UK Realtors (Estate Agents)

What can you say? They are difficult. When the times were good they would look at your home knowing full well that the lenders would throw 95% to a 100% at any old knuckle dragger who could provide proof of income ... even if that proof of income was supplied by said knuckle draggers accountant (or at least on a sheet of the accountants headed paper), and included twice the basic salary plus 50% for good measure, based purely on the facade that the economy was running away like a steam train. We all know what happened with the banks next, and to be fair my arse is still feeling raw ... and I don’t have any debts except the mortgage, and it was entirely affordable before the general cost of living sky rocketed ... in the words of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman (Full Metal Jacket) they didn’t even have the goddamn common courtesy to give me (well the greater population of the UK really) a reach-around.

So what’s changed about estate agents? Well it seems they’ve all become better men from the experience of the crash ... ahem ... none of them feel like they are the typical estate agent and that they like to think that they break the mould ... all of them, they all had the same script. The latest recession has changed them, they’ve had a short sharp shock, six of the very very best for their sins and now are all repentance and verisimilitude ... ahhh isn’t that sweet. Nowadays they aren’t the evil in the system ... no siree, it’s not them that’s the problem ... they would “market the property at whatever asking price I pluck from the air”, “but?” (see repentance and verisimilitude above).

The estate agents now claim that the issue is the surveyors that do the valuation survey for the lender ... the bastards that in full knowledge of the shenanigans around lending to sub-primes here and abroad still made up pretend money, and did their own version of quantitative easing called ... interest free credit with nothing to pay until ... the shit hits the fan. The surveyor says the ceiling on the value is £xxxx and so the lender will only lend to £xxxx ... that’s probably how it’s always supposed to have worked ... it just happens to feel like shite when you think of how quick the money lenders were to heap debt on us just three and a bit short years ago.

Estate agents after pretty much twenty five years of running the show now feel like mortals again ... in their own scheming way. The early eighties was the start of the boom and despite the fact that there was a mid-point crash, estate agentery has continued to attract wankers of the first order looking to make a quick buck ... but without the bollocks to become a city trader or the brains to become a lawyer IMHO ... they must be motivated by the idea of owning a BMW M3 or something trendy and tinny with a soft-top if they are youngsters.

So what’s the scam now? Well from my perspective (and some may call humbug on my opinion) it’s the fact that estate agents still need to shift property to stay in a job, but clearly the margins have gone down in the mass market (that’s most middle income earners with anything from a one bed flat to a three bed house almost anywhere). To stay in the game they need to provide tick over-turn over,  to maintain the market in a virtual state of abeyance (Mervin King Bank of England Governor used the phrase “stable but static” regarding the UK economy just a week or two ago ... it’s the same thing just a few billions above your average mid terrace three bed along the Thames corridor ... Mervin King also said some time ago that it was a “bust without a boom” see interest free credit quip above ).

So three estate agents of five called back, three took their turn at telling me they were all different from the others, that their hands were tied, that it’s the lenders, surveyors that are the evil. And that our home is at the very best only worth £10k more than when we bought it three years ago, and that whilst it is immaculate we are competing with semis and end of terrace properties, so we should pitch low to get the footfall. I have to say the actual range was from a little over £5k value increase from the most pessimistic agent (that would imply that all our work is without any value at all) to a £16.5k increase (a risky punt, but we appear to have done everything you could ask).

 There are two ways of looking at this:

1.       Eat shit a billion flies can’t be wrong.

2.       Your trying to fuck me over because we’re easy low level turnover.

You need to do your research. If you aren’t willing to put in the hours then you just can’t expect to beg a reach around. We have been watching the market in this immediate area religiously since February (we’ve not viewed any properties other than via the web, papers or drive by’s) so we’ve seen the state of some of the properties coming onto the market. We’ve been to and past them so we can get an idea of what’s out there and whether we can compete. So, when two of three estate agents wave properties on their books and their perceived value under your nose pointing out that round the corner X property is only rolling around £xxxK, so yours is only as valuable as the lowest common denominator. You have to have a clue; you either need to know that that property is a shitehole from the outside and equally rough inside from the photos of decor fixture and fit, and in a rough or barren area and that yours is only similar in so far as it shares the same number of rooms and similar dimensions ... or you’re stupid and you will be led up the garden path, and the estate agent will walk away with the commission, and you’ll walk away poorer for the experience (again IMHO).

