Author Archives: Sam

You find a buyer, you negotiate the purchase price, you both agree on a figure that is slightly unacceptable to both of you (in other words, fair) and then the survey results come in.

Either he’s highlighted lots of work that needs doing (regardless of the fact you’ve lived there for 30 years without a problem) or he’s valued the property at less than the agreed purchase price, or both. And now, you have a buyer that wants to renegotiate on the purchase price.

This week, this happened to me. For those of you who have read my post Putting my Money where my Mouth is, you’ll know that I was feeling rather chuffed with myself, having agreed a purchase price of £190,000 on a little cottage I had refurbished. The surveyor’s valuation report showed a valuation figure of £190,000. So far, so good. However, as it’s a 400 year old thatched cottage, I braced myself for any ‘works needed’ to be listed, and sure enough there were some suggestions that “the thatch may need replacing in the next ten years” and “the chimney may need to be repointed within the near future”. I breathed a sigh of relief; nothing particularly onerous there then, and after all, he’d agreed with the purchase price. All was well, or so I thought……

The purchaser came back straight away and dropped his offer by £10,000; the amount he said that would cover all the works ‘needed’. “But the valuation was £190,000” I protested. He would go away and think about it, he said.

The next day, he came back with a suggestion to split the difference, at £185,000. As I knew that interest in the cottage was still running relatively high, and I’d already cancelled two viewings, I refused, explaining that I wasn’t going to pay for works which weren’t urgent, and which would add value to his investment. I would however, in the spirit of goodwill, agree to pay 25%, and would therefore agree to sell him the cottage at £187,500. He refused. We reached a stalemate. He walked away.

I was pretty cross, but when the agent called me with two new viewings, I felt a bit better. The second of the two viewers asked permission to bring a thatcher round. Here we go again I thought…. Then she called following his visit and offered £190,000. As it was her first offer, I decided to be bold. After all, she didn’t know that I’d already accepted £190,000, so I went back with a counter offer of £192,000, which she accepted. Hurray!

The survey is booked for next week. Watch this space……

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

Ladies, have you ever visited say, Debenhams, no money to spend, and only seen the most beautiful dresses and shoes? If only you had some spare money, you would surely find the perfect outfit. But walk into the same department store with a plan to buy a dress, and the money to match, and can you find anything? No, you can’t!

Well it’s the same with houses. When a viewer who has not yet sold his house (or maybe not even put it on the market) views yours, the chances of him falling in love with it are far greater than if he was in a position to buy. I have long since held this belief, and not only has it been proven many times, it actually happened again today, and to me! Viewings have been high, at 1-2 per week on average. Today, I had a viewer who absolutely loved the house, and promised vehemently that he would put an offer in – just as soon as he’d sold his house. A tad annoying really……

The lesson here, is don’t get excited if you get strong interest, unless the buyer has already sold, or is in a proceedable position. Otherwise, you’ll accept the offer, relax your marketing and staging efforts a little, (or a lot) and pat yourselves on the back that you’ve practically sold your house. Beware though; your buyer wants your house all the more because he can’t have it, and when he finds himself in a position of being able to transact, don’t be surprised if he changes his mind. After all, what do you think he was doing all those months he was on the market? Looking at other properties of course; just to be sure. There are a lot of properties out there on the market after all.. so much choice……

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

I once was asked by a client to help him sell his beautiful 18th Century oak-framed barn in Cheshire. Despite selling a home in the £500,000 plus bracket, my client was still only in his twenties, having been initiated into the very successful family business from an early age. His two passions were motorbikes and partying, and not necessarily in that order. There was evidence of his interests throughout the house, from a fully-blown games room where the dining room should have been, and a full sized wooden motorbike in the middle of the living room. He also had a “chillout” room in place of one of the bedrooms, complete with walls adorned with erotic art. Needless to say, it didn’t go down that well with the family buyers……

I told him there were two possible solutions: one – find a buyer exactly like him. Two – change the house to suit the likely family buyer. As he’d already tried the first strategy for over a year without success, I persuaded him that mine had a higher chance of success. He reluctantly agreed. Out came the motorbike, to be replaced by lovely rustic coffee table; the chillout room was transformed into an elegant guest bedroom and the games room was dismantled, and a large, family-sized oak dining table installed. On the day of the photographer’s visit, I had a last run round the house, hiding unsuitable magazines, tidying away sixteen pairs of trainers, Playboy towels and bedding, and instructing him to put the several crates of empty beer bottles out for the recyling. The fresh flowers, fruit and just-for-show toiletries were placed carefully and the resulting images made all the effort worth it.

