[Kim39]

Come on folks i need all your know how on this one. We have a dilemma. Have job offer sitting above me as i write,its not on the POL/OSL :no I have been offered a job solely on a work visa (HGV driver) with a known company in Auckland :nice1
This is the dilemma: house is on the market & has been for the last 6 weeks(market has slowed), had a few viewings but no offers. :no Friends of ours are upping sticks & slipping off to Hamilton. Their estate agent has advised them to drop house price by £5000 seeing market is slow. Ours has said nothing. :? We can't really afford to drop our price as we will be taking all the equity with us. Now do we drop and lose out by £5-10,000 so we can get out of this rat race quickly, job offer is actually an open ended one, or do we stick it out & hope that this market will pick up quickly. :? :hopeso
Come on there are plenty of you out there who may just be able to help us make our minds up. HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!! To be honest with you if it was left to me solely i'd go for the drop, but she who must be obeyed isn't to keen on it

Kim

[Phil&Shell]

I say stick it out mate. You know what the house market is like, you just can't tell who is going to walk into that estate agent tommorrow. You will get offers if you are patient and they will try and knock you down anyway. If you drop the price it looks like your desperate and they'll offer lower again.

We're the opposite to you we've had an offer on ours (just about what we wanted) but we haven't got jobs yet.

Be patient.

[Pakeha Boy]

I'll jump into bed with Phil&Shell.
Stick it out, whats the hurry?
On the very odd occassion, "she who must be obeyed" is sometimes actually right, besides the fact that if shes around the 40 yr old mark, it will probably a very good thing for your health to go along with her until SHE comes up with the idea of dropping the price.

Y' kin fit laike m' bonnie loon!

[blue]

I,m in the same dilemma I have a job offer which is open and have had my house on the market since may. I changed estate agents two weeks ago to see if this would boost it but only had one viewing since then. My equity is tied up in the house so cant move untill its sold. Estate agents say the market usually picks up then end of september with people wanting to move before x.mas. If you have been on the market for a long time might be worth looking at changing estate agents also you mention that you are going to Auckland and things are more expensive there you will need every penny. I would say stick it out. I was going on a work visa but as the house is not moving I thought i might as well put in for permanent residence. I put my EOI in a week ago and was selected on wed so at least I am doing something positive while I wait for the house to sell.

[Diny]

Amazing - for once I agree with Pakeha Boy (for those of you who don't know - he's my hubby). Sit tight on the house for a wee bit longer, all it takes is one person to want it, that person could be coming to view it today - who knows.

I know how you feel, the only thing stopping us booking our tickets is the sale of the house - damn frustrating eh.

I was talking to a friend of ours in NZ last night, she said that within a couple of months it will be a buyers market in NZ. All to do with rising interest rates and everything linked to the economy. I didn't understand what she was telling me (not my forte) - I was just pleased to hear her say that by the time we get there the house buying scene will be in our favour. Everything happens for a reason - let things take their natural course, Difficult advise to follow I know.

And ......... at the end of the day, if our house isn't shifting, it will be ME who has the bright idea about dropping the price a little. Good old Pakeha Boy - he should join the peace keeping corp.

Diny

[veronica]

I think that what she means is that with the interest rates going up that house prices will stabilise because no bu**er will be able to afford the mortgage repayments.

[Jodie]

Can I just ask if you don't mind - how much is the house up for? We dropped a few grand when we sold our flat cos in the big scheme of things, 3000 quid didn't seem much when we're moving across the other side of the world and starting our lives again....

Yeah OK, you need every penny you can get when you're emigrating, but at the end of the day, the house market goes very quiet over xmas and doesn't pick up again until about February time (my mum works in the industry so has all the goss!) so I guess it just depends how long you're willing to wait.

And as for not knowing what's going to happen in the future about prices - yes they may go up and you may get high offer, but at the same time, they could go down too and you'd have to drop even further price-wise than if you dropped the 5000 quid now.....

