| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? 08:43 - Sep 8 with 12133 views | RangersDave |
Feck me,
Divorce done!
Agreed to 50% each of the house (minus fees etc)
Then contact a solicitor to get things rolling ........ WTF?
£250 per hour on the case .......WTF?
They want a deposit, ok not too much at £600 but WTF! then..... they want everything you own paper wise to prove your you, sheesh!
35 years ago it was so easy.
Any tips out there ladies and gents?
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| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 15:43 - Sep 8 with 3006 views | RangersDave |
with my previous house sale around 2002 i got 4 estate agents in to value it.
I pretty much knew how much it was worth, so when the first estate agent turned up, he said , and i pretty much quote......'i valued this property 3 years ago at £33k and now i value it at £36k'
Having done some searching on the then 'new' interweb thingy', i had a value in mind, so said i'd let him know.
The other 3 were around what i was expecting.
The sale price eventually went through at £104,000....... yes really!
Fecking thief tried it on and lost! Feckers! | |
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| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 17:26 - Sep 8 with 2879 views | Juzzie |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 15:43 - Sep 8 by RangersDave |
with my previous house sale around 2002 i got 4 estate agents in to value it.
I pretty much knew how much it was worth, so when the first estate agent turned up, he said , and i pretty much quote......'i valued this property 3 years ago at £33k and now i value it at £36k'
Having done some searching on the then 'new' interweb thingy', i had a value in mind, so said i'd let him know.
The other 3 were around what i was expecting.
The sale price eventually went through at £104,000....... yes really!
Fecking thief tried it on and lost! Feckers! |
Do you think he was trying to give you such a low evaluation in the hope you'd agree and the buyer would then be one of his mates who flips it for a mahoosive profit? |  | | |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 19:24 - Sep 8 with 2782 views | RangersDave |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 17:26 - Sep 8 by Juzzie |
Do you think he was trying to give you such a low evaluation in the hope you'd agree and the buyer would then be one of his mates who flips it for a mahoosive profit? |
yes i do mate, i've known that dodge for a goodly few years, but ended up wanting to do stuff online to his company and him!
A. sole, complete and utter A. sole | |
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| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 20:17 - Sep 8 with 2737 views | numptydumpty |
Have to say solicitors practising and involvement in the house sale and purchase process, they are without doubt the most overpaid profession going.
It is not that complicated a process and they hide behind qualifications and the fact that all their rivals also charge massively over the odds fees for services that really aren't that complex.
They also hide behind enabling processes to take months and months when in reality it could all be done and dusted in couple of weeks.
For me though such a profession did not appeal, highly paid yes, but as about as dull an existence in the work world as you can get.
Estate agents are always flash young men or power hungry women who love to talk complete bs in order to con you into buying the nearest shack otherwise listed as a Palace.
Some of their patter is mad. I think they must have a bit of a giggle after, as to the complete claptrap they say in order to get their commissions !!!
But it's always an unbelievably stressful process all round. Way more than it needs to be !!! [Post edited 8 Sep 2023 20:17]
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| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 22:10 - Sep 8 with 2618 views | Wilkinswatercarrier |
Everyone is out to make a living, so while I understand your annoyance i also see that the estate agent/solicitor needs/wants their pound of flesh.
I just settled my uncles estate after he died, lived of Dawes Road in Fulham. Wait until u get the invoices for that! |  |
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| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 22:39 - Sep 8 with 2593 views | ted_hendrix |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 13:05 - Sep 8 by Third_Division_South |
What gets me about the solicitors is that they still do everything by post. That means that every time there’s a query the solicitor drafts a letter which goes to a secretary to type, then it gets posted, lands at the bottom of the other solicitor’s in tray and gets looked at days later, sometimes the query is only a straightforward yes/no. The whole thing takes ages, why, in this day and age can’t they use email? |
Our Solicitor used e-mail followed by the post.
Every and I mean every conversation I had witth my solicitor or the developer was promptly followed by an e-mail from me confirming that very conversation.