From this very recent experience and from the experience I’ve had selling a property during the early part of the last boom (when I made a shedload of cash from a sale), and selling in the second year of the last crash in 2008/2009 (we lost over £20k against the original purchase price in 2007), I’ve seen estate agents at their smarmy best, brimming with confidence, and at their smarmy worst basically tucking us up. What’s changed? Nothing. Maybe at some level there is a degree of honesty as applied according to the tenets of the TPO code of practice, but I don’t think I saw that last Friday. I think I saw a now desperate industry talking down the market playing a blame game and trying to get the leanest margin to pay the agents office rent and to tick over in hope of better days to come, and premium commissions from the top end of the market, that may be fewer and further between but 1.25% of 2.5million is a lot more than 1.25% 250k.

As final note: We went with the risky punt option, pitching between the semis and end of terrace properties, with their additional sideway access or full off street parking (we only have off street bays) and the skuzzers. I judged that with the work we have done; the blank canvas we have created inside and the neat and multi functional garden outside that our home has had the full Phil and Kirsty treatment. And that the balance for the prospective buyer is:

1.       Buy our home at the upper end of the price range for type: move in put your feet up relax ... wait for spring sort out your summer bedding, relax again.

2.       Buy a property at the lower price end and spend the difference between the lower end and the higher on making the lower end unit look tidy ... and still being skint and working every last hour into the bargain to get it right (We’ve just done that for the whole summer so we know how it feels).

I hope we’ve got the balance right. We took a shot on a repossession before we bought this place, it was a steal at under £120k. However when all was said and done, the size of the task in bringing it up to scratch would have cost at least £30k (bare minimum), and right now according to the estate agents we’ve just seen, we wouldn’t have broken even by today.

Don't Pray For An Easy Life

Well it’s finally happened we’ve spoken to some estate agents, and subsequently Friday of this week will be a smarmfest of the first order. Clearly the market is depressed ... though to qualify that, one would have to say it’s depressed in a stable state. And according to some figures there have been gains in some areas, and losses in others and the obvious regional variations.

Interesting things to note about estate agents of late: A lot of them no longer have their own websites, in favour of hosting the properties for sale through Rightmove’s website. This is very handy, because as long as you aren’t a prat and un-tick all the boxes that default to “we are going to fill your email, in-box and you homes letterbox full of shit until you are dead”, the service they provide allows you to mail five (any number you like ... I just happen to have done five) estate agents all with the same text and the same details etc in the space of about five minutes.

I think an indicator of the state of the market is that I did that at ... lets say 10am Saturday morning and by 11am I had three appointments made for next Friday, and were it not for the fact that I don’t work Friday I could have had all the agents through the door in the evenings this week.  Clearly estate agents have gone from being the most hated trade to somewhere in the icky middle of trades disliked and mistrusted by all; bankers and solicitors  top the charts, with my personal third being social workers (traffic wardens are entirely avoidable by avoiding being a prat when you park).

What does this all mean? It means we need to play the game. And the game is don’t let the estate agents sell us down the river, but don’t make ourselves appears to be stroppy arseholes. The strategy is to get the estate agents to offer the best valuation, a realistic acceptance price and no fees unless they actually make the deal. I think the last time we moved we got swerved in the agents favour because we didn’t want to lose the house we eventually bought. On balance we should have held on for a few other offers, but I think the estate agent had a client in mind and was playing both ends against the middle in favour of the buyer not the seller ... this highlights another issue; don’t under any circumstances get involved in inclusive sell/buy deals with estate agents and don’t use their recommended legals ... take your time and find your own.

As mentioned in an earlier post, we want to be away on the 21^st of March 2013, however that date has some flex in it ... it has to have. What happens if the winter is late and severe and there is still snow on the ground? Yes you can still go, but why start in utter misery? And then there is the speed at which the property process in this country moves ; six to twelve weeks just for the sale. That is of course after you have a positive bite and a buyer that can actually afford the price. And then there’s the buyers themselves and your default target audience ... ours is likely to be of African origin, and this does from experience present a few problems.

On a previous sale I made, I was asked by the buyer to wait until the estate agents period had expired and then they would deal with me direct ... I said no. They withdrew.

Next I had an offer, I accepted, then later the buyer came back and said he’d made an offer elsewhere, and if I wanted to complete the sale I needed to drop my price ... I was blunt with the agent ... the buyer withdrew.

And finally I made the sale and on the day of moving the buyer turned up early and asked where I was going with his furniture ... he genuinely thought he’d bought it with the house; I guess that’s the problem with English as a second language and getting all your paperwork done by your teenage grand children.

So these are the next hurdles to be jumped. I’m hoping for a smooth ride, but I’m not expecting one. When I was at school, there was a poster on a window in one of my form classes it read: Don’t pray for an easy life, pray to be a strong person. There are lots of permutations of this piece of wisdom and the sources are allegedly many and varied ... but when all’s said and done, it’s definitely the way forward in mental attitude.