We re-launched in the early summer, with an open house, and almost a dozen families turned up to see the barn, including some who had previously viewed and dismissed it. The agent had done a great job of selling the ‘makeover’ and the new glossy brochures were snapped up and ooooed over.

The result? Two offers at the asking price. A contracts race ensued and my client found himself moving out just six weeks later. Last I heard he was opening a pub….. well, he needed somewhere to display his ‘art’.

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

Today’s post is by Andrea Morgan from Citrus Content.

I remember when I first got interested in property, I had moved back home and decided I enjoyed my own space and wanted my first home. I went to viewing after viewing, nothing caught my fancy. One day I was driving down a street and my mum said, that house would be perfect, I agreed. Spookily the house went on the market the following week, I viewed and bought – job done!

Life with property has not been as simple as then but one thing that has increased is my passion for property. My family think I am so funny and always joke about it calling me “Kirsty”, but yet who do they come to for property advice? After joining twitter Rightmove asked me to write a blog about being a Rightmove Addict, have to say I was honoured. Since writing my Rightmove Blog, it came apparent that there are hundreds of ‘me’ out there.

What I mean, is people who search on Rightmove or other property sites for not just buying, but for dream houses, to look at the local market, just to see what a particular property looks like inside. People who can spot a show home sign a mile away, not the big development signs but the little yellow ones. People who look in estate agent windows when passing, make note of properties that go on the market in their area and people who are property potty.

Some people commented on my blog that they were annoyed that I was looking at property online with no intention to buy. Online property sites have allowed greater access to the market, it has increased peoples passion about property. I wouldn’t mind the world looking at my house online as it only takes one to buy.

I have now many twitter friends in the property industry and some very likeminded people. Its great as I can listen to differing opinions to the market and see other peoples ideas of a great property. Tuesday’s Rightmove Crush is great fun, and I have now found myself researching properties the night before.

So to all you addicts out there, don’t struggle with your addiction on your own, there are others out there who will enjoy the journey with you. So come and join the gang, share your highs, your lows, your ideas and most of all, share your love for property.

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

It was a blustery Sunday at the end of a chilly October afternoon as we crept slowly along the street peering at house numbers. We had been viewing unsuitable properties all day, and were feeling a bit despondent, to tell the truth. This particular house was our last viewing of the day, and we were looking forward to putting it on our “no” or “maybe” list as quickly as possible so we could head home.

“Here it is” said my husband, as he finally located the door number. I looked at our list and sighed out loud. The front photograph had made it look like the kind of home we had spent so long searching for: something rural, with plenty of space and a nice outlook. This was practically on a main road, jammed up against its neighbours, and completely in darkness, looked frankly unwelcoming.

“It says in the details it has an outlook over open fields” I pointed out, looking for the positive.

“He’s late” my husband countered, pointing to the car’s clock.

“It’s 5 o’clock on the dot” I protested. “Surely that means he could still be on time?”

We sat in silence as the green numbers flicked round: 5:01….5:02…

Finally, at 5.03pm a BMW came screeching round the corner, veered across the road and came to an abrupt halt within millimetres of our front bumper. My husband shot me a look. I ignored him, and got out of the car.

The estate agent who approached me looked like a Private Eye caricature: he was around forty, boasting quite a paunch, had slicked-back hair over a balding pate, and was wearing a too-tight suit that had never quite been in fashion. His shirt was stripy, and his tie was floral. They clashed, loudly, needless to say.

He approached me with vigour and an outstretched hand, grabbing mine in a handshake he probably believes is assertive and confident. I pulled back my bruised fingers and stuck them in my coat pocket, making a mental note not to allow him a goodbye handshake.

Ignoring my husband, he instead strode up to the front gate, which was electronic apparently, and punched in some numbers from the scrap of paper he held. The gate started to recede. He marched through it and headed for the front door. At this point he had not introduced himself, nor had he apologised for his tardy arrival. My husband, who is not known for hiding his displeasure, was by now narrowing his eyes and clenching his jaw….not a great start, I thought.

After fiddling with several keys whilst we shivered on the doorstep, the right one was eventually located and we were let in. The owners had mercifully left the heating on, and the warmth was a timely welcome.

Seeing that the carpets were extremely pale cream, my husband and I both reached down simultaneously to take off our shoes. “Oh thanks for that” the agent said dismissively, then walked through the hallway without removing his. My husband nudged me. I nudged him back and followed the agent into the kitchen.

