So, now that we have our interview date and our medical is tomorrow - everything should be going in the right direction.

BUT my biggest stress is trying to sell our house! I am still hopeful for a Fall wedding, but our house has been on the market for about 6 weeks and although we have had lots of viewings - we have yet to have an official offer! We dropped our first estate agent as they considered 2 viewings in 4 weeks "good". Obviously, we are not on the same page.

Is anyone else selling a house? Anyone want to buy a house in lovely South Manchester??

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-155...=1&tr_t=buy

We put ours on the market in November 2006 and accepted an offer in early April 2007; we closed in late June 2007. It took a LONG time to sell the place and we had to drop the price.

Six weeks is nuffink. I understand your frustration but you don't want to list with too many agents. Too many boards in the front yard = desperation.

BTW I had a look at your listing and it looks like a nice house at a reasonable price. I hope it sells soon!

I know, I just didn't think it would take so long. We spent the last year fixing it up - everything has been redone, it is like a new house inside. No, the first estate agents were useless. Never returned phone calls, got our brochure wrong like 5 times, and we were never put on their website. We are def with the right agents, I am just worried we will be already to go except getting rid of the house!

Beautiful house. I'd buy it, but my fiance is coming here:P. That and I'm poor .

It's a lovely home...and the price is good...You should have no trouble selling it...what types of marketing are you doing?

Thank you! Conrad did a lot of the work himself on it. We are on all the websites, fish4homes.co.uk, propertyfinder.com, etc. We have a brochure, but I'm not sure if we are advertised in the newspapers or not. The only problem is our area isn't the greatest, but I suppose there isn't a lot we can do about that!

Nice house

I guess your selling up to move to USA. I can't see the words "No Chain" on the website anywhere might be a good idea to put that on.

Good point!

Thanks for putting up the pictures. I always enjoy looking at real estate in the UK. I'm 'backwards' from a lot of Americans - I find the smaller homes in the UK to be quite charming and efficient. I'm fascinated by the practical and clever room layouts, and the way things are done to save space.

It's a lovely house btw. And from what I know about prices in the UK, it certainly doesn't appear overpriced. Good luck to you! It's tough selling property over here as well, so I can relate to your anxiety.

That is a nice house! Rich finally gave up trying to sell his house in Leeds and is just renting it out for a year (his Dad is nearby in case there's a problem). Maybe thats an option for you?

Can I post the link to your house listing on a private forum I am a member of? I have quite a few friends that are living in the UK, they might be or no of someone interested. Couldn't' hurt?

Thanks everyone. Yes, renting it out could certainly be an option, but we really need the money to buy a house over here. Oh well, we will just have to wait and see.

SgdnGuns - Sure! Post away - thanks!!

It has been posted...........Good Luck

It certainly looks a nice house. The one thing about it which might stop me making an offer if I was in the market is the offers in access of. It conveys a certain amount of unknown about what you might accept whereas if potential buyers are viewing other houses which have the normal maximum asking price shown at least they know what the price is the seller will accept. With yours they don't known that, and that might put them off making an offer.

It is a bit of psychology. The person who brought our house paid 5 grand less then the asking price, but 5 grand more than the agent said it would probably make. They were happy because they had managed to get it below the asking price and to them saved money. Offers in access of doesn't give a potential buyer that possibility. Just my 2 cents worth, if it is worth that.

Thanks for your suggestion. Well we had it on the market for 134,950 with our a first estate agent and our new agent suggested the whole offers over situation. I was never really familiar with it and thought it was just the system that was done in Scotland. I think if we dont have an offer in a few weeks, we will reevaluate the price. I would be perfectly happy with 129 or even slightly less at this point!

I also think in the US that people are a bit more bold, putting in cheeky offers, etc. Whereas in the UK, people seem not to dare. I'd be happy with a cheeky offer - at least it is a starting point for negotiation!

Uh people in the UK DO make cheeky offers. We had an offer for 20k GBP below our original 195k asking price.

That's fine - at least it opens the doors for talks! I love to negotiate.

Yes it can take some time selling I had the same issue - but then again my fiance dave and i started our visa last year but we put it on hold for a while - so my house was up on th market end of last year but then off agai and then when we worked things out i put it back on the matrket in May this year. Your house looks really good for a very good price nothing like mie lol - mine is a 2 bed semi-detached and it was on the market for £132,000. Just this week I had an offer of £123,000 im thinking of taking it!! Lucky for me i have aback up which is one of the neighbours but he will only go up to £120,000.

In my case I really wanted to sell to an invester rather than a family wanting to move right in - as I need the money from the sale to organise all the other things for my move so I had a criteria on who i sold to. I just didnt want the hassle of moving to another place temperary with my 3 cats and then move to states. So I have an agreement to stay in this house for atleast 2 months after the sale is completed!