Go with your heart - where do you want to be spending xmas? :nice1

Jod
:D

[helen]

Hi,
have you been realistic with your asking price? we had 5 estate agents in to value, there was a diffrence of £30,000 between the lowest and highest valuation :uhoh
We decided to go for 'offers over' the lowest valuation, reasoning if there was sufficient interest buyers they may push each other up on offers, putting us in a plus situation :nice1, rather than go for a higher valuation and have to come down which is kind of negative :wah . We went with the estate agent who appeared to be most active in our area. :hopeso
Although we have had interest from day one, things have really picked up in the last week or so, methinks holidays over kids at school, buy before christmas syndrome.
In three weeks we have had around 15 viewings, another 2 today and 2 on Mon. 2 offers on the table, and one serious interest, but has house to sell.
So I would guess, be honest with yourself with regards your asking price, if you think that it is a fair price then I would hold fire for a bit, but keep an eye on whats going on with the markets. Also keep on top of your estate agent, they seem to forget sometimes who's paying who! ask friends to ring every now and then as interested buyers and see how they are marketing your place, if you are not happy with what they are doing, change agents.
Good luck!
H

[Kim39]

Jodie,
Don't mind you asking at all. Are you interested : ;) laugh only joking. House is up for offers over £150,000. I feel that the way it is being portrayed is that we won't budge from this figure of £150,000. This is not the case. I think maybe the way forward would be to readvertise it as OTR £150,000. This way we would be seen as being flexible to a degree. Yes we all would like to make more than what we feel we could, but seeing as a house is the most important investment you are likely to make in a lifetime, you really want to get as much as you can for your initial outlay. In our case we would be making £90,000 profit in just over 4 years. I know a house is only worth what somebody is willing to pay for it
As you say where would i like to spend xmas? I'm sure you know the answer and you don't even know me.

[Mildred]

Personally speaking if I was buying a house and saw there was no chain involved I'd be more inclined to pay more (but I'm not buying) so can't help you :hopeso

[Diny]

Good point Frances - we've instructed our agents to do their best to 'weedle' out the buyers who are in a chain. Have also stated that if we accept an offer - but those people need to sell - if another offer comes along we'll swap. Abit harsh I know but if you put all your cards on the table they shouldn't really have any room to grumble (but of course they will). A quick sale with no chain is a real bonus.

Diny

[Fern]

Just for my 2 penny's worth,i'll say this.....we were in the same spot a few days ago! we have a short (3 person) chain and friday the bottom buyer dropped price :eek .Our view is that yes the market may pick up...but might not,and with inerest probably rising again next month coupled to xmas the risk for us is too much for a november move!

Good luck :nice1 .

[veronica]

We are in the same positon a chain of 3 and us and the bottom one dropped out, both the other two buyers are fairly committed so will see what happens in the next two weeks. :hopeso

[Lil]

Helen, I could have written your post! I'm not really believing too much about the downturn in property market, if the price is right you house should sell no problem. We had three valuations with £20K difference between the lowest and the highest. We put ours up for £8K higher than the lowest, with the most aggressive agents in town, and sold within 3 weeks. We had more than a dozen viewers within two weeks and two offers on the table, both from people who had not sold their property and ended up with a bit of a bidding war between them.

I didn't want the ones who offered higher price to have our house as they were a bit of a nightmare and a wee tad mental, and luckily the other couple sold their flat within a week. So I still ended up with £5K more than the lowest valuation. So maybe you do need to review your price, remembering that everyone who is registered on your agents books will now have seen your property details, they say that the first four weeks are crucial whilst it is new on the market.

[lindajax]

Hi Kim and all others who've posted replies to Kim,
I've got a sort of similar problem. Job waiting, house for sale and 2 offfers but no definite sale.
We're gonna go anyway :P and leave house in hands of relative :eek
Got fed up of waiting!! Hopefully our 2 offers will pan out into a definite sale before the year is out - both families have thier own houses to sell :?
I suppose we are a bit gungho and just wanna get there now so lets hope it all pans out :uhoh :hopeso
hope all goes well for you guys too :hopeso

[Jodie]

I reckon you should re=-dvertise it with OTR then - like you say, that may encourage people with budgets up to #150000 to look - they may have been put off by the 'Offers in excess of' bit.
Take what you can now and get on over here for xmas!
Jod
:nice1

[robothamma]

Hi Kim,
I will send you a pm tomorrow! Have you tried offers over £149,000 ? :laugh Sorry it's because I'm from Derbyshire ;) :laugh :hopeso for you seriously I know what a nightmare it is!