Tales from the property coalface
I don't feel I've really posted enough about my house-purchasing trauma lately. Actually just at the moment it seems to be ticking along OK, but I'm not getting my hopes up.
In the meantime, I have just received the following email from one of West Hampstead's many estate agents (neither my selling agent nor the one I'm buying through, thankfully). I take no responsibility for punctuation, or rather lack of it.
Hi
We are in the middle of the holiday season at the moment so there is a lack of new properties to the market.
In other words "The office is dead, I'm bored and I've got no flats to sell, and the temp had this great idea for an email"
September is a traditional time in the UK to sell; I will keep you up to date with new properties that become available.
"Please god let the market pick up soon"
I would like to take this opportunity to check to see if you are still looking for a property and whether your criteria has changed whilst you have been searching.
"Prices have gone up so much this year already that you probably can't afford what you want any more. Have you asked yourself if you really need a separate bedroom?"
If this is the case, please feel free to email me the changes in your criteria, alternatively if you have found or are no longer looking then please just email the word remove and we will take you off our list.
"I'm a busy man. Usually. Don't waste my time"
A few pointers to buyers:
1.Try to get into properties as quickly as possible, many properties are receiving offers within 24 hours.
"A little light breaking and entering might be useful here"
2. Have your Mortgage agreed in principle before you offer.
Yeah, because mortgage companies are great at doing that, aren't they? In my experience most of them won't lift a finger till you've had an offer accepted somwhere.
3. Have a good quality London Solicitor organised before you offer.
Clearly without the benefit of this kind agent's infinite wisdom, we'd all be going for really crap solicitors on purpose.
Yes, yes, all right - we get the message. There's been bugger all coming onto the market all year now and anything that does come on gets sold in the property equivalent of a nanosecond (unless your estate agent is really rubbish). Speed is of the essence. We understand that now!4. Once you have been successful in securing a property you will need to instruct your Solicitor and mortgage company ASAP.
If you need any help or advice on the above please feel free to contact me.
Best of luck with your search.
Thanks
But that's not it. Oh no. He's saved the best bit till last:
NB. We are offering a Voucher Incentive Scheme, should you recommend any one to [desperate estate agency with no properties to sell] who instructs us to sell there [sic] property, you will get £200 of vouchers for a shop of your choice.
Apart from the ever-popular "there/their" mix-up, and the fact I think he needs a "PS" rather than an "NB", my favourite part of this fantastic offer is the vouchers. What's wrong with good, honest cash, exactly? Or would a bundle of used tenners smack a little too much of the brown envelope? God forbid they should call it anything as vulgar as a "finder's fee". All suggestions for the least appropriate shop for which to demand your vouchers gratefully recieved.
If any readers are contemplating selling or purchasing property in the NW6 area, and would like to know which agency employs this modern genius in order that they may steer well clear (or indeed if you just want to set up a scam to get £200 off them), please feel free to email me.
tags: estate agents, stating the obvious
posted by Pashmina @ 9:02 AM
16 comments
16 Comments:
I love "good quality London Solicitor"! Presumably this means one that will wear well and never go out of fashion? As opposed to those cheap, shoddy "London Solicitors" which fall to pieces the first time you wash them?
"£200 of vouchers for a shop of your choice"
What, any shop at all??
Do they have to sell the property before you get the vouchers or is the recommendation sufficient?
Marsha, I like to think of the "good quality London Solicitor" as a kind of old-fashioned worsted. And the "poor quality London estate agent" as a shiny polyester.
Billy, those are very good questions, which I think deserve to be answered. Possibly they haven't thought this offer through properly. It's tempting to imagine a great big voucher saying "£200 - for ANY SHOP IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD!". Now that would almost be worth putting some business their way for. You can get a lot for £200 in - say - India...
Nice thought about the solicitor. What concerned me (and I'm sure gave you a pain, Pashmina) was the treating of "criteria" as a singular noun. Do these fools know nothing?
(Okay, rhetorical question - they're estate agents, after all.)
every time I see one of those "there/their" things, my whole body starts to itch.
that, indeed, is the extent of my word nazi-ism.
and I'm not afraid to admit it.
also: who can actually afford to live in London in more than one room these days? I mean, fair enough, I don't live there [!!] but as someone who has always dreamt of living there, that is the impression I get.
It's quite disillusioning.
hi, btw. I came over from the blue cat blog and have been enjoying it very much here.
I did contemplate adding a little "[sic]" in by that "criteria has" but decided I was using far too many of those already. Still a metaphorical stabbing pain between the eyes though.
Welcome, Leonie - I don't think I can afford to live in more than one room, actually - which is to say that the flat we're (and it is "we", there's no way on earth I could buy somewhere by myself) trying to buy has more than one room but I'm not entirely sure we can afford it.
This is where I go into a blind panic about my impending new mortgage. Excuse me for a moment...
hmm, that sounds uncommonly like a small handbag each - should we talk?
London prices are really shocking now. It's bad here too. The local estate agents pitch all their seaside properties at foreign buyers with pounds or euros, who think they're getting bargains. My mountainside house has quadrupled in value. If I sold, where would I buy? Most young working couples have to settle for small flats in lost neighbourhoods.
I recently looked at London renting prices and was very nearly ill. Here in Glasgow you can rent a lovely spacious 2 bedroomed flat in the city centre for around £550 a month. I was shocked to see that in London that's the price per week for what can only be described as a tiny one bedroomed hovel.
I'd like to move to London but unless I win the lottery it is looking unlikely that I could ever afford it.
Least appropriate shop? Asking for £200 in Anne Summers vouchers might raise a few eyebrows.
I'd be surprised if you could get even a one bed in London for £550 - more like a studio. If I'm wrong, do nip over to Sex, money and html sharpish and tell lc about it because that's what he's after
damn - heather beat me to it.
how about just scoping out the name of your nearest local dirty-video-and-lube shop and giving that as your shop of choice?
i dare you.
This post, and your previous one with the photographic round-up of NW6, reminds me that I do intend to live in London again when young C has left home. And where nicer than NW6?
We left NW2 6 years ago but I had been aspiring to NW6 for some years beforehand. I now drive the entire length of West End Lane every day and it just serves to remind me what I am missing. OK, I've got clean air, green fields and a charming and supportive community. But no all-night bagel shop.
This comments thread has led me, for the first time in many a long year, to look at the rental prices in my neck of the woods to see what I could afford if my life went tits-up and I had to go it alone.
Dear god. I blame the buy-to-let brigade.
Anne Summers, indcidentally, was the first name that popped into my head for the voucher thing, but I thought that might be a bit run-of-the-mill. Dirty-video-and-lube shop would be great, but if we had one in West Hampstead you can be sure it would have put in an appearance on the "isn't NW6 lovely?" post the other day.
Speaking of which, Cello, when young C has spread his wings and the city calls you back, you can be sure we would welcome you to the 'hood with arms outstretched.
Ooh, and GSE - great bag idea.
well, it might be worth checking if the offer stands if I register with their Highgate or Crouch End branch...
once I've stopped dithering (again!) about whether to move.
Um, I live in NW6 and I want to buy somewhere - maybe around here - first-time buyer so HIGHLY unlikely...but anyway, could you let me know/drop a hint as to which of the hideous estate agencies that exist aruond here, I should avoid...(please don't say all of them, or else I'll cry!)
Thx
C
Drop me an email CNI, and I'll Tell All.
Unfortunately you end up having to go with the estate agent that's selling the place you want, however if it's on with more than one agent it's handy to know which one to go to first...
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