Cheek of it

[Guest Lisado]

Hi all

 

 

PC knacked so not been on PIA for a while and on hol from work so can't check there. We had offer on the house - £20k less than what it was up for and I think its because we said we heading to Oz - what did you think? For those of you who sold house in UK - did you tell people why you were leaving?

 

PS - good to be back online;)

 

Lisa

[Guest Alan and Jodi]

Hi Lisa,

 

That is cheeky!!

 

We put our house on the market in Nov last year. The first couple that came to look asked why we were selling so we told them the truth but also adding we weren't desperate to sell. They made an offer in Dec of 40k less than the advertised price!! Needless to say we said no and they upped it by 5k......we still said no! We dropped the price later in Jan and eventually sold it to someone else for 10k under the asking price.

 

We left the UK in Jan but OH dad was keeping an eye on the house for us. He happened to be there one day when a man (the one who bought it) turned up to have another look from outside so dad went out to talk to him. He knew we had gone to Australia and seemed to think we were desperate to sell so only the estate agent could have told him (even after explaining we weren't desperate!) but good old dad put him straight! We knocked back his first 2 offers but he obviously wanted it so we basically got what we hoped for when we first put it on the market.

 

I probably haven't helped much but if your estate agent(s) know you're leaving the UK, even if you don't tell the prospective buyers, the estate agent might let it slip!

 

Hope you have some luck with your house soon!

 

Jodi

[Tamara (Homes Down Under)]

Hi Lisado,

We had the same issue with our property...still unsold unfortunately.

 

I saw your South African police clearance certificate issue. They lost our certificate a couple of times!

The last time took 2 weeks but it neded daily phone calls to Pretoria...not a great experience as you will well know.

Anyway...their numbers are (012) 393 3712/3/4/5. If you get someone helpful then take their name and ask for them on future occasions. Please make sure that your courier knows which day to collect it when ready. It's possible to short cut the process...get the document from the in pile (I kid you not!) to processing and then through the signature process but you have to push it. Have your id numbers ready.

Hope that this helps!

[Guest Guest75]

Ouch!!

 

To be honest I'd not say anything about Oz,it will encourage silly offers Lisa.

 

We never even told the agent either.Had the feeling the agent could have encouraged a lower offer for a quick sale.

This was in 1998 when sales were tough as well.

 

Good luck.

[Guest Django]

Only £20,000 short??? Things must be improving. We have rented out our house as we were offered £80,000 under the asking price last year. Not bad when we were only asking £160,000 in total for a detached 4 bedroom house.

 

Good luck

 

Pete

[Guest rodgeviper]

hi ive been told to hold on to the house and let it out for two years or so to let the housing market improve. hopefully by then we should get more or less what we paid for ours.

[Flutterby]

I don't think 20k off is that cheeky in this market to be honest. We accepted an offer 13k below asking in March last year and thank God we did as that house is worth at least 20k less than even that now (if we had ever managed to get another offer).

 

We didn't tell anyone about Australia, not the agent, not the solicitor, not the neighbours. We didn't want anyone gazundering us at the last minute. We just told everyone that we were relocating to another area to be closer to family.

[Prema]

We are also selling our house, we have accepted an offer that is 13k under our asking price, just hoping that it all goes though, with the current housing market. I would rather sell, and move on.

[Guest caoimhe]

We sold our house last November and under instructions from the Estate Agent (a family friend) we didn't tell anyone we were immigrating. We had droppped the price twice and got what we asked for it, it was the cheapest in the area at that stage.When asked we told them we had a family home to move to. We wanted them to know we were not in a chain but didn't want them to know we were desparate. Glad we did as between agreeing a price and moving out the house had gone down 15k and now 5 mths later they are down a further 20k

[Pesty650]

We haven't said anything about going to Oz & still had an offer 25K below the asking price (which we didn't accept). It's difficult to know what to do. People seem to want a bargain rather than the home they really want. We've seen some houses on the market reduced to silly low prices, obviously desperate to sell but the trouble is, it's driving the rest of the market down. I can only assume these sellers are leaving for Oz :-)

Good luck with your house sale

[Guest Dave & Carole]

To be honest it probably feels cheeky...but if you accept it you can get on with your lives.

 

We could say we "lost"loads on our house as it went on the market about 2 months too late...just as the market began to falter. However after 18 months trying to sell - once we did accept an offer we did actually just feel relieved. If you don't have to sell - wait till the recession is over - if you need to sell I'd accept it and try to think about if you've made since you bought it. Its only worth what someone is willing to pay and unfortunately no-one is wiling to pay very much at the moment - irrespective of where you are moving on to.

 

Good luck

[Guest Lisado]

Hi all - thanks for your replies. We have already dropped the price by £10k and can't really afford to take much less than what its up for now as we need to clear the mortgage.

 

We thought about auction but that seems expensive

 

Renting is still in our minds at the moment

 

So we may have to cut our losses and take a lower price!

 

Also on SA police clearance- been given a date for end of April after contacting them - so thanks for help on that

 

Lisa

[Guest back clan]

we have been on market since last Aug. 40 viewings and no offers and everyone who has been to look knows we are moving abroad but there is a huge choice down in shoreham. I honestly wouldn't say our house is a dump. yes it needs the odd thing doing to it but it is a nice house.

I know a couple of estate agents here and they seem to think that most people are putting in cheeky offers and then they are trying to get them to meet half way between cheek and acceptable. Our problem is we need the money from our house to make the move.

I hope your son is ok. That sounds like a horrible situation. When i lived in newcastle I was hanging a pair of curtains in someones house in gateshead one day and a car pulled up at house opposite, two lads got out and axed the front door down ran in , nicked loads of electrical stuff and legged it.

Needless to say I nearly had a heart attack as I was in full view in the window watching them. Ended up with police all over the place and the helicopter after them. Caught them though. Had to go straight to the pub to calm me nerves

[Guest GIPSY]

Hi

 

We have had a real saga when it comes to selling houses, but hopefully we are now getting there...

 

Our first house - we reduced by £25k and also offered part exchange. We finally sold the house as a part -ex and released equity by doing this. We did get them in turn to drop theirs by £25k in the PX so that we didn't lose out overall.

 

So we are now in our 2nd house - we have now dropped this by £10k and offered PX. We have just accepted a PX offer releasing more equity.

 

What this now means is that we are leaving a much smaller property in the UK to rent out for a few years until the market picks up, but that we have released enough equity to allow us to comfortably move out to Oz. Also, we have a much smaller mortgage and the house will sit paying for itself - if we had rented out any of the other houses we had, it would have been on interest only to keep money free for Oz and so wasn't great.

 

Not sure if this will help anyone else, but with the market the way it is, PX seems to be getting more popular. Don't get me wrong, it has been quite stressful along the way, but keeping the dream in mind has helped an awful lot!

 

Hayley

[lee & caz]

Hi back clan

We live in Brighton and are in the same position - visa granted and house for sale. Just wanted to say hi to a fellow wannabe ozzie down here in the south. We are going to validate our visa next week. Need to sell the house for it to be permanent, don't want to rent it out as I work in the industry and have seen the state some people leave the places in.

Good luck for your house sale and the move.