Thank you for all your kind comment on my last post, I'm back to normal again now and eating like a horse so the weight I lost is probably piling back on as I type!
It's been all go here trying to catch up on everything that wasn't done while I was lying around in bed, normal household stuff as well as wondering around with a paintbrush. My time is also being taken up doing a bit of research on selling houses on-line, for what estate agents do, they charge far too much in my opinion (sorry any estate agents out there). When I look at houses for sale I look on-line, people don't have the time to go around to all the estate agents looking in windows any more. Our local paper only comes out once a week and the estate agents only put a few of the houses on their books in there so it's not really going to be very effective if your house is only in there once a month if that. Most don't offer the service of showing people around the house so there is no advantage of using someone local there either. The on-line sites I have looked at send someone out to value your house, take the photos etc, book the viewings for you and handle the negotiations. They also advertise on Rightmove, Zoopla etc. all for a fixed price regardless of the value of your house. The average high street estate agents cost 1.5% of your house price plus VAT which could cost thousands. I know I haven't sold a house for 15 years but this seems a far better deal to me. Am I missing anything here? Have any of you used 'tepilo.com' etc or similar? I would be grateful for any feedback.
For Fathers Day I made a meringue, ice cream, home made strawberry sauce concoction for the bearded one. I had meringue and plenty of sauce left over today so made my own 'luxury' ice cream. I let some plain vanilla ice-cream soften enough to mix in the sauce and broken up meringue before popping back into the freezer. It was delicious! I don't know why I hadn't thought of it before, ( I'm sure plenty of you already do this and I'm late to the party as usual ) you could add all sorts of things! My favourite 'luxury' ice-cream makers are increasing adding all sorts of things like cookie dough to their ice-creams that I can't eat because of the gluten. By making my own, which takes minutes, I'm not missing out.
Welcome to new follower Jayne :)
Chickpea xx
Glad t hear you are bouncing back, we did try an online agent but didnt like the service, they were sending people round who were not in a position to buy just time wasters. I cant remember the name of the company we tried that was just our experience.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point Dawn, I guess I could ask that only people in the position to buy were booked for viewing. Will add that to my list of points.
DeleteYour ice cream sounds delicious. Glad you are feeling better.
ReplyDeleteThanks Gina :)
DeleteHey Chickpea,
ReplyDeleteI always made my own ice cream combos. Good quality vanilla and crushed maltesers is a good one. Would you be able to have that? I have a lovely ice cream recipie too.
Leanne xx
I love Maltesers! Good idea :)
DeleteThe ice cream sounds delicious and I must be late to the party too as I have never tried it, but certainly will. So glad you are feeling better.
ReplyDeleteThank you, back to normal now :)
Deletethis is our god knows how many house... We look on right move mainly as it does google map and street view.
ReplyDeleteWith all the houses we have sold, out of 5 people that look at the house, I would guess I show 3.5 of them around. and I can hand on heart say that the ones who have bought our house, have always been ones that I have shown the house. As I feel I can tell everyone what they want to know about the house.
I also have a folder that I leave in the lounge or dining room, with the latest water bill, council tax, copy of fensa certs (you have to give these to your solicitor anyways but it is best to have copies), gas and electric bills, I like to keep the ones from winter to show how efficient the house is in bad weather. a list of when the boiler was installed, its yearly service cert. Anything like that. If I have had any work done, the receipts and any certs needed. Rewire, boilers and rads. you name it I put it in. I saw this at an open house in Canada in the early 00's and have done it ever since. We move every 2 years now. It makes it clear to people you are serious about moving and that you have nothing to hide. Plus you dont have to go through the filing. looking for it all.
We also tend to do the pictures for the inside of the house. If you have a garage, for the men folk we always take 2 pictures of the garage. It really does help. And my final tip, take the door off of any small room to take a better picture
Other than haggling I am not sure what our last estate agent did other than show 2 people the house and putting the details on the internet. I had to redo the details as they could spell and they missed off a room!
Good luck I hope it sells quickly.
Wow! Thanks Sol lots of great tips there. You are obviously very experienced at this. I will get a folder with all the info sorted, great idea and less hassle later. I think it may take a while to find what we are looking for so I just want to be ready for when I find something.
DeleteGlad you are on the mend, we used a local company who did the viewings for us, either way it's expensive
ReplyDeleteYes so am I Marlene :) The whole move will be expensive, luckily we aren't planning many more moves :)
DeleteWow ! Your ice cream sounds so tasty I love meringues, better than any cookie dough.
ReplyDeleteI am happy yo hear your better.
cheers, parsnip
We're considering a move next year and are thinking of an online agency. Our experiences with estate agents in the past are that they receive a lot of payment for little effort. There is the downside of "timewasters" either way, but at least if you show them around yourself you can judge their reaction better than feedback from a third party. I think Sol has some great ideas too :)
ReplyDeleteAs for the ice-cream - your meringue ice cream sounds lovely. I had some brilliant ice-cream last year at our local chilli festival - finely chopped chilli pieces in dark chocolate icecream - amazing combo as your mouth/brain can't make sense of the hot and the cold at the same time!! Hoping to give it a go soon and will put it on my blog.
We did sell thru an estate agent. But in South Africa the estate agents list on the internet. I prefer to have an estate agent to negotiate and close the sale at an acceptable price.
ReplyDeleteSo glad we are now happily settled in our new home.