We were fortunate that we had relatives in the area we wanted to move too who needed some spare room cash if we needed to move quickly and we had viewed the sale as it will happen or it won't. We refused their offer, also tried a different estate agent and sold it at full price 5 weeks later.
Moneysaving expert did a useful article last year on Equity Release which gives you a good idea of whether it would be good for you https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/mortgages/equity-release/
Makes me think of Payday loan companies this, everyone goes after them with a venom but let's be honest, no one is forced into using them. Every single person I know that's used them it's for either piss kit or going on the piss. Never some poor mother feeding her starving child that has prominent ribs showing through a malnutrioned body.
If you go in with the expectations of "Webuyanycar" then you won't be disappointed. I struggle to understand house prices? It just comes down to what someone is prepared to pay. When I sold my place a year ago I had a few agents around with figures ranging £40k from lowest to highest. I went with the highest value, based not on their valuation (which I thought was overvalued) but location of agent and their commission rate. Very nearly sold on first day at asking price but buyer pulled out 4wks later, sold in the end a couple months after for 96% asking price. Happy in the end as it was £10-15k more than I thought it was worth? It all became a bit of a nightmare towards the end as they buyer started to get jittery and we thought we would loose the sale and break the chain. But that to be fair is where the agent really stepped up and earn't their commission, not sure it would have been the same had I been with a net based agent?
That was 100% my experience except the difference between the lowest and highest valuation was £100k, given our house was a one-off. And we went with the higher valuing estate agent because he was local and had sold the house next door but one, 3 months previously, so should have known his stuff. And likewise in the last 2-3 weeks the buyers process started to get jittery. Our estate agent earned his corn not only dealing with our buyer but also their buyer to make sure things went through with the minimum of fuss. Things would be far easier if England and Wales adopted the Scottish systems for buying and selling houses.
Agreed that would relieve a lot of the stress of the process. I lost a buyer over the Christmas period because their buyer pulled out.
The whole chain thing is useless, just as an example how it is done elsewhere, in the Netherlands if you are interested in a house, you sign a pre sale contract, this is binding for the vendor, no ifs, no buts, the buyer can only terminate the sale for one reason and for a fixed period of time, reason being not able to secure finance, and this needs proof and lots of effort. As on the day of signing this document a deposit of 10 % is blocked into a solicitor’s account there is no funny games to be had, if you pull out without proof that you can’t get your finance sorted, the sellers get to keep your 10%, so who would be so daft as to pull out? .............., well it happens sometimes lol, and I once walked away with someone’s 10 % and then got an offer the next day and sold for full asking price, big smiles all around!
