The tale of the sale of our old house

[Simplysimon]

first house we sold, close to your old haunt of portpatrick, in stranraer, so glad i managed to get out! started with us doing the full on sell with spiel. it got to a viewing and we had friends round, pram in the hall, babies, toys out, the lot. spiel was, bedroom, kitchen, sitting room, have a wander round upstairs and we'll be in here if you have any questions. they bought.

[Jeremy Harris]

On 26/07/2018 at 13:43, SteamyTea said:

If I had read this earlier, I would have said join me for a coffee down Tehidy.

 

On 26/07/2018 at 13:48, joe90 said:

Also you are welcome to pop in to us near Bude, but do realise life is hectic for you at the moment (when has it never been ?).

 

 

Thanks for the kind offers, but it was a hell of a hectic day.  I arrived at my late Mother's farm around 11:30 (it's about a 4 hour drive from here), stayed there sorting stuff out and packing the car until about 20:30, then headed straight home, getting back just before 00:30 this morning.  I've got to go down again in the next week or so to pick up a Grandfather clock, and may have more time to pop in and see people then, as we've now cleared up 99% of the farm house.  If anyone wants a nice small holding down in West Cornwall, it will be on the market soon, minus almost all of the land which has been sold off to local farmers (there's around 3 acres left, but it's pretty good, clear land).  Nice range of outbuildings, polytunnel etc, though.

 

On 26/07/2018 at 18:40, Oz07 said:

Jeremy am I reading this right or are you saying purple bricks do a no sale no fee type arrangement? This thread prompted me to seriously consider using one of these online agents

 Purple Bricks offer several options, one of which includes only paying their fee on completion, but to take that option you have to agree to use their conveyancing service.  This means you don't pay the fixed £849 fee until the conveyancing is done, and they charge around £800 for the conveyancing service.

 

We received out first offer, about the asking price with a promised exchange of contracts data yesterday, whilst I was away.  I'm going to talk to the PB agent later this morning to take advice on how best to proceed, as we have four more viewings today plus a couple of others that have already viewed and might be prepared to make an offer.  Either way I think the house will be sold subject to contract by this weekend, or early next week at the latest, so that will be around a week from first advert going live to house under offer.

 

Time from advert going live to receipt of first acceptable offer was 3 days and 4 hours - probably a bit of a record!

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, JSHarris said:

If anyone wants a nice small holding down in West Cornwall, it will be on the market soon

Just avoid Nalders as a solicitors, they are the most ineffective and useless ones I have ever had to deal with.  They added an extra 3 months to my house purchase.  Just dreadful.

[Oz07]

2 hours ago, JSHarris said:

 

 

 

Thanks for the kind offers, but it was a hell of a hectic day.  I arrived at my late Mother's farm around 11:30 (it's about a 4 hour drive from here), stayed there sorting stuff out and packing the car until about 20:30, then headed straight home, getting back just before 00:30 this morning.  I've got to go down again in the next week or so to pick up a Grandfather clock, and may have more time to pop in and see people then, as we've now cleared up 99% of the farm house.  If anyone wants a nice small holding down in West Cornwall, it will be on the market soon, minus almost all of the land which has been sold off to local farmers (there's around 3 acres left, but it's pretty good, clear land).  Nice range of outbuildings, polytunnel etc, though.

 

 Purple Bricks off several options, one of which includes only paying their fee on completion, but to take that option you have to agree to use their conveyancing service.  This means you don't pay the fixed £849 fee until the conveyancing is done, and they charge around £800 for the conveyancing service.

 

We received out first offer, about the asking price with a promised exchange of contracts data yesterday, whilst I was away.  I'm going to talk to the PB agent later this morning to take advice on how best to proceed, as we have four more viewings today plus a couple of others that have already viewed and might be prepared to make an offer.  Either way I think the house will be sold subject to contract by this weekend, or early next week at the latest, so that will be around a week from first advert going live to house under offer.