A bit of advice; If you haven't already then make a will, our will has been in place for bloody years and Is stored with a Will Company In London for a fee of £10 per annum. |  |
| My Father had a profound influence on me, he was a lunatic. |
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| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 07:29 - Sep 9 with 2484 views | Juzzie |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 22:10 - Sep 8 by Wilkinswatercarrier |
Everyone is out to make a living, so while I understand your annoyance i also see that the estate agent/solicitor needs/wants their pound of flesh.
I just settled my uncles estate after he died, lived of Dawes Road in Fulham. Wait until u get the invoices for that! |
There’s a difference between making a living (and doing a good job of it) and deliberately screwing people over. | | | |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 01:29 - Sep 15 with 2173 views | NewBee |
Four years ago I was buying a flat and needed to make a money transfer to my solicitor. I couldn't do it online or via bank machine (exceeded their limits) so I spoke to a cashier at the counter.
There were a few money laundering/security regs etc to complete, so it was quite involved.
Meanwhile, a young female cashier started taking a particular interest, asking me loads of questions about conveyancing/freeholds/leaseholds etc.
Turns out she was buying a flat with her boyfriend and being foreign, she was finding it very difficult.
I asked her where she was from and she replied: "Belarus".
"What's it like buying property back home?", I asked.
"Well you see a house you like, talk to the owner and agree a price, then you give him the money and he gives you the keys."
No wonder the poor girl was so exasperated and confused by our medieval system! | | | |
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| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 05:36 - Sep 15 with 2112 views | PlanetHonneywood |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 01:29 - Sep 15 by NewBee |
Four years ago I was buying a flat and needed to make a money transfer to my solicitor. I couldn't do it online or via bank machine (exceeded their limits) so I spoke to a cashier at the counter.
There were a few money laundering/security regs etc to complete, so it was quite involved.
Meanwhile, a young female cashier started taking a particular interest, asking me loads of questions about conveyancing/freeholds/leaseholds etc.
Turns out she was buying a flat with her boyfriend and being foreign, she was finding it very difficult.
I asked her where she was from and she replied: "Belarus".
"What's it like buying property back home?", I asked.
"Well you see a house you like, talk to the owner and agree a price, then you give him the money and he gives you the keys."
No wonder the poor girl was so exasperated and confused by our medieval system! |
I think she's talking rubbish! |  |
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| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 07:09 - Sep 15 with 2050 views | SydneyRs |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 09:50 - Sep 8 by Northernr |
Hmmm I used them to shift mine at the end of last year and, look, I guess they would tell you they got it sold, quickly, for the price I wanted. Still, I'd be very hesitant to recommend, and in fact haven't they just been absorbed into another group because their business model collapsed?
My situation was my mortgage came off its fix just as Liz and Kwasi were doing their thing, and housemate was moving out at same time, so my outgoing more than doubled to £2300 a month, in the space of about 6 weeks. Got the local agent round to value it to try and get a better rate and he gave us such a surprisingly decent price I said to him bring the fcking board round let's get it gone.
Then spoke to a few people who said don't do that, commission charges etc, just use one of the online peeps.
PurpleBricks couldn't do enough for us to start with, but if you don't want to pay up front you have to use their conveyancing team (which we didn't want to do cos we'd been told they were sht, and we had our own that we'd used before anyway). So we paid up front, at which point their interest in us and our house dropped off the side of a cliff. Also had the bizarre situation where smarmy bstrd no.1, who we dealt with first, fell off his motorbike, so PurpleBricks transferred the sale to smarmy bstrd no.2 for a week or so, only for smarmy bstrd no.1 to start ringing us up again once he was up and about asking why we'd gone with the other guy, we should be dealing with him, had smarmy bstrd no.2 been hassling us etc - mate, you're interchangeable wnkrs, just get on with it.
