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We are looking to move into the S10 (lodge Moor), S6 (upper Stannington) or S33 (upper Bamford) area from our lovely town of Penistone (only 13 miles away but too much of a commute for the school and work run). I have a deep mistrust of estate agents and having just sold my house privately I now want to buy privately. Has anyone any experience of buying without the use of an estate agent. Are there any good websites that private sellers use or has anyone tried private adverts in local newspapers etc. Or has anyone got a 3/4 detached for sale ?????

 

Regards

 

Col S

 

PS. Nice website. I've only just discovered it.

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I Have sold privately before, stuck a board in the garden, soon as I got an interested party, handed it over to the solicitors. Saved myself about £1k

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Hi,

 

This website might be helpful

 

http://www.thelittlehousecompany.co.uk/

 

I haven't used it as a buyer or seller (yet), but it does seem to have properties in the areas you mention regularly up for sale... and then disappearing (which must be a good sign!)

 

Good luck!

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Whatever you do try not to use Saxton Mee as they have treated us very badly I have discovered that they are very rude and offer a poor service.

:(

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Yes, I must just also add my two cents worth on BLUNDELLS estate agents.

 

When we first came to Sheffield a few years ago, we were looking to rent a house. The estate agents at BLUNDELLS (Banner Cross Branch) were appallingly rude and unhelpful. The woman we spoke to barely made eye contact as she threw a list of available properties across the table at us! Naturally we did not rent one of their properties and found an excellent private landlord.

 

However, about 6 months later we were ready to buy and - actually ended up buying through Blundells. Boy! When we walked in there as potential buyers, did we get a different reception: smiles and cup of coffee. It made me want to puke!!

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Yes I also had problems with S----- M--, I discovered that they did n't even forward our offer on to the vendor even though it was a substantial amount higher. If you are planning on selling your house do not use the Banner Cross office

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I rent from BLUNDELLS Banner Cross office... I would like to take this opportunity to tell you all never to use their service. I cannot believe the amount of grief we have had from them to get things done. Please allow me to elaborate with one of many examples:

 

January 10th, the central heating breaks down. Now you would think that this would class as an "emergency" but when i rang the office to inform the rude lady on the other end of the phone, she told me that she was too busy to help and told me to ring the "repairs hotline"... Which i did to find out that it was an answer phone. Someone else eventually rang back after 3 days to ask what was the problem. I explained that there was no central heating and she said they would sort it out "immediately". Two weeks and 5 phone calls later a plummer comes out to have a look... "Your boilers broken down mate," he sighs, packs up his tools and goes. Three more phone calls and 5 more days later i eventually end up back on the phone to one of the many super-rude rentals agents... "We can bring you an electric heater", she suggests. "Or you can fix my heating," I reply. No joy. A broken electrical heater appears. Makes an excellent door jam to keep in the meagre amount of heat we can develop from our own 2 bar electric fire. Long story short: 5 weeks on top of a flaming mountain with no heating. No attempt at an apology or refund of rent to pay for the extortionate amount of electrickery that got sucked up by our portable heater.

 

NEVER RENT FROM BLUNDELLS !!! :x :x :x

 

They are rude and project an air of: "so what do you want me to do about it?" Although they seem quite happy to remove £50 from our rent into their pockets every month!!!

 

 

[edited due to complaint - RPG]

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Or the BLUNDELLS roof incident:

 

Four months, reported: April, repaired: July, to replace three tiles. And when the builder came, he got the original slate out of the gutter where it had slid down and nailed it back on. 12 minutes job from start-end. Now we need our entire master bedroom re-wallpapering and painting to fix the damage the river of water running down the wall in the night caused.

 

I have no doubt that when it is seen to in six months or so there will be a nice man to put us some wallpaper paste on the back of the mouldy stuff and stick it back to the wall!!!

 

Nice one BLUNDELLS, you are the best :? :? :x:evil:

 

 

[edited due to complaint - RPG]

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I came to Sheffield from the Saaarf (!) 10 years ago and I've never known anywhere so polarised in terms of (what people believe to be) "good" and "bad" areas. Estate agents know this and thrive on it.

