The first viewing we had was a bit random. Over a year ago, one evening, a polite lady knocked on the door and left her number with us, along with an easter egg as a thank you, just in case we were thinking about selling the house. Completely speculative - but fair play. Liz kept the number and the lady, her husband and 2 young kids popped round within a few days of us deciding to sell. They loved the house and offered £500,000 but wanted a private sale and hadn't put their own house on the market yet. Whether that was a serious offer or not we don't know - we politely said we were looking for a little more and we would progress with the estate agents.
The day after we signed the paperwork, and before the listing details had been published on line, Connell's arranged a viewing from an existing client who had already agreed the sale of their house. Bizarrely, Amber got as text later that day from a friend asking if we had put the house on the market. She and her partner had walked their dog round the area to check it out before their viewing and recognised Amber's car on the driveway! They initially offered £490k quickly moving to £505k which we rejected. They have arranged to come back on the first open house, on Tuesday along with two other viewings.
In this day and age, putting your house on the market also can lead to some random events - you're putting a view into your private world on the internet, available at the click of a button... and we live in a world of scams. The
evening the house went on Rightmove we had a knock on the door, Friday night 10:30pm. The guy (and his wife) who knocked on the door were looking for number 64 but with photos of our house on his phone. His friend had sent them to him saying our house was available for rent but he needed to confirm his deposit ASAP. Was it some sort of scam or just an honest mistake? Your guess is as good as ours.
So, 17 days after we had the house valued, things drew to a sprint across the finishing line. After a further 3 viewings, 2 of which could only be described as time wasters, and with a further 2 viewings still scheduled but a feeling they could also be duds, we had a little bit of a final push between two potential buyers bidding against each other. By lunch time we'd closed out with Amber's friend, Charlie, and her partner Tom. Despite their slightly lower offer, we decided that no only were they in a better position to move, having sold their house back in April, but also - we just liked them more!
Let's see how things go from here, we are confident that the sale will go through as the chain is relatively short - the variable is when our move out date will be! Keep watching this space! The cats will soon have a new home and garden to explore...
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