The girl they sent to do the viewings turned up with a fcking Chelsea badge on her lapel. She took the keys off me and turned to leave, I'm like "don't you want to look at the house?" "Oh, do you think I need to?" Well, aren't you fcking selling it?
They arranged a "viewing day" for the following Saturday (Coventry A last season), and thankfully a steady stream of interest came in during the week to the point where we had 14 viewings confirmed which I thought was very good.
So off I went to watch us lose at Coventry. Now, we've got one of those burglar alarm systems with cameras that track movement around the house so can watch on our phones and see a timeline of comings and goings etc, which of course Chelsea Twt didn't know. She turned up at midday and was gone by 1240. Two couples looked around. I sat in a pub in Coventry and watched them wander around themselves while she hung about downstairs on her phone. Fcking lazy cow.
One of the big things they'd told us in the sales pitch was "oh your local agent is only Monday to Friday, we'll do a viewing day Saturday and have all your feedback and offers ready to go Sunday morning". This was, of course, bolox. Had to wait until Monday for her feed back which was "absolutely fantastic day, super hectic and busy with a lot of walk ups, multiple people interested".
Fortunately for her, and us, one of the two couples who saw it liked it, offered at asking price, and we played that cool for about 45 seconds before snapping their hands off.
Then just the small matter of solicitors drawing out a sale between two people neither of whom were in a chain across five months because the electricity cupboard appeared as part of the neighbouring property on the land registry (as presumably it had done for the previous 60 fcking years and however many other times the fcking place had been sold) and we were off to the races.
Hateful process, beset by cnts.
This post has been edited by an administrator |
Purple Bricks tried to establish themselves here in Australia a few years back. They seemed great given that they advertised they would sell properties for a set price rather than the usual percentage commissions. I thought that would be hugely popular and actually hoped it would so other agents would be forced to reduce their fees to compete.
Now in Sydney you are unlikely to get any kind of decent house, even a long way out in the suburbs, for under $1 million AUD so agents are making $20-$30k commission minimum and often much more. I think Purple Bricks said they'd do it for a fixed price of around $7k so I thought they would sweep the market. You don't really see them here any more...
We sold our old place for more than we thought we'd get about six years ago, not thru them but via a local and pretty slimy (aren't they all) agent. But he did a decent job, as it sold the same day as the first viewings for a better price than we expected and he quite smartly played 4 interested buyers off against each other. He's known as the guy you sell with but don't buy off him! We'd already committed to our current place and were about to go on an overseas holiday for a couple of weeks, so having a contract signed before that was brilliant.
A youngish couple bought our place but decided after a year or so they wanted to move back closer to the city centre, that was what our ex and quite nosy neighbour told us.
They used Purple Bricks to sell. I was stunned to see it advertised at well over $100k more than we sold it to them for (which was already overs in our view), given the market hadn't been great in between. My personal take was getting back what they paid would have been a best case scenario. Someone decided different and if that was Purple Bricks then they cost these people a lost of money.
The market at this stage was weakening, but it sat there for months with that advertised price before they finally dropped it a bit but not enough. They eventually ended up going with a different agent and got $120k less than they paid us for it, or around $250k less than the original advertised price. It took 8 or 9 months to sell, which in Sydney where houses pretty much sell themselves is absolutely mental.
How much of this was down to Purple Bricks I don't know, but if they thought the first advertised price was even close to realistic they are fcking idiots. There is no doubt they'd have got a lot more and sold much more quickly if they'd set a realistic price at the start. It does rather smack of Clive's story of them losing interest after getting the business given it sat there for so long with no adjustment to the price. | | | |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 07:35 - Sep 15 with 2018 views | slmrstid |
I've been trying to sell my Grandad's house for the past year under probate. Its a medium sized bungalow, but on a fairly sizeable plot of land, with a double garage, in a very rural village in East Northamptonshire (no bus service etc...) so whilst not completely unique, not a standard property either.
Just as it went on the market was more or less exactly the same time the arse fell out of the housing market as the Kamikwaze budget went live.
