Do potential buyers actually look at the property details?
Discussion
Or do they just swipe through the images like some sort of property tinder and book a viewing?
I've had a property on the market for the last 5 weeks. 90s build 3 bed detached with a garage. We've had 1 offer that was about 7% below the asking price. I rejected it and they upped the offer to 4% below, which was just off my lower threshold but the house had only been on the market a week at that point and 8 people had viewed so far with another 5 in the diary... so I rejected that one too. Not a sniff of an offer since.
It's in well above average condition, recent bathrooms and kitchen, neutrally decorated, tidy gardens and garage, on a good plot, in a decent area.
It's priced exactly where the 4 agents I consulted suggested it should be. We've had 27 viewings so far, 3 people have been back for a second viewing.
The feedback from the agent is saying that nobody can quibble over the condition/price/location - but each viewer is rejecting it on the size of the bedrooms.
For argument's sake, here's the dimensions.
Bed 1 = 3.75m x 3.25m
Bed 2 = 3.00m x 2.85m
Bed 3 = 2.10m x 2.05m
The house is a standard size for the type/area/era. What do they expect? There is a floorplan on rightmove/zoopla, with dimensions. What more can I do? If it makes any difference, the house is completely unfurnished except for carpets, blinds and curtains. Does this make the rooms look smaller?
Crap rant I know, but it is a bit frustrating.
I've had a property on the market for the last 5 weeks. 90s build 3 bed detached with a garage. We've had 1 offer that was about 7% below the asking price. I rejected it and they upped the offer to 4% below, which was just off my lower threshold but the house had only been on the market a week at that point and 8 people had viewed so far with another 5 in the diary... so I rejected that one too. Not a sniff of an offer since.
It's in well above average condition, recent bathrooms and kitchen, neutrally decorated, tidy gardens and garage, on a good plot, in a decent area.
It's priced exactly where the 4 agents I consulted suggested it should be. We've had 27 viewings so far, 3 people have been back for a second viewing.
The feedback from the agent is saying that nobody can quibble over the condition/price/location - but each viewer is rejecting it on the size of the bedrooms.
For argument's sake, here's the dimensions.
Bed 1 = 3.75m x 3.25m
Bed 2 = 3.00m x 2.85m
Bed 3 = 2.10m x 2.05m
The house is a standard size for the type/area/era. What do they expect? There is a floorplan on rightmove/zoopla, with dimensions. What more can I do? If it makes any difference, the house is completely unfurnished except for carpets, blinds and curtains. Does this make the rooms look smaller?
Crap rant I know, but it is a bit frustrating.
Thanks for the comments. I've had a look at the other 3 bed houses within 0.5 miles that are £20k +/- and of the 9 available mine has the smaller rooms but is definitely the best presented and most of the others are semis, particularly the cheaper ones.
I've had it as a BTL for the last 15 years and none of the 6 tenants have mentioned the room sizes (small families and single professionals). It's never been on the lettings market for more than a week before so my initial refusal of the early offers was based on its previous attractiveness.
Those that are scoffing at me refusing the 4% below offer, the revenue from this house is funding several personal and professional projects, £10k below my expectations will make a difference.
If I was selling to move up the ladder it would just be a small increase in the future mortgage, but in this instance I have a minimum threshold I need to achieve that is less negotiable.
I've had it as a BTL for the last 15 years and none of the 6 tenants have mentioned the room sizes (small families and single professionals). It's never been on the lettings market for more than a week before so my initial refusal of the early offers was based on its previous attractiveness.
Those that are scoffing at me refusing the 4% below offer, the revenue from this house is funding several personal and professional projects, £10k below my expectations will make a difference.
If I was selling to move up the ladder it would just be a small increase in the future mortgage, but in this instance I have a minimum threshold I need to achieve that is less negotiable.
The agent didn't even try to convince us that the offer we received was worthy of acceptance, their general demeanour at the time (but not their exact words) was "it's a bit low, she'll probably come up a bit if you reject it and tell her a slightly higher number". This wasn't an attempt to generate more commission, the sale is being done on a fixed price.
I've never sold a house in my life, they've sold plenty, I took on board what they were saying and went with their guidance.
I've just heard we've got a similar party currently interested, they're just sorting their financial options out which is taking a bit of time due to being self employed but we're hopeful. No opening offer received yet, just lots of positive comment/2nd viewing and an appointment with the EA's mortgage brokers.
Another question - Why aren't people viewing the property on weekends? I expected this to be the most popular window and discussed with the agent the option of me/the wife doing viewings when the EA isn't available (Sat late PM - Mon AM).
I've done 1 from the twenty-odd people who've been round. Most of the appointments are 1600 - 1715 on weekdays, is the EA 'doing a viewing' then taking the opportunity for an early knock off?
I've never sold a house in my life, they've sold plenty, I took on board what they were saying and went with their guidance.