 

Time from advert going live to receipt of first acceptable offer was 3 days and 4 hours - probably a bit of a record!

So if sale falls through for any reason you still don't pay the 850 listing fee?

[Jeremy Harris]

30 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Just avoid Nalders as a solicitors, they are the most ineffective and useless ones I have ever had to deal with.  They added an extra 3 months to my house purchase.  Just dreadful.

 

My brother's the Executor and handling the sale, and is choosing the agent and solicitor carefully as he's just had a nasty experience buying his new house in Tresillian, so with luck we'll manage to avoid the real PITA people.

[Jeremy Harris]

58 minutes ago, Oz07 said:

So if sale falls through for any reason you still don't pay the 850 listing fee?

 

The listing fee is only payable when the conveyance is completed, as far as I know, provided you opt to use their conveyancing service.  If you choose not to use their conveyancing service then the £849 fee is payable up front and is not refundable; you can only delay paying it until the house is sold if you choose to also pay them to look after the conveyance as well.

[Oz07]

Interesting thanks 

[Guest Alphonsox]

58 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

 

The listing fee is only payable when the conveyance is completed, as far as I know, provided you opt to use their conveyancing service.  If you choose not to use their conveyancing service then the £849 fee is payable up front and is not refundable; you can only delay paying it until the house is sold if you choose to also pay them to look after the conveyance as well.

 

Slightly more complicated - Looks like you can't get out of paying their fees even if there is no sale.

 

According to the PB website :-

When do I pay my fees and how do I make payment?

Answer: All of our customers have the choice not to pay anything at the time when they engage us to sell their property. You can pay later when any of the following occurs, whichever happens first:

• When the property sells and the legal process is complete;
• If you withdraw your instructions for us to market the property;
• If you withdraw from using Advanced Conveyancing;
• Ten months from the date when you agree to use our services.

 

 

 

[Jeremy Harris]

Thanks @Alphonsox, that does make things a lot clearer.  My brain is still a bit fuddled from all the driving and house clearance stuff yesterday.

 

I suspect that for most people aren't that likely to withdraw; certainly, based on our experience so far I'd have to say that I can't really fault either the service or performance from PB.  Ten months seems a reasonable period in which to sell, excepting that there are some parts of the country where it's quite probable that ten months may not be long enough, in which case PB may not be the best choice.

 

The bottom line is that you get what you pay for.  All the estate agents around here charge between 1.25% and 1.5% of the sale price as commission.  Assuming our house sold at the minimum acceptable price of £260k, that means commission of between £3,250 and £3,900, plus conveyancing costs of between £800 and £1000 at a guess (the purchase of our plot 6 years ago cost £800 in conveyancing fees).

 

Purple bricks charge £849 for the basic sales and marketing package, including the provision of a local expert to guide you and negotiate on your behalf etc.  For an extra fee of £300 they will conduct viewings for you as well.  Their advanced conveyancing cost is around £850, IIRC.

 

So comparing the two, selling through a local agent for the lowest acceptable price would cost between £4,150 and £4,800, assuming conveyancing fees of £900.  Selling though Purple Bricks will cost about £1,700 including conveyancing fees, so significantly less than half the cost of a normal estate agent and solicitor.

[billt]

3 hours ago, JSHarris said:

Time from advert going live to receipt of first acceptable offer was 3 days and 4 hours - probably a bit of a record!

 

We've just had a first viewing arranged before the photographs have been taken and the EPC done! I suspect that ours will take a while to sell as it's fairly pricey for the area, somewhat unusual and isn't in a property hotspot.

 

We're using a local estate agent who's charging 0.75% (+ VAT) with no additions apart from the EPC. Did consider PurpleBricks; apart from the horrible name and the horrible design of the signs I wasn't convinced that it would be suitable for our house. There are quite a few properties round here that are on with Purplebricks and haven't sold for months - probably due to the fact that the asking prices are somewhat optimistic. This agent seems to be pretty effective, on the ball and didn't overvalue the house. Hopefully they'll do the donkey work of filtering out unsuitable buyers.