“This is the kitchen” he announced. Very clever. Not sure how he worked that one out. Perhaps it was the kitchen units, the cooker and the sink. But then I’m only guessing. We watched him, curiously, while he started opening units and drawers. “Ah, the fridge!” he said at last with pride.

I peered out of the kitchen window, to where I could just see the field behind. “Is that the Common?” I asked.

“No” he replied. “It’s a field.”

“Oh” I said. We went into the dining room, where the rather large table was pressed up against the wall, leaving no room for sitters on that side. “I think our table is around that size” I commented to my husband. The agent butted in: “Oh, isn’t that ridiculous? Why do people do that? It’s clearly far too big for the room! They should have got a smaller one, or not bothered at all.”

“Quite” I agreed, with a not-so-subtle eye roll…….

In the little study, one whole wall was devoted to the owner’s collection of Wedgewood Beatrix Potter crockery. “Oh how lovely!” I exclaimed. “I used to have these when I was a little girl.”

“Hmm….not my kind of thing” said the agent. I clenched my teeth.

At the end of the viewing, whilst we were putting on our shoes, the agent started telling us all about how his father had been a builder, and built in fact, our road.

“Fascinating” my husband muttered. I stifled a giggle. The agent it seemed hadn’t noticed anyway and was wittering on, regardless.

Finally, we were at the car, with his words “call me if you want to view it again” ringing in our ears. About to pull away, my husband paused, transfixed by the agent’s punching the keypad for the electric gates, which were remaining stubbornly open. He was clearly exasperated, and stabbed at the keypad a couple more times, before giving up, and leaving the gate open, got in his car and drove away.

“Bet the owners aren’t best pleased when they get home” said my husband.

“I’d be livid” I agreed. “Anyway, what did you think of the house?”

“I wouldn’t buy a packet of Polos off that idiot” he muttered darkly, and drove us home leaving me to ponder from the passenger seat, whether in fact some sellers are harming their chances of selling by employing estate agents that are, frankly, obnoxious? Maybe the owners have no idea about the lack of finesse this agent showed us on the viewing, having perhaps only had dealings with the efficient MD and the nice lady in the office, and are, in fact, totally unaware of the nature of the guy on the ground who actually does the viewings.

No matter how much we had loved the house, we just couldn’t get past this agent’s unprofessionalism, and offensive attitude. It completely tainted the house for us.

I drove past the house yesterday morning, and noted the sale board has changed to another local agent. Perhaps a little birdy told them what was going on. It wasn’t me. Honest.

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

I had a call today from a client of ours who is considering all his options, and wanted to ask my advice. He is currently building a home in Greece, and having invested heavily, needs to start recouping his investment from his current home. His original plan was to use the funds from the sale of his family home to finish his and his wife’s dream home in Greece. However, 18 months later, and his house is still for sale. So he wanted to know, “Should I rent it out instead?”

There are merits and demerits of renting your home out, and speaking as a landlord myself, here are some points to consider before taking the plunge:

Becoming a landlord is not a short-term fix. You need to commit to it for at least 3 – 5 years in order to fully realise the benefits and avoid losing financially;

If yours is a unique home, perhaps period and/or rural, you may find your target market to be very limited: tenants are often looking for convenience and practicality, which your home may not offer. Therefore the rent you set needs to account for this;

As well as convenience, tenants nowadays want all the mod cons: not only will they be looking for a property with contemporary kitchens and bathrooms, you’ll be expected to provide good quality white goods too; dishwasher, washing machine and often a tumble drier are all considered necessities by today’s tenants;

Allow at least 10 – 15% for maintenance costs, and also repair and renewal costs for the end of the tenancy. I write this on the day that I’ve just had to write out a £2000 cheque for a new boiler in one of my properties – ouch! Most importantly, do not expect to receive your home back at the end of the tenancy in a fit state to try to sell it; you’ll need to invest several thousands of pounds in replacing the carpets, repainting the walls, renewing any worn out fixtures and fittings, and getting the garden looking its best again.

As you can see, there are quite a few factors to take into account before signing that tenancy agreement, so think carefully before you do. If you don’t want to become a professional landlord with all that it entails, focus on getting your home sold instead. Ultimately, you’ll be glad you did.

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

This blog post is courtesy of our lovely office manager, Hellen, who sees an awful lot of very bad photography!

