WE PUT OUR HOUSE ON THE MARKET - April 2012

  

Will took early retirement in Spring 2011 and then spent his time traveling to and from Wales on roughly a fortnightly basis. I could take early retirement from July 2012 at the earliest. We both felt it would be beneficial for me to join Will as soon as possible. With this in mind, despite the poor housing market we decided to put our lovely family house on the market at the beginning of the Easter holidays, with a view to hopefully selling within the year and maybe moving in December/January 2013 or maybe a year or so later. Who can tell? 

It was a big decision to make, but one which needed to be made. We had lived here for 20 years and raised 4 children here. We loved the house. We loved its location. We had excellent friends, neighbours and facilities. I enjoyed my job. Everywhere was easily accessible, from small towns to big city centres, from local canal walks to Derbyshire's mountains and vales, from schools and doctors to theatres. However, the children had moved on and left us rattling in a large house so it was time for us to move on too. 

We had 3 different estate agents to value the house. The first valued it at the same price it was on the market for 20 years before! Even with the current climate we knew it should sell for more than that! With persuasion we managed to push up his valuation a little, knowing that we would be unlikely to sell it for the asking price in today's climate. He gave reasons for his hesitancy –

• "it would fetch more if it was on a nice estate". (We wondered what was wrong with a nice road. There must be some buyers out there who would choose to live close to amenities on a nice road rather than on a nice estate away from the town centre).
• "it would fetch more if it had a big drive – people these days like room to park 5 cars". (He seemed oblivious to the fact that there are still some people around with just one car. There are also people who don't need even one car when they are so close to all facilities. People are starting to think about their finances more, and spending less on cars and petrol. Could this not be a selling point too? Apparently not!).
• "it would fetch more if it was the right way around"!!! (The attractive side of the house - which looks like it should be the front - overlooks the mature secluded garden, not the road. It makes the house and garden what they are, and we thought a potential selling feature).

      
Guess what - No surprises - Feeling quite depressed about his comments, we decided not to go with that estate agent!

The 2^nd estate agent was very pleasant and valued the house much higher. 

The 3rd valued it slightly higher again. We decided to go with this one. 

Both these estate agents agreed that being close to facilities and the 'back-to-front house' were selling points. No mention was made of the lack of parking!

Job done ... and feelings of doubt started to creep in. Were we doing the right thing? I suddenly found myself paying attention to all the lovely things I have taken for granted over the past 20 years. The original features dating back to 1910, such as the beautiful stained glass windows. 

How could we ever replace our peaceful garden where we went for solitude, 
    
                                 

or the homely kitchen where visitors relaxed and always complimented?

And would we ever find another garden pet like 'Sonic Tiggywinkle' our resident hedgehog who brought the family much amusement and the cats company

Most of all I loved my old wooden single glazed sash windows and original wooden French doors opening out into the garden. Despite these feelings, we both felt the time was right to sell up and move on to a new life. 

The Welsh house has few original features, but that's probably not surprising in a cottage reputedly 400 years old, with several different owners over recent years who have each put their mark on the house. Was there even glass in poor cottage windows 400 years ago? I love original features and would like to restore or keep as much as possible/affordable, but I think having glassless windows would be taking that passion just a step or two too far! Some parts of the house were probably originally cow sheds which I doubt had any windows at all. The Welsh house has UPVC windows. UPVC windows have been my pet hate for many years. But with everything else the house has going for it, I have to make some compromises. I shall persuade Will to consider replacing the plastic windows with new wooden sash windows which I can then paint a colour of my choice.

We spent the two week Easter holiday working on the Welsh house. During this time the estate agent showed several people around our house. Apparently all parties were interested, but all need to sell their own houses. One family returned a few times and they had a potential buyer. They put an offer on, albeit a little low. With the house only having been on the market for 2 weeks, should we hang on and wait for a higher offer? At this stage there were other potential buyers but none of whom have sold their own houses, so we took a bit of a gamble and decided to accept the offer.

A week later the estate agents phoned to say that the buyer had made a mistake with his finances and asked if we would accept a lower offer? After a few days deliberation, we decided that this offer was still way above the first estate agent's valuation, so we accepted it with a view to having a moving date around the end of August/September. This would give us the Summer holidays and maybe a little bit more to sort out the house contents, bin or recycle anything which we did not need.

I decided I would hand in my notice at work and take early retirement in July 2012. I felt that even if this offer fell through, we had had enough interest to make us think we could sell the house reasonably quickly. I was told at work that if I hadn't moved by the time the summer holidays were over, there could be the possibility of some supply work. I decided to take the risk.

Next blog - I meet an ancient local resident and we work on the drive