Good luck I really do hope you do sell quick as I said its in good condition and for that price it is not bad! but bear in mind ppl that want to buy a home for themselves to move in are finding it hard to get mortages now a days - hence why i insisited on investers as most of them have money upfront and dont have to take a bigger mortgage.

Lina (UKC)

Oh yeah i did find that also about pricing the house - I actually thought of placing a higher price and assumed ppl will knock me down - but my agents told me to price it reasonably low and then move up - bbut as it turns out i got a lower offer anyways but its not bad as I am happy with this offer:) I also need the money from this house sale to buy us a bigger place in the states - and I believe in Ohio where I will be moving to the house market is not too good as in ppl are defaulting mortgages etc and it seems alot of houses are going foreclosure - and well with the profit I make we should be able to buy a house outright with no mortgage!

NOTE TO MYSELF!: I MUST go over to my agents today and sign the contract to take the offer!! Lets just hope te buyer doesnt back out:)

Lina

PS I am with Best-Move Estate Agents - www.bestmove.uk.com - they have a few investers lined up if you wish to sell to an invester:) if you contact them and decide to put your house up with them tell them Lina from Leicester mentioned them:) they will take great care of ya:)

Sorry tried to edit this but couldnt - umm scratch that - i looked at the site and they seem to have houses in leicester but i thought she had said verbally they have houses for sale all over the place:)

I don't know how the mkt works over there, but do the estate agents show you what's sold and for how much? We do a CMA here in FL- a market analysis which shows comparable properties which have sold within the most recent timeframe. It gives sellers a good idea of reasonable pricing, among a lot of other things.

All I can say is the mkt here is completely different this year than it was for the past two. It's totally chugging along nicely, but it's deffo one which belongs to the buyers. Lots of homes on the mkt, tons for a buyer to have his/her 'picky' head on. I tell the sellers that I work with that it's a 9 month market....where 2 years ago they were pending a sale within a day or two.

Anything will sell at the right price. Depends on how motivated you are. If you guys arent' going to buy a home within a year in the US, I'd personally say why not rent? You'll have someone paying your mtg, and who knows what will happen if you can wind up swinging to keep that house AND getting into a house here.

I'm sure there are rental companies you can speak to. GOOD LUCK!

Good luck with selling the house.

I hope you don't mind a bit of unsolicited suggestion - the inside pictures and the garden pictures are really nice, but the outside view of the house confuses me. Is that just the back? Or is that the main entrance? If it's not the main entrance, can you post a picture of the main entrance?

We eventually lowered the price to 185k and accepted an offer at 180k. The estate agent did all the negotiating though. We sure paid him enough to!

Renting can be an option but you should use a broker to rent your house so they can market it for you and do the maintenance since you don't want to have to deal with that from overseas. The downside of that is that they take a chunk of your monthly rent payment for that and if you've just bought the house recently (within the last couple of years) you may find that you can barely cover the mortgage payment.

Also, with the Bank of England threatening to raise interest rates there could be a slowdown on the cards for the UK market. Your house is VERY reasonably priced and well within the affordable range for a lot of people including first-time buyers but every interest rate hike makes real estate less affordable for buyers. Plus the psychology of the market could shift and people could hold off on buying, expecting a fall. Right now prices are still going up, but the York market started to skid while our house was on the market. In our old neighborhood there are still houses on the market that have been on the market for almost a year and the general feeling around there was one of pending gloom. Then again, York is not a wealthy area and thousands of jobs have vanished just in the last couple of years so that's having a knock-on effect.

I'd be patient; six weeks is not really that long and with the introduction of HIPs the market is being flooded with property so there's a lot more competition. You could try multiple listings with multiple estate agents but make sure the house only appears once on rightmove.co.uk and that there isn't a forest of 'For Sale' boards out front because it makes you look desperate. The commissions will go way up on a multiple listing but in our case it was the right thing to do. We had ours on with three estate agents and did sell it. We had it on with Hunters for a while and they are RUBBISH. I see you're not on with them but if you're considering multiple listings then my advice is to steer clear of Hunters. Right Move were OK; they didn't sell our house but they had lots of people coming through the door. Rentons were the ones who sold our house in the end. They're part of the Countrywide group of realtors and they trade under the 'Bridgford' or 'Evans & Evans' name in Manchester. I can't say anything about those two organizations but we were VERY impressed with Rentons. In the end they sold our house and that's all that matters, but they were also reachable at all times during business hours and they kept us up to date at every stage of the sale.

D is one of those born under a lucky star....seriously, the man has such luck that it makes my head spin! (well he IS engaged to me, LOL)

Seriously tho, when we talked of selling the house, I kept badgering him to speak to an agent, get the house ready, etc. It wasn't a real priority for him, so he was always pushing it aside. I was really getting narked about it! Anyways, one night he goes out into the back to put out the bins, and he sees this man in the street...they strike up a convo...the guy is looking for a house to buy for his daughter. Daughter lives out of the country or somewhere else, and he's trying to lure her back.

