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Selling a property

We're currently selling our first home, at least we were until the buyer dropped out 2 days before contract exchange and now we're tearing our hair out with worry over what happens next and whether the place we're buying will be lost.

Are any lifers able to offer any words of advice or just any stories to help keep us positive?

Comments

  • Similar happened to my wife and I post Brexit referendum. However we explained to the people we are buying from and they are prepared to wait (not indefinitely) so worth having a chat with them. Otherwise they too have to re-market and wait for a new buyer who will have to go through the mortgage applications, searches, surveys etc. You are already streets ahead in terms of time of any other party so I just hope you can find yourselves a new buyer soon-ish.
  • The way the market is you will get another buyer soon enough, just have to hope the people who own the house you are buying understand.

    Give the agents some shit though

    Not the end of the world but teeth shatteringly annoying, should be financial penalties for people who fuck a out like that
  • edited August 2016
    We are currently in that awful waiting time between offer and exchange of contracts, I agree with the others talk to the vendors of the house you want, also try and ascertain why your buyers dropped out.

    Good luck
  • Had similar thing happen to us. At least all the searches the solicitor does and other paperwork will be ready. Worth asking the agents if the ex buyers will let you have a copy of the survey maybe? It might be possible to give it to a new buyer.

    The owners of the house we were buying said they would wait a little while and it all worked out in the end. And as someone has said above, you shouldn't have too much trouble selling at the moment the way the market is.

    Good luck!
  • Had similar thing happen to us. At least all the searches the solicitor does and other paperwork will be ready. Worth asking the agents if the ex buyers will let you have a copy of the survey maybe? It might be possible to give it to a new buyer.

    The owners of the house we were buying said they would wait a little while and it all worked out in the end. And as someone has said above, you shouldn't have too much trouble selling at the moment the way the market is.

    Good luck!

    Sharing the survey is a great idea. Interesting to me as when i was first time buying i found commissioing the survey especially worrying and expensive and wondered why I couldn't rely on someone else's recent survey if there was one.

    Thinking about it again now: A buyer that dropped out may want some money for it. Would be great if agent kept a copy to share with next potential buyer too, assuming no showstoppers in there. I suppose it could be commercial in confidence and not transferable, I.e liabilities for surveyor and their need to protect their market of future business?
  • Dazzler21 said:

    We're currently selling our first home, at least we were until the buyer dropped out 2 days before contract exchange and now we're tearing our hair out with worry over what happens next and whether the place we're buying will be lost.

    Are any lifers able to offer any words of advice or just any stories to help keep us positive?

    I pulled out of a house 2 weeks prior to exchanging contracts. Not the nicest of things to do but sometimes things happen. Anyway all wasn't lost for the woman she found another buyer within a few weeks, as you would expect in the south east of England. All the work my solicitor I obviously had to pay for but she passed on the searches and other bits to new buyer who paid me a little bit back.
  • Do the agents get a copy of the survey? No point asking for feedback as to why the buyer dropped out. Agents are all wide boys who are full of shit and know jack shit! I'm a chartered surveyor and once had an agent telling me that subsidence was a plaster crack! They are after commission and would sell their own grandparents to get it
  • Do the agents get a copy of the survey? No point asking for feedback as to why the buyer dropped out. Agents are all wide boys who are full of shit and know jack shit! I'm a chartered surveyor and once had an agent telling me that subsidence was a plaster crack! They are after commission and would sell their own grandparents to get it

    Couldn't have put it better myself

    Had more frank discussions and had to give more home truths to estate agents than I care to think. I'm sure there are good people involved but the bigger firms (wards, your move, RobinsonMichaelJackson take your pick) are utterly chock full of people who would inject a family member with full bore AIDS to get a sniff if comission.
  • Carter - what a revolting thing to say, it is remarks like this that are putting me off CL
  • Carter - what a revolting thing to say, it is remarks like this that are putting me off CL

    Maybe could have worded it differently but he's got a valid point IMO.
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  • edited August 2016
    Carter said:

    Do the agents get a copy of the survey? No point asking for feedback as to why the buyer dropped out. Agents are all wide boys who are full of shit and know jack shit! I'm a chartered surveyor and once had an agent telling me that subsidence was a plaster crack! They are after commission and would sell their own grandparents to get it

    Couldn't have put it better myself

    Had more frank discussions and had to give more home truths to estate agents than I care to think. I'm sure there are good people involved but the bigger firms (wards, your move, RobinsonMichaelJackson take your pick) are utterly chock full of people who would inject a family member with full bore AIDS to get a sniff if comission.
    .....and they are the more honest ones!