I took a call from a potential client today in the office. One of our consultant’s had been to see them that morning and they’d been pondering whether HomeTruths was the way forward for them but then needed some extra reassurance. This is quite a common occurrence; after all, it’s a big step in what is a very emotive time. Here at HomeTruths we really don’t mind if you want another ear to talk things over with, that’s what we’re here for. In fact, the gentleman in question posed one of the most common queries; “is the grass greener on the other side”?

When clients contact us, most (not all, I might add, but the majority) have lost total confidence in their agent. No doubt when the agent initially met with the vendor he gave them lots of confidence. Confidence that the price was achievable, that their house would sell quickly, that they would be an open dialogue at all times regarding their sale, that they would produce a beautiful brochure and post a great advert on Rightmove, that there are people queuing up on their books to view their home. Of course he did, he wants your commission! Six months (or longer!) down the line and that confidence is waning. But how does the client know that their experience with the agent we recommend is going to be any different?

Here at HomeTruths we take the utmost care when recommending agents to sell your property. We have outstanding relationships with the agents that we use. We are confident they understand our philosophy and have the means to market your home as we would like it to be marketed. In most cases we not only know the Managers in the individual office but the Regional Director too. They’re on speed dial with Sam. We meet with them regularly to check we’re still on the same page. We’re not formally associated with any agents, nor do we earn commission (including back handers in brown envelopes) and if they’re not performing as we would wish, we don’t use them any more. It’s as simple as that.

In the majority of cases we also know the photographer (and in some cases his wife)! We can tell, when a brochure lands on our doormat, whether one of our recommended photographers has taken the photos. We will only use photographers who we know of, and whose work has impressed us in the past (and there’s no-one more picky than an ex-photographer is there Sam)? In fact, if we see a brochure we love, and we’re not familiar with the photographer or the agent, we’ll give them a call and see if we could work together.

So actually yes, we believe the grass is greener on the other side, and that’s because we’ve done all the legwork for you to make sure that it is.

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

In these days where most anything we want to buy is but a click of the mouse away, do we really need an agent to sell our home? There are plenty of virtual estate agents out there ready to take our money and promise a sale at a fraction of the cost of an estate agent, but what are the potential pitfalls we need to be aware of?

You can’t get your property advertised on Rightmove and the other property portals without an agent of some kind. An agent is defined as someone who crucially will visit the property to take measurements and a written description that they will stand by legally, and can be held to account for if necessary. The property portals will not take responsibility for this, so an agent is needed. Private seller sites are not the same, and these will not put you on the property portals, so beware.

They are much better at selling lower priced properties. These tend to be the more usual terraced homes, city centre flats, suburban three bed semis and so on. If you have a 18^th century oast house, or converted watermill, you may well have less success. These highly individual properties need carefully crafted marketing campaigns to attract the right kind of discerning buyer, and this is usually best done face to face, which virtual agencies don’t offer.

You will have to do the viewings yourself. For many sellers, this is actually preferable, but do be aware that it’s not an easy thing to do, either for you or for your buyers. They can’t be as honest with you as they would be with your estate agent for a start, so you may well never hear any of their objections to the house, and if you don’t know what they are, well, you can’t overcome them. An agent can listen to a buyers protestations that your kitchen is too big or your hallway too dark, and make suggestions as to solutions. If you don’t know what their worries are, you can’t help them to see the options.

Their call centre staff are only really there to book viewings and take offers. They have not visited your home, so they can’t tell a viewer anything about it. There are some companies that have taken steps to overcome this factor, and often the person who originally visited your house to take the description can be available, but with up to 2000 properties on their books, this is often impossible.

Their photography and property brochure are of a minimum standard. This is often not enough to sell a premium or valuable property, which need the quality of the features and fittings represented by a suitable brochure, so sellers of individual properties may find it necessary to commission their own photography and brochure, at their own expense.

None of these factors is insurmountable and actually, in a buoyant market where you are confident of your home selling quickly, you can save a lot of money by using a virtual agent. However, if the market is slow and you are a busy person with no time to spare to take on some of these tasks, it’s often better to leave it to an experienced professional estate agent, and entrust the process to him. In the long term, this may well prove the best investment return.

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

It’s very frustrating when you aren’t getting viewings. I spoke to a lady recently who has only had one viewing in three years! Even having your home for sale for a few months without a viewing is worrying. It’s normal to get an initial flurry of viewings in the first few weeks on the market, and for that interest to wane a little as the weeks and months progress.

But what can you do when viewings peter out altogether? You know what your agent will advise – if they haven’t already. “Drop the price” they will tell you. So what else can you do to revive interest, other than dropping your asking price?