Deep Breath Relax (for a while anyway)

Since I last posted the list of achievements is extensive and the working hours obscene, however as I’m sure I’ve said elsewhere “nearly there”. I won’t list house DIY details other than to say I need to apply some touch up paints here and there in the kitchen diner, where we've dumped into things putting the room back together (ironically). However we are not touching up until I've moved the first wave of excess stuff into storage). I’ve gotten as far as removing most of the pointing from the patio prior to repointing (it’sthe final job before the estate agents are called in on Monday next week) ... we were going to get them in today to start valuations etc, but instead we decided we’d enjoy it as our home for one week and hope that we have a bit of a late summer early Autumn Indian Summer and a buyer steps up asap. 

In the motorhome I sorted and tested the water supplies with mixed results. The cold worked fine, but the hot had dismal pressure. With a little research I found some of the answers and hoped it wouldn’t get too expensive: 

The hot water system is a 9 litre Carver Cascade 2 system, and from the information I gathered; there is a non return valve at the end of the cold feed pipe that gets scaled and jammed. I removed the drain plug (which I broke) and a large amount of solids fell out along with some lime scale slurry. The parts with free delivery come in at a few pennies over £16.00 from http://www.leisureshopdirect.com/caravan who are proving to be an essential port of call for just about everything motor home related.

I made a good intuitive call on making all the T pieces Y pieces as this eases pressure drops and is recommended. I then retested the pump pressure, and flow through the heater cylinder, once it was all seen to be fabulous, and water could be squirted direct from the drain plug eight feet across the verge, I re-assembled the whole kit and caboodle, switched on the gas and tested the heat ... it’s all good.

So that’s it then ... we’re all done in doors, we found a brilliant storage place after much legwork £100 PCM for 160 sqr ft ... as opposed to the last ridiculous quote I got for the same ammount of space at £269 PCM with the first month only costing £0.01p. Now we can start clearing down prior to moving out. And we’ve sorted out our temporary accommodation, for whatever period of time we need to be, between temporary accommodation and setting off on the journey.

There is still a lot to do in terms of planning and finance, but now those tasks will replace the constant DIY, and hopefully I can put together the scraps of knowledge that I’ve picked up about our routes, our mileage, what we want to see, where we want to stay and for how long, and how long we actually plan to stay on the road ... because it’s only sitting here right now that I realise how many snippets I have; as fag packet notes or un-viewed favourites, or our collection of mails to self that we’ve put together and now need collating into real Matter. Deep breath and relax.

March Marches Past

So here we are a best part of a month since the last post. So what’s been happening?

Well our 21 year old motorhomes leak proved too difficult to fix roadside, primarily because in removing the internal structures to get to the rot, would have compromised Structural integrity. I could have done the work in two halves, however this would have brought with it, its own set of unique problems. And again these problems revolved around stability of the habitations external skin and potential for mis-alignment. I couldn’t find a unit for rent to take the motorhome off roadside to do the work myself. This would have sorted out all the issues. I could have taken a fortnight off to kill the core repair job, and then spent the following weekends and evenings doing the internal re-fit, but finding a unit without a long minimum lease was impossible. Which given the state of the economy, the number of sizable empty units nearby and the fact that I was a cash payer willing to pay whatever insurance was required seems daft. I could write an entire post about the stupidity of small industrial estate owner’s agents and their odd belief, that what I was actually looking for was a retail unit in the centre of town, a 120000ft warehouse with offices and a price tag of £29000 per annum etc. However why waste time?

So having spent several weeks chasing false leads and getting nowhere I eventually decided that spending the money we were thinking of spending on a unit and doing the repairs ourselves would be better spent on an expert fitter or re-fitter and getting the job done properly.

In between times I stripped out everything I could to create a bare shell, in the hope that something would turn up eventually but in the end, I went back to No1Gear http://www.no1gear.com and asked Mike Chubb (No1gear’s owner) if he could recommend someone. He passed our details and to Black down conversions,

http://www.blackdownconversions.co.uk and after the exchange of photos to assess the damage, and the viability of repair and refurbishment; I drove the motor home to Devon on Thursday 22^nd of March and entrusted it’s care to Paul Studley and his wife, who can sort out not only the repair but also the re-fit of the kitchen, wet room, and all the upholstery.

There isn’t much more to say right now. Back ground preparations are taking place: Things like insurances for living full time in a motorhome, routes round the country, finances for stopovers etc. And as things that matter get more body so posts will hopefully be more frequent and full.