 

We have always lived in the Crookes/ Walkley area - we got lucky and bought a house we were renting and did it up, then moved once in '99 before things got ridiculous (even then, we paid 10% over the asking price). My daughter has just been enrolled at Rivelin school, so it looks like we are playing for keeps! Tried to move a couple of times and had no problem getting offers on our house, but real problems getting offers accepted - even offering 15% over wasn't enough, and we were looking in Loxley and Oughtibridge, which we thought would be more sensible than S10, but oh, no!

 

I once collared an estate agent (SM) and asked him why there was this stupid system in Sheffield where everything seems to go to a bidding war and everyone seems to throw themselves zealously into it. His reply was one word: "Schools." I don't buy it, though - estate agents are cunning creatures who know middle-class fears inside out and thrive on them. They create perceptions of certain areas (I mean, look at Crosspool -the houses are really ugly 30s semis and yet people will sell Gran into the white slave trade to live there) and are complicit in this thing called the "market" which they claim to be controlled by. They're odious people.

 

Things estate agents do for which they deserve a slap:

- Failing to pass on bids to vendors

- Underpricing to create the illusion of hot interest in a house, when in reality most of the viewers won't be in the required price bracket

- Talking areas up at the expense of others (Crookes may well be "convenient for hospitals and University", but it's quicker from Hillsboro' by tram, and yet you never see it mentioned on the particulars for houses in S6)

- Calling houses "in need of some attention" when they are quite patently falling apart

- Inventing bids to stoke up a bidding war (vendors can just as easily do this - not rocket science to get your mates to put in a fake bid, is it?)

 

And a particular mention for the snooty woman at the Crosspool-based agents - let's call them, er, Bowmans - who looked right down her nose at my wife when she went in to collect the particulars for a house in Fulwood recently. "*You* want to buy *this* house?" said her body language. Despite several phone calls, they never so much as aranged a viewing for us.

 

Now let's have an estate agent on here to refute the above and defend their profession!

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DannyBoy, I agree with most of what you have said, and people I've spoken to outside of Sheffield can't believe the system of buying houses in the city. However re. Crosspool, Greystones etc. and the 1930's semis, I and a lot of people I know, like the look of the properties from that period!

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Yes, why is Sheffield different? I've bought and/or sold in 3 other towns/cities (inc. London) always advertising an "aspirational" price in hope but ready to accept a bit of negotiating.

 

If a buyer really wants the place, offering the asking price usually closes the deal. In Sheffield the estate agent will laugh at you if you offer the asking price.

 

Here you go for a house advertised at a price you can manage only to find there's already offers 10 or 20% higher. As vendor you get the hassle of people viewing who can't afford it, as buyer you tramp round loads of places you can't afford before you start looking for those advertised 20% below your budget.

 

Q: Why don't estate agents look out of the window in the morning.

 

A: It would leave them with nothing to do in the afternoon.

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Originally posted by robh

Yes, why is Sheffield different? I've bought and/or sold in 3 other towns/cities (inc. London) always advertising an "aspirational" price in hope but ready to accept a bit of negotiating.

 

A collation of the answers/excuses I have managed to get out of estate agents on this, plus discussions among friends and peers, indicates the following:

 

- There's a lack of fantastic housing "stock" in Sheffield and so there's always a huge demand.

- Houses in Sheffield were always low-priced compared with other cities of similar size. There's a history of houses being underpriced, allegedly (although I think this is an agents' trick).

- More professionals/ aspirational families coming into Sheffield in the last 10-15 years has meant that they are overspilling the traditional areas where these people lived (Crosspool, Fulwood, Ranmoor, Millhouses et al) and pushing prices up in areas which were previously OK but not the bee's knees (e.g. Crookes)

- The good schools, or those perceived as the good schools (big difference) are all in the same areas.

- Middle-class parents are ready to mortgage themselves to the hilt in order to be in a good catchment area, and they know they will be competing with people on similar incomes with similar aspirations.

- No professional parent wants to send their kids to (e.g.) Chaucer as they think they will come out with no GCSEs, sixteen piercings, a shaved head, a penchant for joyriding and car-torching and the broadest of Sheffield accents. (My friend who lives in Crookes sees quite enough kids from the wonderful Tapton School swinging on her gate, spitting at passers-by and swearing, but that's another story...)

 

What really annoys me is that estate agents don't think we know what they are doing. They genuinely believe people swallow all this stuff. Do they think we came down in the last shower?? There is a total lack of respect in the profession for their *customers* - the people who pay their bloody wages.

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