[AliMcLeod]

My experience (and i've heard this elsewhere too) is that the quality of service you get from Purple Bricks is almost exclusively mapped to the quality of the individual who is covering your area (I believe they work in a similar fashion to a franchise model).

 

In our case, our local agent did not even turn up to an arranged meeting and then never returned any calls. Others we know had better luck in getting listed but the pictures they got were no better than you could take on a 5+ year old phone. I've seen local houses sitting with PB marketing boards for months, only to be removed and replaced with estate agent boards a month or so later.

 

In the end, we went for a high-street agent we'd used previously, paid a bit more (0.75% commission) but within 3 (working) days of it going on the market, we had 3 notes of interest (a Scottish thing where people lodge an interest and are kept updated on progress)  at which time we set a closing date (a date offers should be submitted) a few days later and accepted an offer over the asking price.

 

I think PBs is a great model for selling houses in certain market sectors (I'm not sure it works for the top end of the market), but I'd check for feedback on your local agent before signing up with them.

 

 

Edited July 27, 2018 by AliMcLeod

[Jeremy Harris]

@AliMcLeod, I think you're probably spot on.  I think we got lucky, as our local chap took some very good photos, has been very proactive in offering advice and so far is exceeding the performance I remember from the two houses we've sold using an estate agent.  The price advantage for us is just the icing on the cake, really.

 

The moral of this tale is to perhaps do some local research to try and find out what your local PB person is like.  I found the initial valuation meeting was a reasonably good way to judge this, as within a few minutes I gained the impression that the chap was intimately familiar with the local market (I think he may have mentioned that he'd worked for one of the local agent previously) and just seemed very professional.  When he came back to take the photos, complete with Nikon DSLR, tripod and fill-in flash that further boosted my confidence that he was likely to do a pretty good job.

 

Another indicator is that in this local area PB have the lion's share of all the properties for sale, just from driving around spotting "For Sale" boards.  I agree the boards look ugly, but frankly if it helps sell our house quickly then I couldn't care less!

[jack]

We have one Purple Bricks sign on our road and I haven't seen any others in the area that I can recall.

 

It's been on for many months, but to be fair, the price is very optimistic.

[Ferdinand]

On 27/07/2018 at 11:50, jack said:

We have one Purple Bricks sign on our road and I haven't seen any others in the area that I can recall.

 

It's been on for many months, but to be fair, the price is very optimistic.

 

We have Purple Bricks everywhere here.

 

If they stick around so think it is very due to optimists not yav8ng had enough cold-shower type advice. Or perhaps market testers.

 

Te market still seems to be sells quickly or sticks, with not too much in between. Though in our immediate surroundings we have had a couple of South East downsizes / retirees looking for more house or less frazzle. 

 

F

Edited July 29, 2018 by Ferdinand

[Jeremy Harris]

Latest update.  Second formal offer has been received, higher than first offer, cash buyer (confirmed that the money is sitting in their bank), no mortgage, defined exchange of contracts date that looks realistic. 

 

Another couple have told us they are submitting a cash offer first thing next week, they just need to confirm with the solicitor a realistic date for exchange of contracts first.

 

It's now 6 days and  6 hours since the house went on the market and we have effectively got three offers, plus another two that I fully expect to make an offer some time next week, plus three more than have stated they want to buy but need to confirm that they can get a mortgage first.

 

Our current plan is for the agent to send out a request for best and final offers, with a confirmed exchange of contracts date, to all interested parties early next week, with a reasonable closing date for the receipt of offers, then we will select the offer that is the combination of the least risk of falling through plus the best price.

 

Looks like the house is pretty close to being sold though, whatever happens.

 

We're both sitting here a bit stunned, as this is not at all what we expected, especially given the poor decorative state of this house.  Time for another glass of wine, I think, with commiserations to those of you who are finding it hard to sell.