    Estate agents are the biggest cunts on the planet, its that simple.

    We had our old house on for 770k and after ONE DAY she presents me an offer for 690k and advises me to take it.

    "OK, I will accept the offer if you cut your $30,000 commission to $10,000 on account of the fact you have done absolutely fuck all - deal?"

    Unsurprisingly the rancid turd rejected that offer and we ended up selling through another agent for a lot closer to the asking price.

    The sooner an 'Uber' for real estate emerges and sends this shower of cunts back to the dole queue the better.
  • Carter said:

    Do the agents get a copy of the survey? No point asking for feedback as to why the buyer dropped out. Agents are all wide boys who are full of shit and know jack shit! I'm a chartered surveyor and once had an agent telling me that subsidence was a plaster crack! They are after commission and would sell their own grandparents to get it

    Couldn't have put it better myself

    Had more frank discussions and had to give more home truths to estate agents than I care to think. I'm sure there are good people involved but the bigger firms (wards, your move, RobinsonMichaelJackson take your pick) are utterly chock full of people who would inject a family member with full bore AIDS to get a sniff if comission.
    .....and they are the more honest ones!

    Estate agents are the biggest cunts on the planet, its that simple.

    We had our old house on for 770k and after ONE DAY she presents me an offer for 690k and advises me to take it.

    "OK, I will accept the offer if you cut your $30,000 commission to $10,000 on account of the fact you have done absolutely fuck all - deal?"

    Unsurprisingly the rancid turd rejected that offer and we ended up selling through another agent for a lot closer to the asking price.

    The sooner an 'Uber' for real estate emerges and sends this shower of cunts back to the dole queue the better.
    It is surprising that 'an Uber for real estate' hasn't emerged yet - it's an obvious place for yet another intermediary to be taken out of the economy for the net benefit of consumers.
  • Estate agents in London are pointless, the houses sell themselves. If people want a house in that area and are desperate to get on the property ladder, then there is no need to push someone to buy.

    They are highly annoying and get money for doing fuck all.
  • Carter said:

    Do the agents get a copy of the survey? No point asking for feedback as to why the buyer dropped out. Agents are all wide boys who are full of shit and know jack shit! I'm a chartered surveyor and once had an agent telling me that subsidence was a plaster crack! They are after commission and would sell their own grandparents to get it

    Couldn't have put it better myself

    Had more frank discussions and had to give more home truths to estate agents than I care to think. I'm sure there are good people involved but the bigger firms (wards, your move, RobinsonMichaelJackson take your pick) are utterly chock full of people who would inject a family member with full bore AIDS to get a sniff if comission.
    .....and they are the more honest ones!

    Estate agents are the biggest cunts on the planet, its that simple.

    We had our old house on for 770k and after ONE DAY she presents me an offer for 690k and advises me to take it.

    "OK, I will accept the offer if you cut your $30,000 commission to $10,000 on account of the fact you have done absolutely fuck all - deal?"

    Unsurprisingly the rancid turd rejected that offer and we ended up selling through another agent for a lot closer to the asking price.

    The sooner an 'Uber' for real estate emerges and sends this shower of cunts back to the dole queue the better.
    It is surprising that 'an Uber for real estate' hasn't emerged yet - it's an obvious place for yet another intermediary to be taken out of the economy for the net benefit of consumers.
    Can only be a matter of time I'd have thought, there is a huge amount of money to be made.
  • Dazzler21 said:

    We're currently selling our first home, at least we were until the buyer dropped out 2 days before contract exchange and now we're tearing our hair out with worry over what happens next and whether the place we're buying will be lost.

    Are any lifers able to offer any words of advice or just any stories to help keep us positive?

    Have moved many times and never has a sale gone through without frustrations. As often as not the sale suddenly takes off when least expected. Advice is never build up expectations, assume any offer has a good chance of going pear shaped and be happy when it doesn't.
  • I sold my flat without even finding a house as we had given up looking as it took ages to sell. But I wasn't going to lose the buyer so sold the flat, moved our stuff into storage and stayed with family for five weeks.
  • There are sites out there to advertise your property without an agent. I'm planning to do this in 2 years when we move. Dealing with 1 estate agent to buy the place we're in now made me want to kill
  • Curb_It said:

    I sold my flat without even finding a house as we had given up looking as it took ages to sell. But I wasn't going to lose the buyer so sold the flat, moved our stuff into storage and stayed with family for five weeks.

