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Selling a flat


framheim

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anyone got any tips? the market is sloooooooooooooooooooooow right now and I need to kickstart some viewings on my flat or i'm going to go mental with stress. is it worth paying to advertise in property supplements and the like or getting your property put on web sites aside from the aspc?

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ASPC is the main one right enough, I'd say pretty much everyone in Aberdeen who's looking would go there first. But you need as much advertising as you can get just now really. Ask your solicitor if they can get a good deal on press ads. It's in their interest too, and they'll most likely get it cheaper than if you do it yourself. You might still be in time to get the student market too, there's bound to be a few loaded parents looking for a 'study base for young Ollie while he's at Uni'...

Difficult thing just now is while the valuations are pretty much the same as they have been for ages, due to the banks being far tighter on who gets a mortgage there are far fewer buyers. So where before a flat would get maybe 10 - 20 people chasing after it and therefore bidding way above the asking price, the situation is almost reversed and the buyers now have their pick of loads of properties. So they don't need to push themselves. Someone told me the average buyer can have around 10 properties they're interested in. So if you're asking too much, or if you start refusing offers and trying to wangle more out of them, they can just say 'sod you' and go on to the next one.

Trick seems to be to start the bidding low, and make them think they're getting a bargain. Might even be worth saying the place 'would benefit from some upgrading' even if it's fine, so it sounds like they're getting a good deal.

And remember, you might get 10% less for it than you would have last year, but you'll get somewhere new for 10% less too, so if you're going bigger, you're probably better off.

Sell: 10% of 100K = -10K

Buy: 10% of 150K = +15K

= 5K better off.

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anyone got any tips? the market is sloooooooooooooooooooooow right now and I need to kickstart some viewings on my flat or i'm going to go mental with stress. is it worth paying to advertise in property supplements and the like or getting your property put on web sites aside from the aspc?

who is your solicitor?

i sold my flat at the end of 2006 and had 29 viewings in 9 days before going to a closing - that was for a one bedroom though. hard to believe the market has slowed that much, but i'm not living in town anymore.

here in canada they often have open houses on the weekend, i.e. you advertise that from 12-4pm on a saturday or sunday or both, people can just come by and visit without making an appointment. of course, you will get some people that are just having a nosey, but you may also attract people that originally thought your flat was out of their price bracket and didn't want to commit to a viewing, or people that thought they didn't want to live in your area but may really like your flat.

they should be able to append that kind of info to your ASPC listing, but it would also go well in the EE or P&J.

i used plenderleith runcie for selling my place, can't recommend them enough but i guess you are already past that stage. i interviewed about 5 estate agents for the selling the flat, i would have gone with A&C because of their clout but they were pricey and in the end i preferred word of mouth recommendation over 'hype'!

can you post the link to your aspc page? i am just being nosey now :)

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who is your solicitor?

i sold my flat at the end of 2006 and had 29 viewings in 9 days before going to a closing - that was for a one bedroom though. hard to believe the market has slowed that much, but i'm not living in town anymore.

here in canada they often have open houses on the weekend, i.e. you advertise that from 12-4pm on a saturday or sunday or both, people can just come by and visit without making an appointment. of course, you will get some people that are just having a nosey, but you may also attract people that originally thought your flat was out of their price bracket and didn't want to commit to a viewing, or people that thought they didn't want to live in your area but may really like your flat.

they should be able to append that kind of info to your ASPC listing, but it would also go well in the EE or P&J.

i used plenderleith runcie for selling my place, can't recommend them enough but i guess you are already past that stage. i interviewed about 5 estate agents for the selling the flat, i would have gone with A&C because of their clout but they were pricey and in the end i preferred word of mouth recommendation over 'hype'!

can you post the link to your aspc page? i am just being nosey now :)

i sold a camera to mr plenderleith, he is indeed a very nice man. our solicitor is anderson bain who were incredibly good when helping us buy the place originally so we stuck with them.

the market has slowed considerably since just two months ago let alone a year and a half ago. our solicitor said they're changing properties to fixed price everyday just now as there just isn't as many people chasing them. you only have to look at the aspc to notice that there's hardly any going to closing dates now. it's just frustrating cause we've seen a place we want to offer on but aren't in a position to do anything till we get a concrete offer on our one.

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Having looked at the photos on aspc, my advice would be to put new ones up after a declutter session.

The bedroom in particular looks close to bursting point with shoes sticking out from under the bed etc (no offence, shoes)

I had the same problems at the end of last year - bought a house with the understanding that my flat would sell no probs. Took three months in the end and had to run with two mortgages in that time. Luckily, I was still getting viewings - a lot of flats just had no interest whatsoever.

I also took out extra ads in the paper, but I don't think it particularly helped. I just felt I had to try something at the time, though.

Good luck.

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I wouldn't bother with ads - at the moment.

Put one in last week and got no viewings at all.

The previous week (with no ad) I had four or five viewings. Maybe lots of people are on holiday at the moment. That said, my mate's 1 bed, city centre flat goes to closing tomorrow and he has had loads and loads of viewings, so there are people out there.

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Having looked at the photos on aspc, my advice would be to put new ones up after a declutter session.

The bedroom in particular looks close to bursting point with shoes sticking out from under the bed etc (no offence, shoes)

Yeah, and I know it's tough but the first thing I had to do was take all my guitars round to my mums. Also I don't think the mirror sitting on the floor creates a great impression either.

"Remember, you're trying to sell a lifestyle."

