Owning your own home

I’d like to think most people are researched up to the eyeballs when putting up that much dosh and are well aware of tricks and property values but I might be wrong! I do think an effective agent can find properties you hadn’t previously considered and pique your interest enough to view them but a set of unrepresentative photos and fancy set dressing isn’t fooling anyone for long.

Easier* to reach by selling another house, surely?

*in a way

Agent replied to my email and asked me to call him. I've replied to say that if he can take me on at that rate, we're on. If not, I said I'll go with an internet agency.

I continue to be baffled that this whole horrible racket hasn't been disrupted into obsolescence.

OK - that makes it sound like it should be doable to extend a cable from the existing outdoor socket, which is RCD protected. By doable, I mean I'll be able to call a chap to do it.

I don't know why I need a fuse box, I probably don't - someone mentioned it to me once, and I know nothing about electricity.

This is true, but as it's a 2 way transaction, in some cases it'll be easier/quicker for the EA to push for more from the buyer than convincing the seller to sell for less.

Agent replied to my email and asked me to call him. I've replied to say that if he can take me on at that rate, we're on. If not, I said I'll go with an internet agency.

Savage

I continue to be baffled that this whole horrible racket hasn't been disrupted into obsolescence.

There's probably one in 20 sales (or something) that benefit from an EA. We had a very difficult and protracted one with a very fragile chain, and our EA was genuinely very useful; I'd go so far as to suggest he was probably worth his fee.

For a simple transaction, I think you're right. Perhaps in the future they'll (the good ones) reinvent themselves as trouble shooters for struggling transactions.

the folks we're buying from used the same EA as we did - this has proved massively useful when it comes to greasing the wheels. In fact they've been more useful after our respective sales had been agreed than during the actual selling our shitting flat.

Who dis

The main trouble is that housebuying is as baffling as fuck and no-one knows what's going on so it's easy for an "expert" to insert themselves into the deal.

A lot of people (particularly outside of London where you can actually afford a decent sized house earlier on in life) only buy a couple of houses in their whole life so don't have a great wealth of knowledge to draw from and it's not one of those things that are taught in schools (although I don't see why not).

Agent said he can't match it. I don't think estate agents as an industry have got a robust strategy to deal with internet agents. We're obviously concerned they'll be useless but have had a recommendation from a friend who was very happy with one particular company.

I've had both incredibly useles and incredibly helpful estate agents in the past few years. At the moment I'm selling my flat privately and it is going along swimmingly.

I'm also buying a place with a vendor who is using purple bricks, and it's pretty painless so far and they seem pretty on it. I'm pleasantly surprised by this as I was incredibly wary going into it.

tl;dr - some agents good some bad, some internet good some internet bad. most useful thing is that all parties buying and selling are proactive.

I'm selling to a friend so it's not quite as simple as that. Basically we both got three valuations each on my flat. two from estate agents and one from an independent valuer then basically met in the middle with a price we were both happy with.

Re. Purple bricks and the house I'm buying again a slightly exceptional case. House was on at offers over £X.
I was apparently the third or fourth person to view it. Viewed it with the vendor, decided I liked it. We got chatting. Had a cup of tea and watched the cricket for an hour then got down to business. I asked him what price he wanted. He gave me a figure. A bit of back and forth re. my position and how quick I wanted to move followed, I made a fair offer and he was happy with that.
Next day formally made the offer through the purple bricks app. Vendor accepted, since then I've bene in contact with both the vendor and purple bricks and all parties are pretty on it.

Jeez whizz

the folks we're buying from used the same EA as we did

We chose to sell through the same EA as we were buying through.

We let them overvalue the house, and gave them a scaled rate (from 1% to 3%) for selling over offer and in time.

It kept them more on side with us buying, in spite of us not being in a great position going into the purchase.

A lot of people (particularly outside of London where you can actually afford a decent sized house earlier on in life) only buy a couple of houses in their whole life so don't have a great wealth of knowledge to draw from and it's not one of those things that are taught in schools (although I don't see why not).

I'm getting frustrated that I am probably wasting thousands by not being experienced at buying/selling a house (despite researching as much as possible). However, when buying shiny bike parts I know exactly how to shop around to get the cheapest deal, yet might only save £20.

Basically, if I was efficient at house buying/selling I could spend less time price checking shiny bike parts.

Agent said he can't match it.

You made a demand with little room for maneuver and they refused - they pride themselves on their negotiation skills and you gave them no room so they told you politely to do one.

I mean during the final negotiation when you make an offer - how credible they sound when turning down the first number you put in and so on, relaying feedback to the seller and gauging how serious you are and what your max price is.

it's not one of those things that are taught in schools (although I don't see why not).

Yeah. They could teach negotiation*. Bit politically charged though, like an admission that we aren't living in rational, planned socialist utopia and we all need to be a bit Dell Boy to get along.

* I assume they don't, mainly based on my own experience of education and that of dealing with the classifieds on here.

I feel exactly the same way, like I'm the sucker everyone is laughing at for coughing up too much cash. But I did get a good deal on my Canyon :)

The more bikes you buy the more money you save, right?

I probably overpaid by about 10K on my first flat purchase, through inexperience. Now I'm going through my first selling experience, which I'll probably make some costly errors of judgment on, but hopefully I'll make less errors on my second purchase. I reckon it'd take about 5 buys and sells before I feel confident doing this.

Online selling requires an outlay of cash regardless of the end result.
You can easily spunk out a grand before the first click on Rightmove.
Actual EAs only get their cut when the place sells. (But probably higher than what you would have dropped on the iEA)

Not advocating either.

Not true at all. They came over to value my flat and said they charge 1.5%. I told them I'd had lower rates offered and they came down to 1.25% which I said matched others. Then an email from them revealed that it was 1.25% minus VAT, plus an additional £149 for photos. I told them I wanted 1.2% all-in and they said no.

We were negotiating and they couldn't reach a figure I was happy with. They had plenty of places to go, like 1.25% all-in or 1.2% all-in.

I'm not saying they couldn't have offered you 1.25% - they could have done that. They might have done that - over the phone. Technically there was room to maneuver.

I've replied to say that if he can take me on at that rate, we're on. If not, I said I'll go with an internet agency.

But when you give people who are (or think) they are negotiators an ultimatum they will always walk. It sounds like (above) you did.

You were well within your rights to do that, you just shouldn't be surprised that they said no.

I don't mean so much the negotiation aspect, more the mechanics of buying a house. When to get surveys done, what is exchange, what is completion, at what point can the buyer/seller no longer pull out, etc.