    I did this too for 4 weeks and my mate has just done the same.
  • edited August 2016
    Dazzler21 said:

    We're currently selling our first home, at least we were until the buyer dropped out 2 days before contract exchange and now we're tearing our hair out with worry over what happens next and whether the place we're buying will be lost.

    Are any lifers able to offer any words of advice or just any stories to help keep us positive?

    I'm not sure if this has been asked, but do you know why the buyers dropped out? Was it anything to do with the survey/property etc?

    We are currently in the middle of selling our property, and it's taken since March and one person did drop out of the 3 person chain early on but another buyer soon stepped in fortunately.

    I would only suggest direct dialog with any new buyer you find, and keep them onside, and as others have suggested retrieve any documentation that you can, survey etc.

    We've sold and will be renting rather than try and tie both ends up at the same time, OK if you can do it, but the process is still incredibly stressful.

    Good luck.

    #Edit, I have to say I have the same opinion as others when it comes to Estate Agents, but the particular guy dealing with our sale has been on the ball all the way. (A rare commodity - have him stuffed)

  • Curb_It said:

    I sold my flat without even finding a house as we had given up looking as it took ages to sell. But I wasn't going to lose the buyer so sold the flat, moved our stuff into storage and stayed with family for five weeks.

    I did this too for 4 weeks and my mate has just done the same.
    Me too, then rented a place for six months while I found a house then got it into a reasonable state to live in. Most expensive time of my life.
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  • I accepted an offer for my mum's house last week, twelve grand below value but I want rid. First time buyers so hopefully the deal will go smoothly, just praying they don't change their minds before completion. Can really do without the stress of having it on my hands.
  • We sold our house in January using emoov, all done on line apart from a lovely lady they sent round to take the pics and write the floor plan. After that it was advertised on Zoopla, Right Move & Prime Location as well as emoov's own site.

    We sold the house in a week all for a fixed fee of £750.00 instead of the 1.5% or 1% commission I would have paid an estate agent.

    After the above I would never use a high street agent again.
  • As much as I would like to dispense with estate Agents, I do find that there is a 'reluctance' by other agents in certain situations\areas to deal with sellers that have used the web based agents. Or at least it seems that way. I managed to negotiate a 0.75 deal and got a decent service. In fact the estate progress department's were excellent, as we were involved in quite a long chain.Yes it should be excellent, because we paid for it, and of course they all use rightmove|Zoopla\Prime location etc, but I got them to do photographs, as well as my own.I got the wife to do some of the viewings, and also had an open day. I am far to 'abrasive' to deal with?. I do not have an issue with paying for something, just what is the quality of service you obtain?.
    Good luck on you if you saved a couple of grand.

    The market is more stable now, compared to 3-4 months ago, I spent a year researching the area, and stayed down there on a couple of occasions to make sure I liked it.

    Ironically, I did my own survey, albeit my sons are in the building trade, one is a building project manager, and I did work on several housing magazines over the past 40 years, Home buyers report's are very limited, and yes I worked for the RICS, so please do not take my example. I have done immense research on the house, the owners, even who issued the Gas certificate, Electrics, and visited the local council on 2 different visits on searches\Planning\ Building regs\Enviroment etc.
    The way I see it I will do it, then if it goes wrong, I only have myself to blame. My money, so my problem no doubt.
    Noticed now days there is a reluctance to deal with buyers and sellers directly.
    Of course the reality is living there, ask me in 6 month's....... actually do not bother, I will be moaning about it, the sound of the sea, or somesuch, be rude not to eh!
  • I have mixed experience of estate agents, but when I bought my current place two years ago, the seller's agent could not have been more helpful, and was instrumental in me obtaining a decent range cooker from further up the chain for nothing. She also kept me informed the whole way through, as although my full asking offer was accepted on day 1 (and a third party's higher offer in the following week honourably declined), due to a lease at the top of the chain we could not exchange for another 5 months. Thankfully everybody played their part and completion was two weeks after exchange, but those 5 months were a nightmare. The agent made it a lot more bearable.
  • As much as I would like to dispense with estate Agents, I do find that there is a 'reluctance' by other agents in certain situations\areas to deal with sellers that have used the web based agents. Or at least it seems that way. I managed to negotiate a 0.75 deal and got a decent service. In fact the estate progress department's were excellent, as we were involved in quite a long chain.Yes it should be excellent, because we paid for it, and of course they all use rightmove|Zoopla\Prime location etc, but I got them to do photographs, as well as my own.I got the wife to do some of the viewings, and also had an open day. I am far to 'abrasive' to deal with?. I do not have an issue with paying for something, just what is the quality of service you obtain?.
    Good luck on you if you saved a couple of grand.