I chucked the first estate agents as they lost interest in it after a few months and I was never getting any market updates or anything else from them. Went with a local sole trader guy who two months later told me he'd decided to retire out of the blue which I wasn't too happy about as that ended up a huge waste of my time.
Third estate agents have finally got me an acceptable offer on it, slightly below its asking but I don't mind that. But its come down quite a few times in between. Which I don't really mind, I suspect first agents were well over-optimistic and I went with it because I know feck all about house prices in the area.
Hopefully it will all be done and dusted now by the end of the year and it will give me some closure as its the only thing left to be done on the estate now. The rest of it I've managed to get closed down myself because it was fairly straightforward.
I'm glad I'm not moving house myself on the back of this though, we last moved three years ago during Covid and it was horrible. I can afford to be relaxed about it - I will do what I need to do by agents/solicitors whenever but otherwise I can sit back and leave them to it. Still got to fully empty the house mind as we left it fully furnished whilst its been on the market so viewers can get an idea of what it looks like and what can fit in where etc!
Good luck Dave and anyone else going through it at the moment. |  | | |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 07:43 - Sep 15 with 2003 views | Harbour |
I am in the process of moving now..costs involved are shocking…Stamp Duty and Agent fees are ridiculous . I last moved 20 odd years ago the costs now are off the scale Can see why many people stay put..cheaper to extend..but for me family moving out of London so we are following. | | | |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 10:34 - Sep 15 with 1834 views | R_from_afar |
My last house move featured some interesting "incidents":
Our mortgage offer was delayed because the building society lost the application, causing a major delay. They were so embarrassed that they sent us a bunch of flowers and a cheque for £50 (this was in 2005, so that was fairly generous).
Everything was back on track and looking good until someone lower down the chain lost patience with us as we waited and waited for the people we were buying from to decide whether they would buy a house or go into rented accommodation. The people lower down the chain forced us to get out earlier than we wanted to but we agreed to go into rented accommodation. The one concession we asked for, no, pleaded for, was that the move was not on a Tuesday. My wife was doing a mandatory course which was only on Tuesdays and a long way from home. If we had to move on a Tuesday, muggins would have to do it all on his own.
You can tell where this is headed... 
Lo and behold, the bell ends insisted that it had to be a Tuesday. Wearily, we acquiesced. My wife went off to her course and I was left in a race against time to ram all the remaining stuff into my car.
I received the call to say everything had completed, at which point I asked the estate agent how long they could give me to finish off. They said an hour - better than nothing, I thought, relieved - but before I had even hung up, I heard a rumbling outside and there was the removal van, with our buyer and his mum keen as mustard to get in the house.
With a sigh, I reminded them that we had said all along that a Tuesday would be a nightmare for us. Deaf to their protestations, I gently closed the door, rounded up the rest of our belongings, then...had a particularly leisurely dump, thinking, sod you all.
I then breezily stuffed the rest of our clutter in the motor and left them to it
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| "Things had started becoming increasingly desperate at Loftus Road but QPR have been handed a massive lifeline and the place has absolutely erupted. it's carnage. It's bedlam. It's 1-1." |
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| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 10:49 - Sep 15 with 1803 views | StanFan |
I'd never use Purple Bricks. We saw a house on Rightmove that we wanted to view and they made it virtually impossible for us to do so. So, how are they working in the sellers best interests if they are stopping viewings by potential buyers? |  | | |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 12:34 - Sep 15 with 1711 views | QPR_Jim |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 10:49 - Sep 15 by StanFan |
I'd never use Purple Bricks. We saw a house on Rightmove that we wanted to view and they made it virtually impossible for us to do so. So, how are they working in the sellers best interests if they are stopping viewings by potential buyers? |
I sold through purple bricks about 7 years ago when houses were very much selling themselves, so seemed like a good option.
First thing I noticed was that their advice on how to value your house was very hands off basically saying put it up for whatever you want. Which I guess is because you're paying up front so they don't really care.
