Selling My House

Selling My House

Selling my house is turning out to be emotionally, physically and financially painful

My efforts in trying to sell my house fast are now beginning to drive me up the wall. Its been over six months now. Its not any easy thing to sell your own home particularly when you have an emotional attachment with it. On top of that, if the estate agents and the legal hassles drive you nuts, it is quite a forgettable experience.

To give you a brief glimpse of what is going on: My husband Phil has got a good job in New York. Tired of trapezing across the Atlantic at every available opportunity to spend time with the family, we decided to move to that country for good. We had applied for emigration to USA from UK which has now come through. And all we need to do is pack our things, sell off our house fast and move.

Well, there lies the biggest roadblock. My husband and I have bee desperately trying to sell our house fast for the last several months. But selling a home and that too in UK is a Herculean task. Trust me; it can be downright stressful both emotionally and physically.

I am now beginning to dislike real estate agents. Here you are trying to sell your own home and I can’t explain how much these bunch of guys can stress you out!

They just keep giving us tall empty promises and loads of trouble – all kinds of fees, endless visits by prospects, none of which has materialized into anything concrete, and indefinite delay in settling a deal.

This has been my first brush with estate agents and you can be sure, I don’t want a repeat performance. We are hopelessly running short of time. We would like to sell our house as soon as possible, with minimum hassles, even if we needed to settle for a slightly lesser price than the market rate.

Particularly, the repeated “house viewings” are beginning to wear our patience thin. The emotional attachment we had with this house which had been our home for the last four years is now giving way to honestly, exasperation and yes desperation too.

There was one buyer who came to view the house; liked it but didn’t agree on the price. Another one didn’t like house at all. Buyers have come and gone. At times, estate agent brought buyers at odd hours. Now that is highly annoying.

Then we have been asked by the estate agents to spend a “little bit” on sprucing up the house because “chipped paint and the sort of worn look is not encouraging the buyers. This “little bit” is particularly “big” when you need the money to set up a new home in a new country.

Finally one buyer loved the house and agreed on the price too. I was delighted. Finally, an end in sight! But my joy was short lived. It was the beginning of yet another problem. The interested buyer could buy our house only when he managed to sell his own house to get the money! Oh well, now do we need to pray for that too? This is what is known as a “sales chain” in the market parlance. Chain or no chain, we want out and fast!

There are so many high costs involved; paying the estate agent and the legal fees. Besides, we have to keep paying the interest on our mortgage for something we intend to sell off anyway!

Despite all this we are not getting any results. It has been several months and yet we have not made any progress in selling the house. I find myself sinking into depression. The whole experience is becoming too exhausting.

A friend has suggested to me to try selling my home to property buying companies. I don’t feel too encouraged. But I don’t think I have an alternative. Phil says, there is no harm in giving it a try. Hmm…lets see what happens.