    The market is more stable now, compared to 3-4 months ago, I spent a year researching the area, and stayed down there on a couple of occasions to make sure I liked it.

    Ironically, I did my own survey, albeit my sons are in the building trade, one is a building project manager, and I did work on several housing magazines over the past 40 years, Home buyers report's are very limited, and yes I worked for the RICS, so please do not take my example. I have done immense research on the house, the owners, even who issued the Gas certificate, Electrics, and visited the local council on 2 different visits on searches\Planning\ Building regs\Enviroment etc.
    The way I see it I will do it, then if it goes wrong, I only have myself to blame. My money, so my problem no doubt.
    Noticed now days there is a reluctance to deal with buyers and sellers directly.
    Of course the reality is living there, ask me in 6 month's....... actually do not bother, I will be moaning about it, the sound of the sea, or somesuch, be rude not to eh!

    If your wife did viewings then why pay 0.75%? I'm a chartered surveyor and couldn't get away with saying "I'll charge you £1k for a survey and report, can you do it for me"

    Saying that, if there are any estate agents on here that can get me survey, party wall work, or designing simple extensions, I will take back my earlier wide boy comments
  • The whole viewings thing does me everytime. We was looking at moving last year and the wife is getting itchy feet and looks like we'll be looking again shortly.

    Now bearing in mind we're in the market for a 5 bed detatched in Petts Wood, you would have thought with the money we're looking to spend, the estate agents would be sending their bestest agent to sell each house.

    We were shown around a £1.2m valued house by a spotty 18 year old. We had a list of questions and he couldnt answer a single one. The more we started looking, this became more common. Young Saturday kids that just couldnt answer a question. We was shown around a house in Chelsfield by an agent who had only just moved there 2 days beforehand and didnt know anything about the area. Makes you wonder what the sellers are paying them to do the viewings.

    I'm dreading the whole process all over again.

    A special mention for C(r)apital at Sidcup. By far the worst Estate Agency I've ever had the displeasure of dealing with. Blatant liars.
  • After I retired I worked for 10 years as a viewer for an estate agent which dealt in high end houses here in the Lake District. My usual system was to visit the property and talk to the owners before any viewing then on the day of the viewing arrive at the house a good 20 mins before the appointed time to make sure that everything was in order. If there were any questions that I could not answer I would include them in my post viewing email to the office so that they could follow up. I was paid at minimum wage and milage rates.

    I never worked in the office and tried not to visit it, over the time I found that the quality of office staff was quite low as were their wages, there were a few dedicated people but they were in the minority while the agency was charging about 1.25% commission, in the end the agency closed their residential department as it wasn't making sufficient profit!

    My general belief is that you get what you pay for, but not in the case of estate agents where it is very hit and miss. My advice is ask around for views on local agents and question the agent on who will be conducting the viewing as the viewer can make or break a sale as JohnBoyUK has described.

    I am currently in the process of moving, our agent found a buyer quite quickly but that was as much to do with how we presented the house as anything, on the buying side I found most viewers had sufficient knowledge, as my experience is that the 1st viewing tells you a basic do I like it or not, then go back for a 2nd viewing and insist that the owners are present as they will always know far more about he property.

    They say that moving home is one of the most stressful things you can do, and with that I agree.
  • I think a lot of the issues and bad experiences people have with estate agents is actually caused by the other buyers/sellers in the chain.

    The estate role has changed greatly since rightmove etc came into play.
    Prior to that, you were really dependent on their database of people looking to buy properties but now you can see pretty much all available properties online.
  • Had similar thing happen to us. At least all the searches the solicitor does and other paperwork will be ready. Worth asking the agents if the ex buyers will let you have a copy of the survey maybe? It might be possible to give it to a new buyer.