I've just heard we've got a similar party currently interested, they're just sorting their financial options out which is taking a bit of time due to being self employed but we're hopeful. No opening offer received yet, just lots of positive comment/2nd viewing and an appointment with the EA's mortgage brokers.
Another question - Why aren't people viewing the property on weekends? I expected this to be the most popular window and discussed with the agent the option of me/the wife doing viewings when the EA isn't available (Sat late PM - Mon AM).
I've done 1 from the twenty-odd people who've been round. Most of the appointments are 1600 - 1715 on weekdays, is the EA 'doing a viewing' then taking the opportunity for an early knock off?
yajeed said:
I guess when people see a property they like they'll want to view it straight away, which 5/7 times will be during the week.
You'd think so, but we've been informed 2 or 3 times of viewings 8/9 days before the actual appointment, what kind of serious buyer is putting a slot in the diary for 9 days time? Other times we've been informed on a Thu/Fri that somebody would like to view on the following Mon/Tue PM, and not over the weekend. I think that because the house is clearly unoccupied there are a few speculative viewers, hobbyists and nosey gits amongst the recent viewers.It's putting me off ever trying to sell our residential property unless we really have to, couldn't be doing with all of this nonsense around a normal family home!
It's been a while so I thought I'd post an update.
Following a lot more viewings - we ended up with a very interested chain free buyer putting in an offer at 98% of the asking price in late May. He had very few conditions other than he wanted to get in as quickly as possible and wanted us to cancel the 4 viewings that were scheduled in the diary. We accepted this as he'd used the agent's mortgage advisor, so we had the assurance that his financials were all in order.
The plan was that we'd complete/exchange before the end of June, which was around 4 weeks away from when we accepted the offer.
Turned out the legal representative he was using 'wasn't on his lender's list of approved people' so that caused a bit of a delay and reset things when he changed firms. We'd resolved all of our sellers paperwork really quickly and that was sat with our representative ready to go. Not much happened thereafter and the June deadline came and went...
Towards the end of July the buyer was getting increasingly keen to get in by the end of the month (he was in rented housing and wanted out in synch with month end). Some fairly petty enquiries were coming back and forth between legals, chiefly a minor spat over cavity wall insulation stuff which could have been quite expensive to resolve for us. This was eventually reduced to nothing of consequence when we obtained an installation certificate for a whole £10; neither legal party offered this solution, it was just my Mrs ringing around firms we'd dealt with and then speaking with CIGA (Cavity Installation Guarantee Agency), Frustrating, as you'd have thought they'd have come across this issue previously.
Other frustrations included solicitors going off on holiday for a fortnight and not leaving colleagues adequately empowered to conduct business in thir absence and a general apathetic attitude to what is quite an important transaction! If this was the sale of a residential property and we were living out of packing boxes and booking/re-booking removals etc. it would have been a more significant distraction
Anyway, the house eventually sold on 4 Aug - the day we were going on holiday, most inconvenient - which I had predicted to happen - as that's the way things always happen!!
I know, cool story etc., probably needs more dragons and pillaging but I just thought I'd give an ending to the whole house-selling debacle, a situation I shall not be reentering into again for a considerable amount of time if I can help it.
Following a lot more viewings - we ended up with a very interested chain free buyer putting in an offer at 98% of the asking price in late May. He had very few conditions other than he wanted to get in as quickly as possible and wanted us to cancel the 4 viewings that were scheduled in the diary. We accepted this as he'd used the agent's mortgage advisor, so we had the assurance that his financials were all in order.
The plan was that we'd complete/exchange before the end of June, which was around 4 weeks away from when we accepted the offer.
Turned out the legal representative he was using 'wasn't on his lender's list of approved people' so that caused a bit of a delay and reset things when he changed firms. We'd resolved all of our sellers paperwork really quickly and that was sat with our representative ready to go. Not much happened thereafter and the June deadline came and went...
Towards the end of July the buyer was getting increasingly keen to get in by the end of the month (he was in rented housing and wanted out in synch with month end). Some fairly petty enquiries were coming back and forth between legals, chiefly a minor spat over cavity wall insulation stuff which could have been quite expensive to resolve for us. This was eventually reduced to nothing of consequence when we obtained an installation certificate for a whole £10; neither legal party offered this solution, it was just my Mrs ringing around firms we'd dealt with and then speaking with CIGA (Cavity Installation Guarantee Agency), Frustrating, as you'd have thought they'd have come across this issue previously.
Other frustrations included solicitors going off on holiday for a fortnight and not leaving colleagues adequately empowered to conduct business in thir absence and a general apathetic attitude to what is quite an important transaction! If this was the sale of a residential property and we were living out of packing boxes and booking/re-booking removals etc. it would have been a more significant distraction
Anyway, the house eventually sold on 4 Aug - the day we were going on holiday, most inconvenient - which I had predicted to happen - as that's the way things always happen!!
I know, cool story etc., probably needs more dragons and pillaging but I just thought I'd give an ending to the whole house-selling debacle, a situation I shall not be reentering into again for a considerable amount of time if I can help it.
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