The Great Hunt: What are your house-selling tips?

Sold my house last October, internet "Private house for Sale" sign bought and a post from Wickes total less than £30.00. put up start of April 2013. Used my self employ work mobile number on the sign. Shopped around for and Energy cert (must have to sell a house) provider £40.00ish.
Factors that helped: 1) Other properties for sale in the street. 2) Sensible price above what I would take as my lowest offer. Extras included (said this on sign) carpets, sustains, blinds, washing machine, some furniture all included in the price. within a couple of months the sale was agreed and as the price was sensible i stipulated that the buyer was responsible for gas and elect test etc. The only thing to slow the sale down was his mortgage broker dragging his feet and I had a holiday planned at the time we could have completed. Just used the same sign and formula to sell my girlfriend house this year. Same sign went up end on March this year and the sale is almost sorted and she expects to move out at the end of July. The magic sign will be used again to try and sell my girlfriends mums house next year. I have seen other private signs and think the colours black and amber stand out best, my sign is a bit too much brick red in colour and does bot stand out as well but it worked. Just be honest when meeting buyers that the price reflects what your selling and both parties can benefit from not having estate agents fee to factor in and being in direct contact you can deal with any issues directly with the buyer. I bought a bungalow November 2011 and the estate agent almost messed up the sale by offering the seller £10K less than I had offered. Kind regards

Agree with all of the above, but the best money saving tip I can add is to use an online estate agent and do the viewings yourself. As a buyer, I would always want to view houses at evenings and weekends, which (as a seller) is the same time at which I have the free time to do myself. When I sold my london flat 3 years ago, the online estate agent fee was about £500 in total, including about 20 high quality photos (therefore eradicating pointless viewings because they already knew what they were going to see), 360 degree views, and measured and created floorplans. That was all done in one visit. Then there were placements on all the big websites (inc rightmove) and they organised the viewings with a single point of contact. They also had a chat function on the online account so you can talk with the agent without having to call in to them. We had 3 offers from 11 viewings (inc 3 2nd viewings). Saved somewhere around 1500-2500 depending on which agent you compare to - and sold for over the asking price.
Highly recommended!

Recently had an excellent experience with online Estate Agent - eMmoov / My property For Sale. Total cost of sale was £200 for 1 month on Rightmove. Included was house valuation; photographs & floor plan, all arranged by them. For £400, the advertisement could have been on Rightmove for 12 months. House was sold to first viewers. Be warned - your local Estate Agents regularly check Rightmove and will hound you - phone calls, letters & even a knock on the door - as they were about to lose Agents Fees of approx. £10k in my case!! Pay £400 or £10k to sell your house - no brainer! If you do still want to use an Estate Agent afterwards, the fact that you are already on Rightmove is good for you, when negotiating a lower Agent's fee, as all the other Agents know that your property is for sale. They will fight each other to give you the best deal! Can't be bad.