We're selling up!

After a lot of discussion between my wife & I, meetings at work and a mountain of doubts, we've decided 2 weeks ago that it was time to sell our 2 bedroom garden flat on the Harringay ladder (north London) and move to Bristol, where Nicky is from.
This blog will tell the story as it unfolds of our next 6 months, when we are planning to sell our flat, rent a house in Bristol before buying one there.
Maybe some background information is necessary at this time.
Nicky & I are both 37 and we're the proud parent of a 3-year old devil called Issy. London's been great for us and we still ove the fact that everything that can be thought of actually exists but we also feel that we need more space in preparation of our 2nd child and could do with more family support.
Bristol ticks all the boxes and it's a coincidence but 3 couples we're close to have moved to the South West this year so the time is right too.

Anyway, we started the process by contacting 5 'local' estate agents last week, which valued the flat between £300,000 & £350,000.
Keatons offered a 0% commision deal, as part of their marketing drive the enter the area so we chose them on a 4-week basis.

Since all the agents had their specific style, I'd thought that I'd use this plage to share it with anyone who's interested:

Castles: Director Panos was very friendly and claimed to be the first one in the area (17 years ago) so his knowledge of Haring ay was amazing. Like others, his agency was linked with one other in Crouch End, to benefit from the overflow of people would like the lifestyle but can't afford to live round the broadway. Commission: 1.25% (down to 1% when we announced that we went with Keatons)

Winkworth: Michael was very friendly too and with wealth of knowledge (he worked for Paul Simon before setting up Winkworth in N8 1 year ago). Commission: 1.5%

Foxtons: Caroline was very professional and she was convincing regarding the strength of Foxtons (huge marketing...) but we thought that we wanted some more personnalised service, plus Foxtons had no local presence, the office being in Muswell Hill. Her valuation at £330k was correct but with a commission of 2.5%, we declined.

Bairstow Eves: Ruben made a repeated claim that he sold No.4 and had 2 buyers waiting. He seems to have a strong bias towards the buyers and had we wanted to sell our flat at £300k, we would probably have gone with him but he was reluctant to try a higher price. Commission: 1.5%

Keatons: They won our business with their 0% offer and their strong marketing, partly inspired by Foxtons. There is a question mark about their ability of get enough viewings to make a sell but the 0% offer was too good to resist and we decided to serve our notice (4-week) so if we're not happy with them after that time, we'll change agent. Commision: 0% (up to Sept. 28th) then 2.25%

The pictures will be taken on Tuesday and the flat for sale on Wednesday at £335k so watch this space...