Selling - property valuation - what to ask?

misskiti · 8 February 2018 at 12:40PM

Hi,

We are looking to buy your mother in laws house so need to sell ours. I!!!8217;ve never sold a house before and I!!!8217;ve got three estate agents coming to give valuations. Please can you give me tips on what I need to ask for? The mother in law says I should ask for a fixed price, though I was under the impression they used a % commission? Any help is appreciated.

Thanks in advance

spriggsy · 8 February 2018 at 1:00PM

Depends which estate agent you go with. Some charge a commission on completion, others charge a fixed fee up front. Purple Bricks is one example, you pay £849 fixed fee up front.

We've just put ours up for sale with an agent that charges a fixed fee on completion (albeit a bit more expensive than their fixed fee up front package), but that gives up a bit more flexibility in that if we decide to come off the market we won't get charged anything.

If you know 100% you want to sell the house then go for a fixed fee up front. It will be cheaper and you can budget for it.

You aren't bound by any of the estate agents that come to value anyway, and they will give you their costs when they visit, so you'll be able to make your own judgement from there.

Be sure to ask what you get with the price. Some will charge extras for things like floor plans, printed brochures etc where as others all include it within the price.

ashe · 8 February 2018 at 1:22PM

Hi,

make sure you don;t get tied into a long contract. You want 12 weeks maximum.

We did fixed fee and you can negotiate this quite low if you are lucky.

Try the site GetAgent to compare what is available in your area and how many sales we make - we found the agent we were with had the lowest sales and the highest bloody fees! Sign NOTHING on the day, take away their quotes, compare fixed term, what you get for the money and fee and then play the agents you like best off on each other to see if they will match a fictitious fee offered by one of the other agents. nothing outrageous, but you can shave some off. Fixed fee up front will be cheaper but then if it doesn't sell youve still paid and will be moving, so I would go no sale no fee unless your house is mega and in a very sellable market.

Our first agent was going to charge us £2400 fixed fee and we were locked in for 6 months. Our current EA is charging us £940 and 8 week minimum term and they sold within a week.

Tom99 · 8 February 2018 at 1:42PM

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]You also have to take with a certain pinch of salt the figure the EA tells you to advertise the property at. Some are more honest than others but they will all know that sellers might be swayed by the thought of achieving a high price.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Ask then to produce comparable sales to back up their price prediction.[/FONT]

ashe · 8 February 2018 at 1:51PM

Yers definitely agree with Tom99, they will overvalue to get your business.

Conduct a search on Rightmove on properties in your street and surrounding area to see what they have actually sold for, Land registry data should show sales up to around Nov by now, and look at what properties are currently on the market and are sold STC and what they are listed at, and look at properties that are listed and have been for a long time and what they are marketed at, and form a sensible opinion.

Ignore them when they tell you its a great time to sell and show you a few right move properties going for X amount, its all sales guff - be realistic. We wasted 6 months due to EA valuing our house at £12k more than it eventually sold at.

eddddy · 8 February 2018 at 1:58PM

There's the contractual stuff and the question of how good they are at selling property.

(There's no point in going with the cheapest EA, if they're not going to be able to sell your property and/or achieve a good price.)

On the contractual side - understand all the fees payable in all circumstances... maybe you want to go for "no sale, no fee". That means:

- No 'ready, willing and able' clause
- No withdrawal/termination fees

(i.e. What happens about fees if you change your mind about selling, perhaps because your MiL changes her mind about selling, or you can't get a new mortgage etc.)

PokerPlayer111 · 8 February 2018 at 2:25PM

Estate agents work in sales, their valuations are often no greater than average person. Personally i'd put it for sale on an online site with fixed fee so its on rightmove zoopla (all the potential buyers can see it for sale then). Start at a high price and work my way down every 2 weeks.

House_Martin · 8 February 2018 at 4:10PM

spriggsy wrote: »

Depends which estate agent you go with. Some charge a commission on completion, others charge a fixed fee up front. Purple Bricks is one example, you pay £849 fixed fee up front.

We've just put ours up for sale with an agent that charges a fixed fee on completion (albeit a bit more expensive than their fixed fee up front package), but that gives up a bit more flexibility in that if we decide to come off the market we won't get charged anything.

If you know 100% you want to sell the house then go for a fixed fee up front. It will be cheaper and you can budget for it.

You aren't bound by any of the estate agents that come to value anyway, and they will give you their costs when they visit, so you'll be able to make your own judgement from there.

Be sure to ask what you get with the price. Some will charge extras for things like floor plans, printed brochures etc where as others all include it within the price.

Purple Bricks charge a fixed fee as you say but that price is if you do your own viewings.Add another £300 if you want them to do the viewings which starts creeping up within a few hundred of the lower priced local estate agents.
I would also advise not to take Purple Bricks online solicitors for conveyancing. They will take an age to deal with completion and conveyancing and may well scare off potential buyers in the 6 months they may take to get the paperwork done. No sale until they sign to exchange contracts.
We used Purple Bricks and were impressed with their website which kept us in touch promptly with everyone who was interested in a viewing. I missed a couple of viewings myself through my own fault but otherwise it all went OK. They have an 11 month limit so it may encourage people to drop the prices coming up to the end of their term when another £850 would be due

G_M · 8 February 2018 at 4:12PM

misskiti wrote: »

Hi,

We are looking to buy your mother in laws house so need to sell ours.

My mother in law does not have a house for sale.

Or indeed, a house.

Come to think of it, I don't have a mother in law!

Mahsroh · 8 February 2018 at 4:16PM

G_M wrote: »

My mother in law does not have a house for sale.

I was tempted to post this earlier, but stopped myself! I'm pleased somebody else spotted it!

misskiti · 8 February 2018 at 4:23PM

Some very useful info here, thank you.

Also, some pedants about!

First valuation happening shortly, will see what happens.

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Selling - property valuation - what to ask?

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