Winter is officially over at last and not too soon at all, if I may say. It’s been a long winter I think. Then again, not being a fan of the season anyway I think every winter is a long winter.
I love the freedom that the finer weather brings. No more is there going through the rigmarole of hunting down everybody’s hats, gloves and scarves as well as shoes (always one missing) and coats (with one or two not where they should be because putting them away in the coat cupboard is just that difficult).
It seems as though the house has been on the market for years rather than weeks and we are all getting rather impatient. We hoped we’d be packed up and ready to move by now.
We’re still hoping.
All three estate agents that we have signed up to have claimed a 98% success rate. All three are independent and unrelated and the maths obviously doesn’t add up. Exagerrated claims from an estate agent, I hear you ask? Never!
One in particular gave us the oh-so-simple reassurance that our home’s details would immediately be distributed to their London offices – the one requirement we needed them to fulfil and the one request we had. On this reassurance we signed on the dotted line but after a month of no luck from them we sent out enquiries to ten of the London offices, posing as buyers searching for a house in this area. It turns out that the offices have nothing to do with each other, don’t actually deal with any other office at all and no office passes on any details of available properties on their books to other branches. They are related to eachother by name only but that’s as far as it goes. In short, there was never any chance that our home would be marketed to prospective London buyers as we needed them to do.
To summarise: we signed up on a lie for a service they knew that they couldn’t possibly deliver.
So I’d strongly recommend anyone thinking of selling their home through Robinson, Michael and Jackson to steer clear.
In the meantime we have paid the deposit on the property in Ireland and have instructed our solicitor there to begin the conveyancing on that side of things. Buying and selling works differently there to here we’ve discovered, so you pay your deposit up front and the money is held by the estate agent. The balance is then paid on completion of the purchase. However, paying the deposit doesn’t guarantee the property will be yours although you will get that money back if all falls through. Obviously, we’re hoping beyond all hope that it won’t fall through. We’d be quite devastated actually.
We are all so ready to get going and stuck into our new life in our new home. We’ve so many plans, and plans to take our readers with us (including a YouTube series – subscribe to our channel here – and there might even be the possibility of a book… ssh!), and so much we want to do that we’re positively brimming but we feel like we are stuck in treacle. We can’t go forward and refuse to turn back. We won’t be financing the new house with a mortgage but will be buying it outright, but in order to do so we need to sell our current home before we can complete the purchase on the new one.
We’re ready, willing and able to go in a heartbeat yet frustratingly we remain waiting and wondering if today will be the day that we can begin moving our plans forward once more. All that is left is to bide our time but we are well aware that time may not be on our side.
Fingers crossed it won’t take much longer.
Have you seen Sarah Beeny’s new online estate agent – not sure if it would be of any use to you but it advertises your property on both Rightmove and Zoopla apparently. Saw an ad on TV yesterday. In any case, good luck!
We’ve put it on a private site too. The problem is you get so desperate to sell that it’s easy to end up throwing money here, there and everywhere. Hopefully the perfect buyer will come along very soon.
I hope all goes quickly for you all, we had to move over and rent, whilst our house in the U.K sold. Don’t know if it’s any reassurance to you, but buying houses here can be a slow process, every thing seems to be done in a slow pace lol so hopefully you should find a buyer in time x
That reassures me no end, Emma! Thanks!
As they say here, every thing will be grand !
Urgh all the best Tania! I have a property that’s been on the market for 3 months and it feels an eternity! The estate contacted me within 6 weeks and offered to kindly lower the price by 10 thousand as it just ‘wasn’t selling’ lol bloody estate agents! I hope the new house is everything your dreamed and worked for, for all of you! And I also want your book!!!! Lol x
Oh Abbey, I feel your pain! That dodgy estate agents told us ‘We can’t understand why anyone in London isn’t interested. We think you should lower by £20k.’ Umm, perhaps they aren’t interested because YOU DIDN’T TELL THEM! Argh!
I love the way it’s such a trivial thing to reduce the asking price! lol that’s my cash thank you, so selfless of you guys to potentially sacrifice an extra £200 commission but we lose 10k!! Lol I can’t wait to see pics of your new place, sounds so dreamy! My husband says one day he’s going to build us our dream home… I don’t think he will but I can dream lol x
Dream your dream then make a plan to reach it and work to it. You never know if you could have made it real if you don’t try!
It’s what I keep telling myself! How is the work on the house going?
The house renovations have completed now (phew!), it oddly seems a disatance memory of living in hell with 6 children fall under 8 at the time – however Im so thankful for what we have now. Its eased our life no end…plus Mummy has a Utility Room – HURRAH!!
Oooh, a utility room. One day that will be me rejoicing! Simple pleasures, eh?!
Totally! I was overcome with excitment when I went to Currys to order 3 x 11kg machines. They ask if we owned a Care Home!lol!
Brilliant!
Our house has been on sale 4 years now!!! They keep pushing us to drop the price 🙁 we had a viewing on Saturday and they put in a final offer 25grand under the asking price a couple of grand maybe not 25! We also have our dream home found I’m just hoping it can wait for us
4 years is a long time! I hope you find your buyer very soon too.
We’ve also had a brand new kitchen fitted brand new boiler the conservatory is being changed into an extension so I’m quite insulted to be honest
Where in Ireland are you moving to? We seem to be in a similar position – we are waiting to move to our dream home in Co.Galway deposit paid etc but we have had sooooo many problems selling ours – took ages to sell, then sold in november but had loads of delays and eventulaly fell through on the day of exchange in march, back on market and re-sold luckily with a couple of days and were supposed to exchange last week – of course we didnt. More delays – sigh…..i just want to get my life started again…feel like we have been living in limbo for nearly a year. I love your blog by the way – well done to you and all your gorgeous brood xx
We’re not divulging just yet until everything is complete but it doesn’t sound too far from you! I really do feel for you. This business is so stressful. I really do hope that you’re in your new home very, very soon with no more problems. Let me know and keep in touch!
Awh brilliant well good luck to you too – its such a stressful business but im hoping it will be well worth it in the end. I am looking forward to life in Ireland and the freedom it will bring for my children. I was born in Ireland but have been un the UK for nearly 20 years (since i was 18) when i came over to got uni and married a Londoner so it’s a big change for all of us. x
Fingers crossed we will all be there soon!
How is the move coming along? Did you have any joy selling your home? What area of Ireland are you coming to?
Still waiting for a buyer! Hopefully not much longer now!