[recoveringbuilder]

Well done, I take it they are putting the offers through their solicitors 

[ProDave]

On 23 July 2018 at 07:18, Ferdinand said:

.

@ProDave has taken the other strategy of not slashing the price and waiting - horses for courses, as there is not a universal best strategy.

 

 

 

 

That is because I flatly refused to consider dropping the price to the point where we got less for selling our old 5 bedroom house than what is is costing to build the replacement 3 bedroom house. Nobody of sane mind would PAY to downsize to a smaller house 50 yards up the road.

[Guest Alphonsox]

1 hour ago, JSHarris said:

Latest update.  Second formal offer has been received, higher than first offer, cash buyer (confirmed that the money is sitting in their bank), no mortgage, defined exchange of contracts date that looks realistic. 

 

Another couple have told us they are submitting a cash offer first thing next week, they just need to confirm with the solicitor a realistic date for exchange of contracts first.

 

It's now 6 days and  6 hours since the house went on the market and we have effectively got three offers, plus another two that I fully expect to make an offer some time next week, plus three more than have stated they want to buy but need to confirm that they can get a mortgage first.

 

Our current plan is for the agent to send out a request for best and final offers, with a confirmed exchange of contracts date, to all interested parties early next week, with a reasonable closing date for the receipt of offers, then we will select the offer that is the combination of the least risk of falling through plus the best price.

 

Looks like the house is pretty close to being sold though, whatever happens.

 

We're both sitting here a bit stunned, as this is not at all what we expected, especially given the poor decorative state of this house.  Time for another glass of wine, I think, with commiserations to those of you who are finding it hard to sell.

 

Great feeling isn't it - My mother's place sold at auction last Thursday.

- Auctioneers recommended guide price £175,000 - £200,000

- Estate agents recommended listing price £220,000

- Final hammer price at auction £260,000

 

To be honest the auction was one of the most stressful 3 minutes of my life, but we're still celebrating three days later....

 

 

[Jeremy Harris]

18 hours ago, Christine Walker said:

Well done, I take it they are putting the offers through their solicitors 

 

One hasn't, but the rest are, primarily because we need positive confirmation that their declared exchange of contracts date is realistic.

 

18 hours ago, ProDave said:

That is because I flatly refused to consider dropping the price to the point where we got less for selling our old 5 bedroom house than what is is costing to build the replacement 3 bedroom house. Nobody of sane mind would PAY to downsize to a smaller house 50 yards up the road.

 

@ProDave, our thoughts are with you, and in your position we'd have done as you are doing.  It's simply local forces at work here; demand is very high, prices are rising, and it is, without a shadow of doubt a seller's market here.  We are lucky in that we've not had the significant impact of an independence referendum, plus we are within the London commuter belt (albeit at an hour and half each way on the train).

 

I'm pretty certain we will end up getting more than I'd planned for this house, which is a very pleasant surprise, but part of me feels that it's wrong to profit from simply owning a house,  We'll be selling this house for around twice as much as we paid for it, and that seems wrong, but there's no way we can just give the house away for less, just to feel better about selling it.  Apart from anything else, we'll just be grateful to get shot of the place.

 

18 hours ago, Alphonsox said:

 

Great feeling isn't it - My mother's place sold at auction last Thursday.

- Auctioneers recommended guide price £175,000 - £200,000

- Estate agents recommended listing price £220,000

- Final hammer price at auction £260,000

 

To be honest the auction was one of the most stressful 3 minutes of my life, but we're still celebrating three days later....

 

 

 

Congratulations!  We still have that to go through.  I spent most of Thursday helping my brother clear our late Mother's house, and that's now just about ready to go on the market.  Not sure what it will fetch, but given the crazy prices down in Cornwall it wouldn't surprise me if it went for more than we think.

[ProDave]

3 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

@ProDave, our thoughts are with you, and in your position we'd have done as you are doing.  It's simply local forces at work here; demand is very high, prices are rising, and it is, without a shadow of doubt a seller's market here.  We are lucky in that we've not had the significant impact of an independence referendum, plus we are within the London commuter belt (albeit at an hour and half each way on the train).