Second thing I noticed was that we weren't getting many viewings, I spent a lot of time on the house and it was pretty much the best presented it could be. In an area of terrace houses we were on an out of the way street with houses only on one side alleviating the parking issues in all the neighbouring streets. I think it only took 3 visits and 2-3 weeks to sell but it was long enough for me to realise that if the house wasn't what it was and the market how it was then purple bricks would have been a massive mistake.
After that experience, even though we got away with it, I never recommend purple bricks. The house we brought was through a local agent and they were a pain too but working hard for the client selling, so normally recommend them but so many people can't stand that firm because they are hard to deal with. For example making you see their financial advisor regardless, I was porting a mortgage and there was no way I needed any advice but was forced anyway.
Reading the comments on here about the solicitors I think it's worth pointing out that residential conveyancing is very much the runt of any solicitors firm. Most of the people operating in that area will likely be a licensed conveyancer rather than a solicitor. There's not much money in it, so its only viable if you have a large volume of work hence the delivery is often lacking. However there does need to be some process to stop money laundering and protecting the buyer with the local authority checks. |  | | |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 13:43 - Sep 15 with 1650 views | TGRRRSSS |
I work for property law firm, and recognise so much
ON the subject of Post - it's not lawyers it's land registry and also lenders who often want a lot by port, we do have online portal system for a lot but somethings have to be by post (or written copy and it ain't the lawyers demanding it but lenders and Land Registry.
Do not get me started on first port  Or Managing Agents in general they are probably the worst element for us, but estate agents in the end are simply desperate for sale and couldnt care less as stated volume etc bigger deal for them. |  | | |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 15:19 - Sep 15 with 1547 views | Juzzie |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 05:36 - Sep 15 by PlanetHonneywood |
I think she's talking rubbish! |
I think she's talking right.
My missus is from Kyrgystan (but of Russian descent) and her auntie passed away a couple of years ago so her mum had to go back there and oversee the sale of the flat. It took a couple of weeks to get a buyer but once she did the whole thing was done & dusted in 5 hours. 'Caveat emptor' is very much the key there.
OK, the sale was about £25k so not much different from selling a car (but £25k is a lot to them so we have to think of it proportionally too) but there was none of the stuff we have to go through.
I think a lot of what we have to do is warranted, when forking out £500k for a property I want to be absolutely sure everything is OK, but some of it is OTT and the solicitors can slow things down unnecessarily too.
When I sold my flat you have to get a 'Leaseholders Pack' from the Freeholder. This can take up to 4 weeks to get, and mine did... 5.50pm on the very last day of the 4 week window.
This was passed onto to the buyers solicitor who took ages to come back then we he did he had about 35 questions. About 20 of the questions had the answers in the Leaseholder pack FFS but you can't get ratty with them, you just have to take a deep breath and answer all the questions. The rest of the questions were frivolous, my estate agents (who was really good on the flat) said there were probably about 5 questions of any merit, the rest just wasted everyone's time while it went back & forth.
[Post edited 15 Sep 2023 15:46]
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| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 16:07 - Sep 15 with 1485 views | Juzzie |
Purple Bricks = lower fixed fee but you have to pay that amount whether you sell your property or not. So, once you sign the contract with them the money is as good as theirs so they don't give a fk. No wonder so many people had trouble selling their property with them.
What great foresight of the owners.... create a business model that will ultimately fail as people cotton on.
Though maybe they knew that and banked enough money before it went pear shape.
Estate Agents = Fee paid only upon completion. So, in order to get their money they'll do what they can to get the sale through. £10k here or there on the sale price is a couple of hundred quid off the commission so it means fk all to them, but everything to the seller, if they try and ram the price down. Like I said, they're not acting on your behalf even though you're paying them to do so.
What a 'mare it all is......
[Post edited 15 Sep 2023 16:18]
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| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 16:57 - Sep 15 with 1434 views | LimehouseR |
I am shortly going to be selling my flat and I am absolutely dreading it.