So D says he's 'thinking' about sellin the house...guy wants to see it...he comes in, LOVES it...they go into contract to buy the house for full asking price! Along the way, the guy lets it slip that since the daughter was coming back at the end of the year, it was not enough time to rent to someone, and too long to leave it sitting vacant. He then asks D if he wants to rent it back from him...D plays the 'I can't afford it' card...then they guy ASKS IF HE'D LIVE THERE FOR FREE!

This was last year...they have a lease for 0 monthly rent with a 30 day notice to leave. It's now July of the following year and the daughter HASN'T COME HOME YET!

We're expecting the shoe to drop anyday now...but he's had about a year or so rent free.

Jammy git.

Wow! Really nice house! I am always amazed though by the housing prices in the UK compared to here in the US. Just amazing!! We are doing so much better here than we would if I moved to the UK (our original plan). Glad he decided to move to me and not the other way around!

Good luck selling! It really is a lovely house! I would suggest some bedroom photos - people like to see what sort of storage you have.

~Liza

Thanks for your comments. At the suggestion of our agent, we did not have a front of house picture, but it does frankly, look like an ex council house. And even though we redid the front garden, new fence, etc. it still wasn't all the appealing. So he suggested taking a picture of the back so people could see all the extensions. Also, with the bedrooms, they were really the only rooms we didn't redo 100%, so some of the wall paper is not all that attractive, so we didn't include those either.

So, HA you were right, we did get a low ball offer yesterday. First 119, then 121. We told them we would think about it over the weekend, but Conrad has decided it is too low and we still want something closer to 129. But I am encouraged that we have gotten an offer and know it is a waiting game.

Lina - good luck with your house - keep us posted!!

Are you going to counteroffer?

8 grand doesn't seem too far away for everyone to come to an agreement!

My house was an ex-council house and they can come with some stigma attached. In my experience though they tend to be sturdy and well built houses and I think the layouts of them can be perfect. However, I do find that people like to see the front of the house as a rule, so I think maybe a front and back shot would be good.

People are going to be able to tell it is ex-council - I could - so I wouldn't try to disguise it too much. Work with what you've got and, from what I can see, you have presented it well (no clutter, light, bright, modern and airy looking) so you should get a better offer soon. *crosses fingers*

I sold my house last year but I was lucky. I had a buyer offering full asking price within 3 hours of going on the market. But I was in the outer suburbs of London where the smaller houses are leapt at by first time buyers. I had also removed all clutter and painted it in neutral colours, exactly what the average buyer is looking for.

Good luck and keep your spirits up; it really is a lovely looking little (big!!) house.

I don't think they can go any higher. They first said 119 and we said to the agent that we would consider around 125. He came back and said and they said no, it stands at 119. So we said No. Then they came back and said 121. We just said we would think about it over the weekend. The agent also said we could accept it and if higher offer came in between now and the time we close - we could accept it. But I think it is still too low.




Wow - 3 hours! That was the pipe dream I was living in and hoping for!

It was more, as Phil and Kirstie always say, Location Location Location! The market is awful there for first time buyers and there is a distinct lack of property available now. So, when the houses that fit into that criteria come onto the market, they are snapped up right away.

They initially offered me 5000 less than the asking price, but I told the Estate Agent that if they gave me asking price I'd take it off the market and not let anyone else view it. They were more than happy to agree to that and they were a really lovely couple too!

Aww, I miss Phil and Kirstie (as annoying as she can be). I always watched Location. That is the problem with our house, the area is not great and has a bad reputation (most of which is true). It has certainly improved over the last few years, but still "up and coming" as they say

Wow - fantastic deal - how long did it take you to complete?

We are fighting the location battle as well - although our problem isn't 'bad reputation' - it's distance. In America, the suburbs aren't quite as attractive as they used to be with our rising gasoline prices.

We have a buyer, but we are caught in the chain at the moment. His buyer was unable to obtain financing. So both of our properties are back up for grabs, while we all lose hope everyday.

If I had a buyer who was low-balling me, but they were ready to close, I'd give it a very serious look. Especially if I could afford to take the offer. It's one thing to get what your house is worth, but it's another to stand too firm if your property has disadvantages.

A buyer in the hand is worth 10 perceptions of the value of your house. JMHO.

Very wise words.

Plus, if there's an urgency as far as selling...imagine Z amt of mos @ $X per month to operate the house....wouldn't take terribly long to hit a 7k differential.


As far as location....imo....it's not really about location as much as it is about price. People buy homes in 'non-ideal' locations all the time....for the right price, mind you. You cannot control your home not being located elsewhere...you can only control price.

I always had a bit of a crush on Phil. Yes, he had hair issues but he was pretty sexy. Phew!

