well in the garden and wanting to know where it was (there is NO well), what make is the septic tank etc etc etc. I was tearing my hair out waiting to complete on a house we'd bought here. Our solicitors said it was all completely normal, but it DIDN'T feel normal to me!! Why can't everyone do things in a rush in the same way as me??!!

[mgbridges]

Ours is another success story I'm afraid, sorry if it disheartens those of you still waiting to sell. We accepted an offer 36hrs after calling the estate agent we wanted to list with confirming we wanted to sell through them and about 12hrs after the 'For Sale' sign went up.

We didn't think we'd undervalued the house as the 3 valuations we got all came in significantly higher than we thought they would and we'd been watching the local market closely. We sold for 3.5K below asking price but as that was approx. 40K more than we ever thought we'd get we figured we'd done well. I guess we could have waited to see if anyone would have offered asking price or possibly even above it but that would have been being greedy. :D

As it was it didn't all go entirely smoothly with arguments over completion date, despite clearly stating at the beginning we wanted to exchange quickly and delay completion. Also silly 11th hour questions and demands from our purchaser. It was particularly stressful getting to exchange as it happened 5 working days after the day it was meant to happen!

As an aside, I know lots of people don't believe it works but if you are still trying to sell make sure you de-clutter, tidy up the garden (especially at the front), put the dirty laundry out of sight, make the beds every day etc. etc. Even though I know all about the concept of 'staging' a property even I fall for it to a degree so it WORKS!

Good luck everyone
Anneliese

[peebles16]

mgbridges
Success stories don't dishearten just make me hang in there for the big sale and after reading this it's just round the corner - I can feel it!!
Karen

[mgbridges]

House selling vibes coming your way Helen - best of luck! :)

[benandclare]

Sorry to all those who haven't sold yet but ours sold 6 hrs after going on the market to cash buyer for full asking price :raebanana :raebanana
It's when you get luck like that you know your move to the other side of the world is meant to be :cheers

Ben

[Rav]

3 months on sale with multiple agents,1 viewer till date and possibility of house being sold before moving looks highly unlikely if not impossible

[off2nz]

We sold ours within 4 hours of it going on the market for the full asking price too! We completed on 26th May and flew to NZ on 27th May! Everything seemed too good to be true - as it turns out it was (but that's all another saga!!!!)

[Familyofmonkeys]

We had every single local agent do valuation...about 9 of them. Then told one we liked best, what rate we were prepared to pay....gave them time to think about it, before they said yes. If they want the business, they'll take whatever they can get, so gave them less that half the percentage they originally quoted (less than 1 %). Put house on market for pretty much top dollar.....believe it was correct price, having done some research beforehand.
We were lucky and sold our house within 2 weeks for full asking price. Good job....was really hard keeping place tidy with young sprogs! Had 3 people interested, so chose to sell it to ones with no chain, as less to go wrong!