My partner is selling her flat to then move in with me before we then move elsewhere together. She's so far had terrible estate agents and after 5 months when she finally got a buyer he has now disappeared off the face of the earth. As has his solicitor, neither of which will answer or return calls from her solicitor which I think is extremely rude. Just say you've bailed don't mug people off. So she's back to square one but changed agents as the last lot were a joke. One of them even said to a prospective buyer "It's on for this but she'll accept an offer of this..." which was never ever discussed with her. Criminals.
The worst thing with my flat is that it was on help to buy so I need to get it sold fairly sharpish as I'll soon have to start paying interest on the loan after the 5 year initial period(I own 60% and the help to buy loan covered the other 40%). That will be about £200 a month. And that's not even paying it back, that's just the interest.
In my head the industry makes it difficult for normal people to buy/sell just so that they can have their cut of YOUR money. |  | | |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 20:53 - Sep 15 with 1321 views | LazyFan |
This is how I sold my flat super fast, which Foxtons were unable to sell in 3 years.
This happened before the pandemic.
Let's start with the Foxtons' mishap:
I used Foxtons as while they shaft people who let from them, landlords and buyers, I did the research, and they tended not to do over the sellers on the money at least as that was all fixed price up-front. However, they are living in the past, so, while they had no nasty ways to screw you on money, they are incompetent and failed to sell it.
They came around and gave a valuation, I then put it on the market with them £10K less than they valued it, yes less. Because I knew it was overpriced. Got an offer which fell through. Fair enough this happens. Then after 3 months as we know viewings go dead so, they said it was too expensive and I should lower the price. At this point, I pointed out how I had already lowered the price at the start below their initial valuation so, how come the viewings were down as I had made it easier for them? No answer to that one.
I lowered it by £100K no joke. Same again, many viewings got another offer. At the time of the offer, I noticed they put it on their website as Under Offer. I said why do that when an Offer means nothing until contract exchange? They said policy. It fell through again and this time I asked how many potential viewers were put off by their stupid policy of Under Offer. No answer once again.
So, I dropped them.
How I Sold it:
This time I did the real research. I looked at Zoopla. Got the valuation. Then I looked at Rightmove to see what similar properties were in the market. I dropped the price by another £100k. Yes now we can see how much Foxtons screw the buyer if they can get away with it, which is why if you can sell through them then your laughing ... if you manage to actually sell it though!
With a nearby property I discovered on Rightmove which was literally across the road, the same size as my flat but ex-council and not in a nice block and new build like mine, I put my price just £10K above theirs. As that is the real compo on the street.
Then I used 99homes.co.uk to sell it for £99. I paid only £89 as a I found a discount voucher :)
Back then, 99homes and Purplebricks were allowed to advertise on Rightmove and others forever, I think now they are limited by Rightmove and Zoopla rules to a few months. And I suspect this is why Purplebricks has gone downhill, as their model needs a good year to sell your home for sure.
How it works is you upload all the photos (you have to do these yourself), the floorplan (do these yourself again) add in all the data like council charges as buyers keep asking for it and so on. You cannot use Foxtons materials they did for you as its copyright theirs, but what I discovered is if you take the photos on your phone in the same way they do, if you use your Energy cert to work out the floorplan dimensions, then you can do it yourself and just as good as theirs. Then you will get emails from buyers and you will have to arrange to show them around.
People email you through the site and if you are clever you can arrange to see all of them on the same day (in one go) and also gauge the amount of REAL interest in the property. I had them all come around on a Saturday and Sunday and all of them, yep, all of them were perfectly fine to do that. The buyers preferred it.
What I also learned is that when people come around they will give you way more info. They need to know the council charge band. So, you then republish your advert in 99homes with that new information, add in that there are nearby shops and bus stops and so on in the advert. The more info they ask for, the more you can add to the advert after each viewing and it didn't cost any extra it seems back then. They just republished it, this drove even more viewings.