The house sale took about 8 weeks; could have made it a little sooner but I had shipping and stuff to arrange and the buyers were working on the completion days I kept suggesting! We came to an agreement though and it all went perfectly.

So we had worked out the difference previously and the low ball offer is about 6 months of mortgage payments. So it would have to be on the market for say at least another 4 months (assuming 8 weeks to complete) for us to be "out" money for not accepting the deal.

I agree price is a big factor - but our area is very "postcode sensitive". And often the only people that are buying are people who already live in the area, not really people pushed out of neighboring areas. Oh well, we shall see. Thanks for everyone's advice



I agree - I used to find him attractive, and he was def smart. Also, if he can put up with Kiristie - he could def deal with anyone

Well I accepted the £123,000 offer on friday so I guess we shall now be doing all the necessary stuff to complete - Just pray the buyer doesnt back out!! This is £11,000 less than what it is up for (£134,000) but then again I decided I would go as low as £120,00 so it is £3000 more than i would take so I am happy! Just pray it goes smoothly, wquickly with no hickups - I want to leave this place and be with my hubby to be as soon as possible:)

Lina

Congratulations I hope the rest of it goes smoothly for you

We have the opposite.... our house is under contract and we have set a completion date, but we haven't got the interview date yet.

Please give me an interview!!

(Your house looks good by the way. I wish you the best of luck in selling quickly.)

Lina congrats!!! I hope the whole process is smooth sailing.


Thanks essjay! I hope you get your interview date soon - keep calling the DOS!

So we told the agent today 125k is our lowest and I guess he went back to the buyer and they were having none of it because the agent didnt call back. Conrad's argument was that there was a pink house down the street (literally pink on the outside!) that was only 3 bed and not redone inside that sold for 120k - so surely ours should be worth at least 125k.
PLUS the agent we are worth, and i do believe they are good, but they are doing the mortgage for this buyer - so of course it is in their interest for us to accept the offer, so the make the commission off us and whatever they get for hooking up the buyer with the mortgage.

Oh well - hopefully more news soon!!

Converse, I wish you the best of luck. 4 grand apart is heartbreaking.

Its a good figure to push for though as after all it is $8,000

Thank you Converse34, I think I am almost on first name terms with DOS...

With our house sale, we weren't in any hurry when we put it on the market. All the agents told us we were in a particularly difficult area to achieve sales (wrong part of town!) and the first agent tried to get us to reduce the price after one week. We changed agent, kept the higher end of agent valuations, had moderate interest but weren't worried. All of a sudden, one Friday someone came in for a viewing in the morning, brought her husband back in the afternoon, and put an offer in by 4pm. We said no to the first offer but didn't give them a minimum that we would consider. They came back so close to the asking price but on condition they could have our microwave... Sale agreed by 5pm and bye bye microwave.

So shortly we will not only be homeless, but without a microwave as well!!

Hang in there. It only takes one buyer, and I am sure they are just around the corner.

There was a 4-bed house almost identical to ours that sold for 199,000 in spring 2006 one street over from us, so we were thinking we could get at least 195,000. Didn't turn out that way; each house sale is individual and I guess they just got lucky because we struggled to get to 185k. In the end we took the offer because I was sick of waiting for something better and we were having trouble getting rid of the thing. There was a 3 bed house that sold for more than ours did. I didn't understand it then and don't understand it now; our house was much nicer than that house, but the housing market is just like that sometimes.

Yep and it depends on your position too. A few months ago we could be picky about who bought our house because we were still living in it. Now we are living 3000 miles away, paying rent here and a mortgage for an empty house back in the UK. We're still getting plenty of offers on the house but three buyers have fallen through and to be honest I'd take £20-30k less than the original asking price just to get the money over here now...

Although we were close, think what an additional $8k could buy you. It certainly isn't an amount to balk at.



Essjay - thanks for your story - I find it encouraging!




Yes, this is def what i would like to avoid. I feel like we can't start our new life while our money is tied up in the house. But I think we are still early enough in the process to hold out for a better offer. I think if we do not have another offer in a few weeks, we may need to reevaluate.

We had another viewing today! No other news so far, but it appears the interest is certainly still there.

That's encouraging. I know what you're going through and it sucks; selling a house is really stressful.

No no, I'm not belittling 8k at all....i'm just sayin it's a shame it was so close and fell apart.

However. just keep in mind...if it takes 5 mos to sell and the dollar gets stronger, 8k is the tip of the iceberg.

Well, we had another offer today - 125k! (I do wish US keyboards had the quid sign) So I think we are going back and forth with the realtor now - but we will most likely accept! Hopefully we will complete quickly - I will keep you all posted.

Thanks for all your ideas and comments!!

Yay..... I told you another offer would be around the corner!! I am keeping all my fingers crossed for you. Let us know what happens.

Here is a preliminary dance of joy..