(All this was meant as constructive criticism from someone in the same boat. :up:)

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Having looked at the photos on aspc, my advice would be to put new ones up after a declutter session.

The bedroom in particular looks close to bursting point with shoes sticking out from under the bed etc (no offence, shoes)

I had the same problems at the end of last year - bought a house with the understanding that my flat would sell no probs. Took three months in the end and had to run with two mortgages in that time. Luckily, I was still getting viewings - a lot of flats just had no interest whatsoever.

I also took out extra ads in the paper, but I don't think it particularly helped. I just felt I had to try something at the time, though.

Good luck.

haha, yea as chris says you should've seen it before. we had a serious declutter session and the flat looks as good as it ever has with us living in it(we're messy souls). the only thing i regret was not taking down the doctor who calender :)

i think i'm probably just panicking too early. the market has slowed and i just need to be calm and not worry so much.

do you guys think it would help if i had a sign on my window saying it was a fixed price?

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I've got to agree with offramp here, the bedroom does look like there just isn't enough storage (and the squint quilt doesn't help either) and the living room could do with a bit of a clear-out as well. We're now in a buyers market so little things like wondering whether it has enough storage will probably be enough to put off some potential viewers since there's probably a good few other places available in their price bracket

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I've got to agree with offramp here, the bedroom does look like there just isn't enough storage (and the squint quilt doesn't help either) and the living room could do with a bit of a clear-out as well. We're now in a buyers market so little things like wondering whether it has enough storage will probably be enough to put off some potential viewers since there's probably a good few other places available in their price bracket

hmm, i get that. there are two huge wardrobes listed in the particulars which are being sold with the flat and there's a massive cupboard in the bedroom as well but this isn't shown in the picture(kinda hard to show everything i guess). i can't agree on the squint quilt though, a tad wrinkled perhaps but nae that squint :)

maybe i'm biased because i know what it looked like before but i don't think the living room looks like it has a lack of storage. everythings stored away in there and there's nothing lying out. it just looks like a living room. perhaps my problem is that it doesn't look like a designer minimilist executive apartment.

i'll leave it for a couple of weeks then reappraise the photo's and the flat. there's a fine line between creating space and just making the place look empty. people need to see how much space there is with furniture as well i guess.

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Yeah, I really think you need to have a big clear out. The telly on top of the chest of drawers need to go, I would be clearing all the books and PS2 games off the shelf as well. Just leave a couple of pictures or some other "objet d'art".

I can't overestimate how bad an impression your quilt leaves. To me it just says "If they can't even be bothered making the bed properly, what else have they not done to the flat?"

Similarly in the kitchen, the radio should be away and there shouldn't be a bottle of wine sitting there.

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are we looking at a different quilt? it's not squint! we put a useless brown pillow on the bed what more do people want?

fair points though. i guess our initial clear out, which was extensive, wasn't quite as thorough as we hoped. we were in a mad rush to get it on the market as we wanted a quick sale.

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i should also point out that i wasn't looking for a deconstruction of my flat and it's market appeal but more some tips on promotion and selling practice in general. so while i appreciate the comments with regards to the clutter, and they have been duly noted, i think any further comments will merely assist in sending me further down my spiral of property despair rather than helping me sell the place :)

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ii think any further comments will merely assist in sending me further down my spiral of property despair rather than helping me sell the place :)

Not the intention, genuinely trying to help. Think of us like the gay guy off Selling Houses.

The quilt, I wouldn't necessarily say it's squint, it's just all ruffled looking, it could have at least been flattened out. Your estate agent really should have picked up on all this sort of stuff.

By way of comparison, here's my mate's one bed flat which has had in excess of 30 viewings and is going to closing tomorrow.

bedroom_centre.jpg

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Not the intention, genuinely trying to help. Think of us like the gay guy off Selling Houses.

The quilt, I wouldn't necessarily say it's squint, it's just all ruffled looking, it could have at least been flattened out. Your estate agent really should have picked up on all this sort of stuff.

By way of comparison, here's my mate's one bed flat which has had in excess of 30 viewings and is going to closing tomorrow.

bedroom_centre.jpg

got a link for the full schedule of that one?

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i should also point out that i wasn't looking for a deconstruction of my flat and it's market appeal but more some tips on promotion and selling practice in general.

sorry!

...but I think that the photos are the biggest promotional tool (apart from price) seeing as that is showcasing 'the product'.

Good photos will encourage people to view.

I made the same mistake and ended up totally redecorating my spare bedroom from a study area to a blank canvas bedroom. Took new pics and I think it made the world of difference.

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sorry!

...but I think that the photos are the biggest promotional tool (apart from price) seeing as that is showcasing 'the product'.

Good photos will encourage people to view.

I made the same mistake and ended up totally redecorating my spare bedroom from a study area to a blank canvas bedroom. Took new pics and I think it made the world of difference.

it's cool, i just felt that the point has been made now and we can move on to more tips.

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squintquilt_thumb.jpg

That's not squint??

All that quilt says to me is "there is so little space in this room that even making the bed properly is difficult".

Oops, pics a bit small. You can see where I've highlighted it though.

well, it's maybe a teeny bit squint but it's hardly hanging off at one side or anything. i think you'd have to be a right picky bastard to not view a flat cause the quilt wasn't running completely straight along the bottom of the bed. it's hardly tracy emin is it?

i'll concede the other points but i'll beg to differ on the damned quilt :)

the bedroom is massive though, it's so hard to tell with pictures but for a 1 bed flat in rosemount it's pretty big.

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