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[Milk Thistle]

Oh my word. I always knew selling a house would be stressful but in peri its seems X10. Is anyone else doing this or am I the only mad one

Buyers wanting god knows how many viewings, mortgage offers no received, surveyors and valuers popping round. I have intensively cleaned and prepped this house more in the last month than the 20 years I have lived here

Both my parents are ill, and they live separately. One with dementia and one with cancer. My little brother has become ill with the stress of it all too

I feel like im going out of m,y mind. Its all happened at once. DH is creeping round silently for fear of sparking an explosion

[CLKD]

Is it the same buyer?  The Agent should make sure that any1 looking to view a property has a Mortgage in place to avoid the hassle.  It's the most stressful thing that we do. Apparently!

Have U reached Exchange of Contracts?  If so ask the Agent to get in writing how genuine they are about your property and don't be tempted to drop the price 'for a quick sale'.  Nor for the excuse that the potential buyer wants to do x, Y, z, that is their choice!

Many years ago a friend of ours dropped the price of hers a lot, 10 years later the buyers hadn't done any of the alterations that they had 'wanted the money off for'. 

You are not mad.  A meeting with your Agent is necessary.  It amazes me that vendors and buyers are in contact with each other, years ago it was all done via Soliitors!

[Minusminnie]

You may find the viewings tail off after a month. New on their books the estate agent will be sending people round.

You don’t need to clean for the surveyor they are looking to see past it anyway.

You need that cash buyer to come riding over the hill & if he/she does make sure the agent checks out they do genuinely have the cash !

We had one who told agent they had cash but also had 2 other properties to sell as well.

[Milk Thistle]

Thanks to both of you.

Ooh yes a cash buyer, now wouldnt that be something . I can feel my stress diminishing at the thought

I am going to give them until the 10th and then I will meet with the agent to allow more viewings as it was taken of SSTC. No valuer from their mortgage company has been either

[SundayGirl]

Beware the cash buyer who will drop their offer right at the last minute before exchange. Been on the receiving end of that once 

Buying and selling is always stressful no matter your age. We've bought and sold several times and it always seems like everyone else is relaxed and laid back while we wanted to get things moving quickly.

Good luck Milk Thistle. I'll keep my fingers crossed that it goes smoothly for you 

[CLKD]

Even when potential buyers have paid for the Survey they may try to pull that 1, as SundayGirl suggests.  'too late' will be the cry from you!

Agents should always accompany buyers for safety sake and should always provide feed back in writing.  There are also the 'sunday' lookers round! with nowt else to do. 

How long have U been on the Market?  Never give sole rights to an Agent and have a Contract of no longer than 3 months.  When we were selling Mum's we started high so that we had lee-way.  We signed in 1st lockdown, he kept the furniture etc.; we had cleared what we wanted.  The buyer was unable to move his items from London so we all benefitted.

It is stressful because Agents make it so!  They have to however put forward every offer even when they know it won't be acceptable. 

[bombsh3ll]

The amount of sh** you have to put up with depends on your situation, why you need to move and how urgent this is.

This might not be of any relevance to you at all but I had a situation some years ago when I desperately needed to move and fast.

I had thought my family were in our forever home, but it was a mid terrace with neighbours on one side who had been noisy and inconsiderate from day one, and having moved my bedroom to the other side, our nice neighbour on the side owned by the council did a house swap with a woman who had 3 dogs that barked incessantly.

It was making me ill, I could not sleep at all and I was actually hearing barking when I was away from the house. If I had stayed there any longer I would have started barking myself, so I really had no option for the sake of my health.

As selling the house would have been difficult and likely taken a long time, we saw a mortgage broker and ended up doing a let-to-buy, where you essentially port the equity from your old home to a new one and rent the old one out for higher than the mortgage payments.

The first can then be sold at a later point under less frantic conditions.

[SundayGirl]

Even when potential buyers have paid for the Survey they may try to pull that 1, as SundayGirl suggests.  'too late' will be the cry from you!

It calls for some delicate negotiations unless you want the whole chain to collapse.  Especially if you've found the house and don't want to lose it.

[Minusminnie]

Try to sell to people who are renting.
We managed to do that twice it made life much easier.

Our last move wasn’t the same. We badly needed to hang on to the buyer we had. The buyer had a solicitor from hell who was buying time and buyer kept sending people in to check this that and the other.

It took someone at the very bottom of the chain who wanted to move before Christmas to shake it all up. Suddenly the solicitor moved like lightening 😆

[CLKD]

Any news Milk Thistle?

[getting_old]

I absolutely hate trying to sell a house. The whole process seems to be deliberately designed to be stressful. You don't even know if you're going to move until the last minute. Last time we moved the bl**@& bank decided they couldn't transfer the money at the last minute so OH had to make a 3 hr round trip to collect a cheque to take to the solicitor!!
If you don't have to move then maybe delay until things are calmer, but if you do then as CLKD says have a meeting with the agent and tell them that they need to confirm that the buyers are serious, give them a deadline for having the mortgage offer to you, and also a deadline to have everything sorted otherwise you will move to another estate agency. When you consider how little they actually do, the amount they get paid is ridiculous. Only option is to manage them and if they don't deliver find someone who can!

[CLKD]

Exactly getting_old - eloquently put.

1 can of course in the days of building your own web-sites, advertise and deal with potential buyers yourself. If U have time.  That way no one gets to visit until they have monies in place.

[getting_old]

Not sure if you can check that people have mortgage or finances in place, because of data protection. You could ask for a mortgage letter but it may not be genuine 

[CLKD]

Good point, tnx.

[Summerwyc]

The amount of sh** you have to put up with depends on your situation, why you need to move and how urgent this is.

This might not be of any relevance to you at all but I had a situation some years ago when I desperately needed to move and fast.

I had thought my family were in our forever home, but it was a mid terrace with neighbours on one side who had been noisy and inconsiderate from day one, and having moved my bedroom to the other side, our nice neighbour on the side owned by the council did a house swap with a woman who had 3 dogs that barked incessantly.

It was making me ill, I could not sleep at all and I was actually hearing barking when I was away from the house. If I had stayed there any longer I would have started barking myself, so I really had no option for the sake of my health.

As selling the house would have been difficult and likely taken a long time, we saw a mortgage broker and ended up doing a let-to-buy, where you essentially port the equity from your old home to a new one and rent the old one out for higher than the mortgage payments.

The first can then be sold at a later point under less frantic conditions.

That sounds incredibly tough. Glad you found a solution that worked. Let-to-buy can really be a lifesaver in urgent situations like that. Thanks for sharing your experience!