Estate Agents.

[Pistol Pete]

Any on here? Or anyone clued up and could answer a few questions??

Currently got our house for sale, but curry agent is not what we thought. We hve found a house we love so have made it clear to the agent to really make that known t any viewers. Have been on the market fir 12 weeks now. Dropped 5k in total off asking price.

Considering second agent to help speed things along. Second choice is the agent who is selling the hour we love. Not 100% sure on the situation with second agents.

Any input appreciated.

[dgbnova#1]

Seen it done but not sure about the situation I would contact the prospective new house agent put it to them as there inclined to shift yours to get the other house sold also so ftw all round well that's how I would see it lol

[Pistol Pete]

That's how j see it too. But fees etc on top. Also looking through our contact, not happy about a few things that were not made clear.

[mowgli]

there is no quick way round this. you simply need someone to want to buy your house. there is no magic formula.. maybe try some local advertising. our local rag has a feature section.. it costs money to do it, but it might work.

[Nick J]

I'll apologise in advance If theirs any estate agents on here but you cannot trust them with a barge pole... Very sneaky and underhand at times! I don't think I would want to use the agents whom you would like to buy a house from as then they can see exactly whats happening and how much potential interest you have in your own property? If It helps I liked to take all viewings myself telling them about what you've done and how you've improved the property then offer your phone number for a quick answer to any potential questions and or offers. I negotiated with a few interested parties this way myself and got the sales we wanted quickly without the bull from the estate agents to deal with. Just an idea but It worked for us.

Nick.

[rubachuk]

I assume you've asked the estate you're buying from what the situation of the sellers is. Do they need a quick sale, or are they happy to accept an offer and take their house off the market while you find a buyer? No point putting pressure on yourself unless you need to. One of the lads I work with now bought a house last year off a couple who were emigrating and had put their house on the market well before they were due to go to make sure they weren't stuck with it, and then spend however long in rented until they left. They were happy to wait for him to cut down on how long they had to rent.

I was very lucky last time I moved as I had a workmate who left where we worked together to go and work for an estate agent so I was in the fortunate position where I could trust an estate agent! One thing he did for me repeatedly was to make my house either "property of the week" or a "featured property" in the local rag where I got a double or quadruple sized advert. Might be worth pressurising your estate agent for similar, maybe not every week but even one week would be good. Their websites will have these sort of features too.

I was always told by my mate that this is now the best time of year to be selling a property, spring time. I know you've had it on the market for 12 weeks, but that takes us back to near Christmas when not too many people are looking for a new gaff. So don't have too much frustration building from the first 8 or so of those 12 weeks.

We recently had to sell my Gran's house after she passed away. That was on the market for about 12 weeks also. We had valuations from £95K to £70K. We put it up starting at £90K for about 6 weeks, hoping to get 80K. A few non-serious viewings and £60k offers later we dropped it to £85K for 4 weeks and still nothing. Then ba$tard estate agent (not my mate) dropped the price to offers over £75K without proper authorisation. We went nuts, but hey-presto a bidding war broke out and we got the £80K. We were furious at first, and it's certainly a high risk strategy that I'm not sure I'd recommend, but I can't argue they estate agent got us what we wanted for it.

[Pistol Pete]

Minor update....

Meeting our agents tomorrow to see if they will be willing to switch our contract (which has 6 weeks to run) to a multi agent one so we can allow the agent selling the house we want to also market ours. If they agree, i will use this as leverage with the new one. They sell ours we buy a house they are also selling. 2 guaranteed sales!

House we want to buy, vendors are moving into a house which is empty. Relative passed away. I have already put a cheeky lower than asking price offer which got rejected. Worked out well for me as the girl let slip what they would take. Bonus as they have just lowered the asking price so my original offer may well be enough. Time will tell...

[Jeff16v]

Robbing twunts all of them. I'm not going to sell our flat to buy a house and instead are going to rent it out.

The sneaky b&stards are all doing open days so you can see other buyers and panic you into making an over the top offer early to get it off the market. A place we wanted to look at was on at offers over 420k and sold for 445 because they had 30 people view it on a open day. Glad we didn't look or get involved in bidding wars.

i think we are just gonna rent somewhere near the school we want.

what terms in the contract weren't you happy about? I don't have any experience of selling and the info would help.

[Pistol Pete]

Partly ourselves to blame as didn't read it word for word. BUT i do feel that our naivety showed. Never sold a house before and think this was taken advantage of. 20 weeks is the term. Most others do 12 weeks.

[Jeff16v]

Partly ourselves to blame as didn't read it word for word. BUT i do feel that our naivety showed. Never sold a house before and think this was taken advantage of. 20 weeks is the term. Most others do 12 weeks.


ah ok, cool.

[kent14sr]

I phoned up and requested a viewing on a property which had been on the market in my area for some time.

Told by agent, be prepared to put a quick bid in as there are 5 in already and the seller will make their mind up at the end of the week.

Arranged viewing, and phoned to confirm it a couple of days later. Told 8 bids were now in, and one at asking price. I cancelled and said there was clearly no point in viewing if they had all these good offers in and found something alternative.

Still on the market today, a couple of months later. In my mind, estate agent trying to inflate the price and failed.