 

It really is a peculiar market here. Things do sell eventually for somewhere near asking price, put it can take 3 or 4 years. No that is not a miss type.

 

I expect when we eventually do sell, there will be a small "profit" in the downsize move, but only because of all the work I have done.  I am still convinced if I had simply paid someone to build us a finished house, the cost would be very close indeed to what the old house will sell for.

 

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Had I know it was going to be this hard to sell the old one, and cost as much as it has to build the new one, I might not have bothered, I might just have improved the one we had.

[Hecateh]

1 hour ago, Alphonsox said:

 

Great feeling isn't it - My mother's place sold at auction last Thursday.

- Auctioneers recommended guide price £175,000 - £200,000

- Estate agents recommended listing price £220,000

- Final hammer price at auction £260,000

 

To be honest the auction was one of the most stressful 3 minutes of my life, but we're still celebrating three days later....

 

 

Wow - Good Result

[newhome]

13 hours ago, ProDave said:

It really is a peculiar market here. Things do sell eventually for somewhere near asking price, put it can take 3 or 4 years. No that is not a miss type.

  

 

It can be a bit like that here. I've seen houses on the market for years and then sell. 

 

 

13 hours ago, ProDave said:

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Had I know it was going to be this hard to sell the old one, and cost as much as it has to build the new one, I might not have bothered, I might just have improved the one we had.

 

I know what you mean but at least you will get the house you want at the end of it all. And when the other house sells, happy days. 

 

[jack]

13 hours ago, ProDave said:

It really is a peculiar market here. Things do sell eventually for somewhere near asking price, put it can take 3 or 4 years. No that is not a miss type.

But isn't that just overpricing in the beginning and then the market catching up? From where I sit, if it takes 3-4 years to sell, then the price (at the time it was set) was too high.

I suppose if the market has done nothing over that time, then perhaps it does show a local oddity based on generally low demand.

[ProDave]

1 minute ago, jack said:

But isn't that just overpricing in the beginning and then the market catching up? From where I sit, if it takes 3-4 years to sell, then the price (at the time it was set) was too high.

I suppose if the market has done nothing over that time, then perhaps it does show a local oddity based on generally low demand.

But prices here have not gone up since 2007 so no it is not the market catching up.  Our house was valued by comparing it with the actual sale price of a similar sized house nearby that last sold in 2012. That has just gone back on the market now for £5K above the 2012 sale price.

 

I won't detract the tread by suggesting why this is so.

[Ferdinand]

On 27/07/2018 at 11:44, JSHarris said:

I think we got lucky, as our local chap took some very good photos, has been very proactive in offering advice and so far is exceeding the performance I remember from the two houses we've sold using an estate agent. 

 

Afaics it is quite area specific as to which new estate agency network dominates. Here we get Purple Bricks, but not many others. I have seen a few with EMoov, but that seems to be about it. I wonder whether the likes of PB will be introducing a Premium or Top of Market service for ‘prestige’ properties at some time in the future, because the savings for te seller are potentially a lot more in cash terms?

 

I think the varied comments on the thread illustrate just how much it is local factors, local markets and horses for courses. And then that there is another layer of personal considerations on top. We *had* to sell due to a parent becoming unable to live in a large house in the country with stairs and a huge garden, so we went to be near a town centre, and really would have not wanted another winter there.

 

Estate agents here are still ,.. all these years later .... in self-consolation ‘it could be worse’ rather than ‘yay, happy days’ mode.

 

I suspect that we are also seeing some SE landlords or refugees from London volatility and low yields buying up here. We are not a classic ‘buy a street of terraces for the price of your 2 bed docklands flat’ country, which is how certain Northern areas have been seen, but I do see occasional sales of eg terraces by the likes of Savilles at auction, which is a telltale for potential sales to investors from down south.

 

Ferdinand

 

Edited July 29, 2018 by Ferdinand