    The owners of the house we were buying said they would wait a little while and it all worked out in the end. And as someone has said above, you shouldn't have too much trouble selling at the moment the way the market is.

    Good luck!

    Sharing the survey is a great idea. Interesting to me as when i was first time buying i found commissioing the survey especially worrying and expensive and wondered why I couldn't rely on someone else's recent survey if there was one.

    Thinking about it again now: A buyer that dropped out may want some money for it. Would be great if agent kept a copy to share with next potential buyer too, assuming no showstoppers in there. I suppose it could be commercial in confidence and not transferable, I.e liabilities for surveyor and their need to protect their market of future business?
    I'm sure I'll be corrected if wrong, but sharing a survey gives you no legal rights.

    I bought a place and when I came to sell years later, it fell through because the surveyor hadn't picked up on something he should have. The buyer pulled out and it cost a fair old sum to put right.

    I made the surveyor pay for it all, as he was at fault.
  • As much as I would like to dispense with estate Agents, I do find that there is a 'reluctance' by other agents in certain situations\areas to deal with sellers that have used the web based agents. Or at least it seems that way. I managed to negotiate a 0.75 deal and got a decent service. In fact the estate progress department's were excellent, as we were involved in quite a long chain.Yes it should be excellent, because we paid for it, and of course they all use rightmove|Zoopla\Prime location etc, but I got them to do photographs, as well as my own.I got the wife to do some of the viewings, and also had an open day. I am far to 'abrasive' to deal with?. I do not have an issue with paying for something, just what is the quality of service you obtain?.
    Good luck on you if you saved a couple of grand.

    The market is more stable now, compared to 3-4 months ago, I spent a year researching the area, and stayed down there on a couple of occasions to make sure I liked it.

    Ironically, I did my own survey, albeit my sons are in the building trade, one is a building project manager, and I did work on several housing magazines over the past 40 years, Home buyers report's are very limited, and yes I worked for the RICS, so please do not take my example. I have done immense research on the house, the owners, even who issued the Gas certificate, Electrics, and visited the local council on 2 different visits on searches\Planning\ Building regs\Enviroment etc.
    The way I see it I will do it, then if it goes wrong, I only have myself to blame. My money, so my problem no doubt.
    Noticed now days there is a reluctance to deal with buyers and sellers directly.
    Of course the reality is living there, ask me in 6 month's....... actually do not bother, I will be moaning about it, the sound of the sea, or somesuch, be rude not to eh!

    If your wife did viewings then why pay 0.75%? I'm a chartered surveyor and couldn't get away with saying "I'll charge you £1k for a survey and report, can you do it for me"

    Saying that, if there are any estate agents on here that can get me survey, party wall work, or designing simple extensions, I will take back my earlier wide boy comments
    Really, so you would do a full structural survey, with drains and electrical inspection, for say £500 then.?

    Have a look at what this guy states"...... One survey I recently had to check had been done by an RICS chartered surveyor, who did the whole thing in 30 minutes. He charged £850 for it. He missed the fact there was a flying freehold. He missed the lack of any fire protection in the attic dividing the space between two properties. He actually diagnosed damp problems in the house next door, not the one he was paid to survey!

    I got to hear of them when I worked for Chartered Surveyor weekly, your official publication, part of the builder group.
    Have a look at there website, nothing to do with me, or anyone I know.
    http://www.heritage-house.org/how-to-pick-a-building-surveyor-for-an-old-building.html

    Like all professions there are good and bad. Nothing against Chartered Surveyors, at all, and quite understand the attitude of most people against Estate Agents, most are chancers, and driven by greed, but then there are a few people in other professions like that, including a few in my own profession. He is very critical of damproofing companies.......read this.......
    http://www.heritage-house.org/timber-and-damp-surveys.html
    or this...... http://www.heritage-house.org/best-fraudulent-damp-survey.html

    By the way my own solicitor supplied an out of date Gas certificate, and an incomplete NICEIC notification having checked the online Notification, which is free. The reason for this, they use an 'outsource agency', i.e they do not do it themselves . Of course I checked the land registry, and the enviroment agency, and the quaint 'Chancellory register'. And that was not the half of it.

    By the way, got another Established local agent to quote for 0.5% , 'No sale No fee'.....




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