'Valuating the Estate Agents

Today we completed instructing Super Estate Agent... but I am getting ahead of myself.

JW planted the seed - why not sell your place yourself? Hmm. I have the marketing nous (I should hope so!) and I am pretty good at managing projects (make list, do list, boss someone into doing something on list) - it seemed like a good idea. 

Then we met Super Estate Agent (SEA). And the seed got blown away by the hurricane of this kid's talent1. He could sell our house back to us!

But we weren't entirely mesmerised by SEA - oh no, we were *good* house sellers and got four - not three - four, valuations/pitches. We were surprised by the range of prices we got: the highest was £150k, the lowest was £120k, maybe £118k. We also met a range of personalities: No. 1 was so slick, we were slipping and sliding in her wake. (We both put a big 'X' against that one five minutes after she left.) No. 2 was so 'honest and realistic', we wanted to drown in our mugs of tea. No. 42 was Reason incarnate and radiated Respectability but the valuation was so low, alarm bells went off in both our heads. We murmured our thanks and ushered him quietly out our door.

So that leaves us with No. 3. When we first met him, he was so shiny, we thought he was brand new. Turns out the kid had the Chat and was really 10 years older than he looked. The worst part was, he had us chanting to ourselves in our heads, "He is NOT your friend! He is NOT your friend! He is NOT your friend!". 

Futility.

As FBB says, "Good skills!" Let's hope we were right in our valuation.

Next blog: Remembering No. 22 - our home for the last 10 years before we de-clutter and de-personalise the place. Great times were had.

1 SEA looked about 12. He was geeking out in our house. "Ooh! Did you here Ripper is back on the cards?" "Wow! Judge Andersen!" "Bikes! Cars! Driving fast!".Oh, he had both our numbers. Turns out he's 37.

2 See? We didn't fall straight for SEA! We carried on with No. 4.