On 8 Feb 2012 at 10:14am Captain wrote:
Which are the best to market a property in lewes?
On 8 Feb 2012 at 10:21am Dr Placebo wrote:
Oh god...please let's not do this again....
On 8 Feb 2012 at 11:05am Blue Sky wrote:
Ok, try this for an idea. Market the house yourself and find a buyer that way.
I have done this three times now and it worked very well.(seriously)
It means that you can personally vet your prospective buyers and weed out the timewasters, tyre kickers and fantasists.
I am considering starting my own agency for this type of thing, I think it might catch on...............(not seriously)
On 8 Feb 2012 at 12:56pm kettle wrote:
Failing that, try oakleys. they don't seem bad.
On 8 Feb 2012 at 1:17pm Vampire Buffet Slayer wrote:
Yes,Oakleys I can recommend.
On 8 Feb 2012 at 2:14pm Me-mo wrote:
I cant recommend one for selling but i bought a house last year through Cubitt and West. It was like pulling teeth. We ended up secretly talking with seller as our offers were not going through to them and Cubitt kept telling us Bullc**p about which account the deposit should be in before the sellers would consider selling to us. I will never use them again to buy or sell.. Blue sky seems to have the right idea though. You save money that way by not paying someone to sell your house for you too.
On 8 Feb 2012 at 2:23pm Buycheapsellhigh wrote:
Advertise it yourself on Zoopla.co.uk Worked for me and most estate agents use it too.
On 8 Feb 2012 at 2:50pm Blue Sky wrote:
On this subject, I recommend Clive Smith at Lewes Smith Solicitors for the legals. Professional and a gent too. Not much of that about these days.
I did my own thing after being royally shafted by Fox & sons who I discovered had been showing prospective buyers around a house which I was buying whilst it was still under offer. It was unoccupied and Fox & sons had a key.
The seller and I combined forces and embarrassed the hell out of the bitch who ran their Lewes Road office. I think the words "Daily Mail" & "expose" were used by me more than once.
What they were trying to do was unsettle the seller by saying that they had received further bids from people who had only seen paper details but had in fact been shown around. These "bids" of course, exceeded mine, they would suggest that perhaps the seller should renege on the deal and ask me to up my offer. I don't trust any of them.
On 8 Feb 2012 at 5:18pm Rookie wrote:
Estate Agents, Surveyors, Solicitors. Crooks the lot of them.
On 8 Feb 2012 at 7:57pm Geoff wrote:
On the subject, blatant plug. I am selling my Lewes private property sales website - www.housesforsaleinlewes.co.uk
I don't have the time to run it as I have a full time job which is extremely time consuming (I got promoted). But we had one advertiser who sold their house, they had a few viewings - but then it was Christmas and I haven't done anything since.
Lewes is small enough so that there are never that many houses for sale at any given point. Let people know the website is there (not expensive) and there is a business there for anyone who cares to put the time in. I should have a free ad going up soon. My career has been in running web publishing businesses (www.cbsinteractive.co.uk) so happy to pass on advice to make it work. It just seems such a shame to shut it down after having it built...
No price in mind, someone can make me an offer. Why spend multiple thousands selling a house, when it can cost under £100?
geoffinns[at]gmail.com
On 9 Feb 2012 at 11:59am Brixtonbelle wrote:
Avoid Lewes Estates and Whycherleys - they vastly overprice. LE especially - we made an offer on a property tht had been on the market for over a year, which they said no one was interested in - as soon as we made an offer, miraculously there was another 'buyer'. We upped our offer to what was suggested by the agent, only for them to tell us that the other 'buyer' had also upped their offer. At no point did they send us any communication from the seller officially rejecting our offers. Nor did they suggest sealed bids, we were just expected to take their word about the mythical other 'buyer'. We smelled a rat and pulled out. Strangely enough the property then didn't sell for another year.
Whycherleys tried to sell us two different houses, both marketed as four bedroom, which were actually both two bedrooms. (one had a loft 'conversion' - a ladder with no planning permission, the other house had split the tiny loft into two 'bedrooms' with a cardboard partition and majority of rooms with about 5' head height. Needless to say we were not impressed.
All the agents overprice. We had the best and most down to earth service from Gorringes and Cubitt and West. We eventually bought through Strutt and Parker, but can't say I would recommend them after our experience (which I won't bore you all with here)
My advice is to talk to all of them, be very clear about how you want to market your property, and don't be unrealsitic about price - it's a falling market and a property is only worth what someone will pay, whatever you think it's worth.
On 9 Feb 2012 at 12:14pm Southover Queen wrote:
Good advice from BB. I bought through C&W and they were pretty good.
The thing about Lewes agents is that it very much depends on the type of property you're marketing. If it's a newbuild you're looking for, I'd check out Oakleys but for middle of the road houses I'd look at Lewes Estates, C&W or Gorringes. Wycherleys has always been a bit of a mystery, and they certainly seem to inhabit a different century. Fox deals with property at the lower end of the market and Strutt and Parker seem to deal in country estates complete with woodland and extensive stabling (!!! BB!) Goodness knows where Winkworth and Clifford Dann fit in.
On 9 Feb 2012 at 8:23pm Arthur Scarsgit wrote:
Hmmmm forum socialist BB buys house from Strutt & Parker. Draw your own conclusions
On 10 Feb 2012 at 7:50am househunter wrote:
i am house hunting in lewes at the moment- im a first time buyer and have so far found out that fox and sons are a bunch of sharks - AVOID ! , Cubitt and west are useless and lazy preferring i show myself round properties and neglecting to give important information. Freeman foreman in ringmer seem quite good so far - watch this space
On 10 Feb 2012 at 8:10am Kettle wrote:
AS - what is BB supposed to do? Give her money away?
On 10 Feb 2012 at 8:15am DFL wrote:
I said it before and I'll say it again - WYCHERLEYS !!
On 10 Feb 2012 at 3:45pm bastian wrote:
no, not wycherleys, they are trouble, overinflate prices and try to sell dodgy houses
On 10 Feb 2012 at 4:43pm Kracman wrote:
Hi
I am thinking about buying a house in Lewes to let out. Can anyone please tell me the best agents for doing this, also letting agents. I am based in Islington so I don't know the local area very well.
Also - what's the top rent you can charge, for a 2/3 bed family home? I've heard that the locals don't like to sell to outsiders, is this true? Are there any areas where there are more people from London, like me, and less locals?
Do people expect you to do much maintenance? I've heard that standards are pretty low and people expect to have a bit of damp and a few missing windows from time to time. Would a dodgy roof or rising damp be a step too far?
Bastian, what do you think? You seem to know the area.
On 11 Feb 2012 at 12:09am Local wrote:
Yawn fookin yawn...
On 13 Feb 2012 at 10:49am Brixtonbelle wrote:
Yes we bought a house through Strutt and Parker. It's not all country estates over 500k. I make no apologies for that - one estate agent is much like another in my book, they are all trying to maximise their profits. Having lived in Brixton for 20 years, we are one of the fortunate people to have bought a low-priced property in a run-down area (all we could afford), renovated it when we could afford to, which then rocketed in value. However that value has been more than gobbled up by high Lewes prices and we have a bigger mortgage than we ever had in London. But frankly it's either buy a property and pay your own mortgage, or pay a landlord's mortgage with no security of tenure.
Oh and yes, I am a socialist, living in a capitalist society, doing my best to live a good moral life and not sh*t on others less fortunate than myself. I work hard, pay my taxes, don't claim any benefits. Would you prefer it AS if I lived in penury, in harsh conditions, or claimed the dole - is that what qualifies one to be a socialist ???