I also learned that 100% of buyers look at at least two of the same websites, Zoopla and Rightmove. They may look at more. But everyone is following those websites. Hence if you price it way above what they value it at in Zoopla and what the market is at on Rightmove then buyers won't buy it. This is the real demand, not what any valuer or Foxtons bod tells you. You may not like the results but this is what the buyers really expect. Sometimes they will pay over the odds, but this is why the housing market is stuck. Valuers are valuing higher than Zoopla and Zoopla is way too low. Go for something above what Zoopla says it is, but not too much. Use Rightmove prices of similar properties to determine the real market price.
What's the catch with 99homes.co.uk?
You have to do all the running around with showing the buyers around, you have to get all the advert materials ready, photos, floor plans and so on. This takes work and time. And you have to know what will actually really sell in the market, not some Foxtons w*nk fantasy!
This may mean facing the fact your property is not a pot of gold, but just brown bricks after all. That's if you want to sell it properly. I sold mine on the first visit who put an off-in straight away with no chain. I kept showing it around as, of course, unlike Foxtons, I did not put it at Under Offer as that means nothing until the contracts are exchanged.
Then of course it was 3 months to actually exchange, I have not worked out how to reduce that yet. Three months v 3 years.
However, here is another major plus. Foxtons wanted 3% + VAT. When you are talking big monies on homes this can run into tens of thousands. Selling for a few quid and your time (which was less than the time then arguing with Foxtons) you can reduce the asking price as you can factor in what you would have paid an agent and also get it sold quicker! Buyers think they are getting a deal, and you are still getting the same monies. This helps it sell quicker.
I think there are more sites like 99homes now so, they may not even be the best anymore, which explains why Purplebricks has gone downhill even more. Sell it yourself, we don't need them anymore. |  |
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| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 21:32 - Sep 15 with 1297 views | PlanetHonneywood |
| Why is it so hard to sell a house now? on 15:19 - Sep 15 by Juzzie |
I think she's talking right.
My missus is from Kyrgystan (but of Russian descent) and her auntie passed away a couple of years ago so her mum had to go back there and oversee the sale of the flat. It took a couple of weeks to get a buyer but once she did the whole thing was done & dusted in 5 hours. 'Caveat emptor' is very much the key there.
OK, the sale was about £25k so not much different from selling a car (but £25k is a lot to them so we have to think of it proportionally too) but there was none of the stuff we have to go through.
I think a lot of what we have to do is warranted, when forking out £500k for a property I want to be absolutely sure everything is OK, but some of it is OTT and the solicitors can slow things down unnecessarily too.
When I sold my flat you have to get a 'Leaseholders Pack' from the Freeholder. This can take up to 4 weeks to get, and mine did... 5.50pm on the very last day of the 4 week window.
This was passed onto to the buyers solicitor who took ages to come back then we he did he had about 35 questions. About 20 of the questions had the answers in the Leaseholder pack FFS but you can't get ratty with them, you just have to take a deep breath and answer all the questions. The rest of the questions were frivolous, my estate agents (who was really good on the flat) said there were probably about 5 questions of any merit, the rest just wasted everyone's time while it went back & forth.
[Post edited 15 Sep 2023 15:46]
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Funnily enough, being an insomniac, I googled the state of Belarusian conveyancing law in the wee hours, and why I think your clerk was talking horse, is because therei are steps required.
It may move quicker, but what happens when it goes nipples north? In the UK you pretty safe in everything after 1925, but any transactions etc. prior to that requires checking and when your solicitor/conveyancer gives it the thumbs up, then you are safe.
I was once looking at buying a place in Croatia 20 years ago, and the sellers couldn't guarantee good title. So, as with Spain in the 70s, you're sat in your front room and someone knocks on the door and says: it's mine, and out you go! While no doubt there may be shysters and pedantic operators out there, I'd rather be certain when handing over my hard earned and taking the keys than risking it.
While there are some horror stories above, I've not had problems because with all these things: word of mouth recommendations are far better indicators then review sites. | |
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