Gracie’s Life Experiment

We had yet another house viewing today.  Not bad, the house has been on the market for 10 days and we’ve had 4 viewings already.    Today’s couple were really nice and asked lots of questions.  They almost bought another house but got right through to surveying and the mortgage company surveyor valued that house at 15k less and the vendor wouldn’t budge so they are all set to buy.  We spent the whole morning tidying again (it’s hard keeping a house in a good state for viewings when you have a dog/whirlwind and a 5 week old baby).  I actually polished the woodwork today which was really therapeutic and left it looking shiny and spotless.  They seemed to like the house and especially the garden.  Again asking about the area – we live on a council estate, but about 50% of the houses are probably privately owned now.  A few years back this was one of the worst areas in town, but since we’ve moved in we’ve not had any problems and I think most of the “bad apples” have been moved to the other council estate on the other side of town.  We often take baby and doggy for a walk along the streets and find it a pleasant stroll, people actually say hello to each other when they pass in the street!  In fact location can be a funny thing as we lived on the village green in a tiny picturesque village (had about 4 shops; the Post Office, a butcher, a florist and a taxi cab company) and in the 6 months we were there hubby’s car got broken into 3 times! Lived in Shelthorpe for 5 years – not one problem at all!

Unfortunately the first 3 viewings were unsuccessful (reasons given : not sure about the area, too far from town and too small – well nothing we can do about these).  Hopefully this one may come fruitful (fingers crossed).

We had another couple of house viewings tonight.  It’s really hard getting the house to look good, especially with a 4 week old baby.  The hardest part is making it tidy, but also hiding away all the baby and dog paraphenalia!  The first viewers turned up 30 mins early so we didn’t have time to get rid of the dog and luckily I’d just finished feeding Evie so I wasn’t sat there topless (would have scared them off straight away).  Bloody dog was a total pain and decided to make loads of noise, jump in the pond and then jump on their trousers!  Hmm they say that you should ship out the dog and kids when having viewers, but as they turned up so early we hadn’t time to get rid of Mocha.  I don’t think they were too interested, they are looking in a huge area (anywhere between Loughborough and Lincoln) and I presume that they will prob be able to get more for their money in the countryside/villages.  For the second viewers (who incidentally turned up 15 mins late) we put Mocha next door to play with my neighbour and her dog.  The viewing went much better, but am not sure whether they are serious buyers yet as they are first timers and just starting out looking at houses.  They reminded me of us when we bought this house – fresh out of graduation.  It’s a bit stressful trying to sell the house at this time, but at least there do seem to be some viewers.  We have another set of viewers coming next weekend and will hopefully get some feedback from these viewers next week.  The viewers yesterday loved the house but weren’t sure about the area (it’s hard because it is a council estate and that does have a stigma against it, but u can’t buy a house for the same budget elsewhere in other areas town).