Ask for your Rightmove Property Performance Report. This is data your estate agent has access to, inside the Rightmove console. If they are not using Rightmove, they will be able to access similar statistics within Zoopla, On the Market or Prime Location. Property listings with images and floorplans, that are updated regularly, have the best performance metrics on Rightmove and the other portals. The Report also shows the number of times your property listing was clicked on over the last 7, 14 or 30 days, together with a comparable against the previous period. Additionally, this statistic can be compared against similar property listings on Rightmove, so you can see whether your property advert is competing well or not. A ‘similar’ listing is typically what a searcher would see alongside your property when they search on Rightmove, and therefore could be considered as your ‘competition’. If your home listing is not performing or competing well, it could be a strong indicator of the reason you’re not getting viewings on your house. Check your photographs – do they really show your home at its best, and are they up to date? If your outside images reflect a different season than the current one, ask your estate agent to re-photograph your house and garden. Then check your next performance report to see if your numbers have increased.
Revisit your property description. Firstly, draw up a profile of the kind of person you think is most likely to buy your home. Age, status, motivation for moving, and so on. Then write down a list of adjectives about your house that you think would most appeal to these target buyers. Look at your property description – does it need rewriting to incorporate these key words? Your agent can help you with this. I’ve changed property listings in the past to better appeal to a family, or to someone looking for a change in lifestyle. Words matter, so make sure your written description best sells the primary features of your home, to the person most likely to be attracted to those features.
Commission a home stylist. Often for less than £200 a professional home stylist will look at your home with a critical and unbiased eye and advise you on what you can do to make the most of your house: usually there is very little expenditure necessary, but small changes can make big improvements in attracting the right buyer.

Final thoughts

When you discuss your home’s saleability with your estate agent, explain that you’d like to improve the presentation and the marketing, before considering a price drop. Until those two elements of your home’s saleability are as good as they can be, you won’t be able to eliminate the possible reasons for the lack of viewings.

Happy selling!

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

Dale Carnegie’s acclaimed self-help book How to Win Friends and Influence People published in 1936 still holds true today. I particular like his Six ways to make people like you. These are:

Become genuinely interested in other people.
Smile.
Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.
Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.

They’re just common-sense really, and if you think about it, every estate agent in the land should learn and practice these six techniques when they’re showing viewers your home. Let’s look at their relevance for making the most of every viewing, and if you don’t have any confidence in your agent showing a high degree of skill in this regard, then you need to make sure you do these instead:

Become genuinely interested in other people – talk to your viewers, and find out all about them. Where have they come from, what are they looking for, what other properties they’ve seen. The more you discover about them, the more successful you will be at matching their needs to your home’s offering.
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Smile – be friendly! Viewers will usually be nervous or apprehensive about the viewing; they are, after all, a guest in your home, and whilst they want to like the house, they are worried that they won’t. A big, friendly smile when you greet them will immediately help them to relax and feel welcome.
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Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language – if you don’t know their names in advance, make sure you shake hands and introduce yourself by your first name straight away. Hopefully they will reciprocate, but if not, don’t be afraid to ask. First names are best, and will encourage your visitors to adopt a more friendly and less formal approach that may help you to foster a good relationship with them from the start.
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Be a good listener – make sure you ask lots of questions and really listen to their answers. It’s no good extolling the virtues of your vegetable patch if they tell you they work long hours, or telling them all about your paddock if they show no interest in using it; if you actively listen, you will be in a much better position to tell them about the features of your home that really matter to them.
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Talk in terms of the other person’s interests – use the word “you” as much as possible. They don’t want to hear all about you and your time as the occupier: encourage them to think in terms of their future in the house. Saying things like “You could park at least four cars in this driveway” or “you’d love this house at Christmas” will help them to engage with your home and see it as their next chapter.
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Make the other person feel important – if you don’t connect with your buyers, chances are they won’t connect with you. Make the effort to understand them, their hopes and dreams, and find something to like about them. Finding some commonality really helps; perhaps you’re both dog lovers, or share an interest in a hobby or travel; whatever it is, once you find it and can have an engaging chat as you show them round, you’ll find they will become more open and friendly themselves.

Although Dale Carnegie I’m sure didn’t intend his Six ways to make people like you to be applied to selling homes, by following these guidelines you’ll make sure you give yourself the best chance to make a great first impression, and very importantly, to forge a good solid relationship with your viewer that might just tip them over the edge to becoming a buyer.

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.