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Cycled past it frequently.
Coming up 3 years ago. Rightmove after viewing many, many, many houses!
We use to drive past it and the missus would say that she wanted it to come on the market. It did!
First time buyer, 24ish years ago. Me and the 'missus' were getting married (we were 24/25 at the time). Looked at a few houses and it ranged from knackered to not a lot better. Almost bought a house near a high school as it was in reasonable repair, had a good 80 ft garden, but needed wall ties and the chimney wasn't supported properly (open fire).
Spotted some new builds going up from my fiancé's bedroom (at her parents) so went for a look. Put a deposit down quickly as we got an end plot with a detached garage (for my bikes) - only two houses had a garage out of 12. We've been here since, and not moved. Not a big house by any standards, but it works with us with two kids. Stuff is starting to get less, and we have more space. The garage is now the bike workshop/man cave.
Were about 5 minutes drive from both parents - given my in-laws were not well for over 10 years, it was a good decision, as at least we weren't spending time driving, and managed to walk round in the snow recently - it has down sides, but if you are sat for 30 minutes i traffic for 3-4 miles, it's crazy.
Last 4, rightmove
My wife always wanted to move further into Cheshire -'better for your 'road' cycling, and nearer other job links. Well crap happens and parents start to fall ill, and I get run over and break my spine, so I don't ride road now. Bloody good job we didn't move as I can get out into the peaks without touching hardly any roads, or do 2 hour XC blasts.
Glad we didn't move. The plus point is I know the house and it's electrics/plumbing and I'm not dealing with some other idiot's bodge.
Nearly four years ago, Rightmove. Didn't bother actively registering with any agents, although every house we viewed they took our details and promptly did nothing with them like recommend other properties.
We viewed pretty much every house in our price range in the area we were interested in, regardless of how it looked on Rightmove. The house we ended up with was the kind of thing we said we wouldn't want (newish, on an estate) but turned out to be exactly right.
Saw it Tuesday, offered asking price with no chain on the Wednesday, they still wanted to have their open house that weekend 'to make sure they had the right buyer'. I think they realised they'd priced it a bit cheap. Anyway, all sorted the week after.
Estate agents really need to adapt or die; they were always pretty useless, now they're pretty useless and easily avoided.
First house I bought I was renting in the area I wanted to live in - a small group of streets about 1/2 mile by 1/4 mile. I saw the estate agents board up and decided to buy it
the flat I have now I was looking to rent in Edinburgh. I sussed out areas I could afford a flat, cycled around them, eliminated most areas then via agents found a flat I wanted. After renting for a couple of years I asked the landlord to sell it to me. He did.
Both times I knew where I wanted to live down to a very small area and found a place in that area
When did you buy your home and how did you find it?
Summer 2016. Rightmove. After looking at 45 houses before we bought one (we had a large search area and were open to anything!) I came to the conclusion that the high street EA's are actively trying to stop people buying houses from them, as was there complete ineptitude.
Did you view a similar property and the agent put you on to it?
Quite a few, no because EAs were useless in my area in almost all regards.
Did the agent have you on their books and call you about a new one?
I was on books of several and all the calls I got was to ask if I wanted to stay on their books. In 1 year I think I got 1 or 2 calls about houses, never got to see them early, got thousands of emails telling me about houses which didn't fit the needs I told them about.
Walk past the shop?
No. Who does that? The only time I went into EA's was to sign up, many said "don't bother picking up a details sheet, there's more on RightMove"
Walk past the house?
We leafleted 200 houses we likes and got more of a result from that than from the EA's.
RightMove?
Every time, apart from the places who contacted us when we leafleted them.
I can't wait for the day what high street EA's die, they don't deserve to stay in business, if the standard of service they provide was present in any other sort of retail they would have all shut down 30 years ago.
We leafleted 200 houses we likes and got more of a result from that than from the EA’s
That's really interesting. Did you get many offers/invitations from your ~200 letters? There's one estate we're interested in, the location and lots of other features are ideal for us. Some friends suggested dropping leaflets through letterboxes, maybe I'll go and buy a ream of paper...
Did you get many offers/invitations from your ~200 letters?
We ended up seeing 5 houses before they were put on the market that way. As we couldn't see inside them we arranged a viewing with them and went round for a cuppa and a chat. None of them worked out in the end but I reckon it was worth it.
The leaflet I made was quite personal, I didn't just say "thinking of selling your house, call us" etc, instead I said we had always wanted to live in the area but were struggling to find somewhere to buy, said that I wasn't a developer or a builder and we just wanted a family home to live in for a long time - which was all true. I thought that would mean more people might read it and see that we were genuine and not out to make a quick buck.
I can’t wait for the day what high street EA’s die, they don’t deserve to stay in business, if the standard of service they provide was present in any other sort of retail they would have all shut down 30 years ago.
9/10 seem like that but we had one who actually did find the "right house" and one you couldn't tell from the outside. The others were terrible and kept coming up with places totally unsuitable just to do a viewing.
Given we were somewhat constrained by school years, time off work to view and such the one EA actually provided a useful service in this instance.
When did you buy your home and how did you find it?
2016, through Rightmove. Estate Agents and Solicitor property centres proved rubbish for several reasons. Trying to shift terrible properties for starters.
Did you view a similar property and the agent put you on to it?
Actually quite unique in our search. No, agents didn’t help at all other than arranging a viewing.
Did the agent have you on their books and call you about a new one?
On the books for quite a few, none provided a property we wanted.
Walk past the shop?
No
Walk past the house?
No
RightMove?
Yes
On a related note, ESPC have an advert at Dalgety Bay train halt stating you sell for more on their site. Which also tells buyers not to buy from ESPC.
I found my house quite easily this afternoon.
When I left the house in the morning I tied a piece of string to the door handle and just let the ball of string unravel as I went about my daily chores.
Locating the house was then just a simple task of following the string back home.
Fun times.
Sounds like a good system Glenn.
I used to do a similar thing with breadcrumbs, but I lost a couple of houses due to birds eating my trail before I could follow it home.
Rightmove.
We were 'seeing what we could get' before committing to sell. Viewed a few, one stood out. Put house on market (with the same agent as the house we wanted so there is extra incentive to get the sale through and the agent can be a bit more 'honest' about what the seller will accept as an offer), negotiated a 1% fee and then only allowed them to put a For Sale board up in return for a Rightmove featured advert 🙂
However, I reckon they already had the buyer (they had a second viewing on another house in the same street) Sold before to them before it got on rightmove...then the stressful battle of dealing with solicitors started...
I used to ride out with a fella in our old village who worked for an EA that specialised in country houses. I told him what we were looking for and our budget, and he kept his ear to the ground. He let us know about the possible sale about six months before the house went on the market - we did a secret recce one day and decided (without even going inside) to have it. This allowed us to sell our house and effectively become cash buyers.