Selling a house privately - Any tips?

dora37

Thanks for all your opinions - I think the general consensus is to go for it!

I'm not naiive, quite logical and love a challenge, so once I've done all the relevant groundwork & got Christmas out of the way, then we are going to go for it!!

Our house was built in 2000, another same design house is also up for sale @ £269,000 - has been up for about 3 weeks, however they do have a conservatory at the back and a slightly wider garden (main drains going through), their decor is 90's ish, their living/dining room is a through room, where we have had ours filled in to make 2 separate rooms. Their kitchen has also not been updated, where ours has and the general feel of our house is much more modern.

I think their price is not a realistic one, so bearing in mind they have extra floor space (conservatory) and the stamp duty threshold, when we sell ours we intend to put it up for £249,500. Obviously this may need to change dependent on the market after Christmas.

One quick last question (only for now no doubt!). Our 5th Bedroom is currently used as an office, would you market it as a reasonable sized study or small 5th bedroom(8'10 x 6'7)?

HGLTsuperstar

Personally I would say 4 beds + study as you give the impression of more range and variety. Given the measurements its a very small bedroom but classic study size and there of course is the option of saying "Bedroom 5/Study." What are you using it as at the moment as the furniture layout will give the impression to a viewer, i.e. if no bed then say its a study!

Robert_Sterling_3

lin473 wrote:

We sold our first property privately via an ad in the local paper.
It was a sellers market though, in an area which had few properties available at our price .We immediately sold to first time buyers and started a reserve list in case that fell through.They were unable to get a mortgage,so we contacted the person who was at the top of the reserve list and sold at the full asking price to a (retired widow)cash buyer.

The fact that you sold your house so easily may be because the asking price was lower than it could have been.

nmiah786

Dora.......Just out of curiosity where is your place?

dora37

HGLTsuperstar wrote:

Personally I would say 4 beds + study as you give the impression of more range and variety. Given the measurements its a very small bedroom but classic study size and there of course is the option of saying "Bedroom 5/Study." What are you using it as at the moment as the furniture layout will give the impression to a viewer, i.e. if no bed then say its a study!

It is being used as a study at present (sat in it right now!), however the reason I asked the question was that if was best to present it as a single bedroom, then I would.

dora37

nmiah786 wrote:

Dora.......Just out of curiosity where is your place?

I could be posh and say Cheshire, but to be more precise it's Warrington!

nmiah786.....Just out of curiosity, why do you want to know ?

nmiah786

dora37 wrote:

I could be posh and say Cheshire, but to be more precise it's Warrington!

nmiah786.....Just out of curiosity, why do you want to know ?

:rotfl:

Thought it might be in the areas that I'm looking at. Ilford, London or thereabouts....obviously not????

dora37

nmiah786 wrote:

:rotfl:

Thought it might be in the areas that I'm looking at. Ilford, London or thereabouts....obviously not????

Surely you couldn't get a 4+ bedroom house, garage with parking for 4 cars for £249000 in London !? I know a lot of people were predicting a drop in the market - but surely not that much!

lin473

Robert_Sterling wrote:

The fact that you sold your house so easily may be because the asking price was lower than it could have been.

It could have been,but it wasn't.We actually put it on for above the valuations (We originally intended to use an agent before deciding to have a go privately when we found out what the fees were!) with a view to dropping if necessary.
As I said earlier it was the scarcity of such properties that caused it to sell so easily.
We have always used agents subsequently,as the market has not been quite so much on our side.

lush_walrus

In my opinion I would say there are some areas where you will need to be very careful about selling privately. Before I start though I should tell you that I come from an EA background so Ill try to tell you what I think rather than be biased.

Finding a buyer wont be such a huge problem a lot of people look on the internet now, but still many buy the local papers so get your house into those, preferably with a picture so that you dont get as many time wasters, and dont put your actual address as you will get random people knocking on the door at all times of the day, as somehow people tend to feel that they have a right to when you are agentless!

If you are in an area that people pass by, get yourself a for sale board, there will be manufacturers near you they are everywhere and I'm not sure what they will charge for an individual board, but you will get a lot of enquiries from that. But perhaps if you arent in a rush and can wait for a while then perhaps try adverts first.

Assuming that you find a buyer, the next part will be the hardest challenge in selling privately. You will need to make a judgement as to whether the person is genuine and getting on with the sale or not. There are lots who will make out they are set on buying yours, but will actually still be looking around after putting in an offer, and you could be unlucky and get one of those. So try to keep onto them and pro active in pushing the sale along.

Once you have accepted their offer, you need to get their solicitor details and give them yours. Get straight on with this, as the longer people fester, the more likely they will mess you around.

Find out how they are financing the property, ie are they getting a mortgage, has the offer already been made, who is their broker etc. Get all the details you can, and follow it up, call the broker and see if what they are telling you is true. Again you could be facing someone who tells you they have finance in place but in reality has a string of CCJs and no chance in hell of getting a mortgage for the value of your house.

If they have a property and are part of a chain, get the EAs details and call, check the chain is complete and all is progressing.

As the sale goes on, keep chasing for the survey to be done as this is always the real breaking point, if someone is prepared to put their money where their mouth is. Its easy to run around offering on anything, but once someone starts to spend money on buying it you get a reasurance that they are at least serious.

Keep everything as unpersonal and as professional as you can, don't make friends with them, as then you will have a greater chance of a falling out or them asking extra of you or at best keep requesting to come around for this that and the other.

Chase your solicitor and get them to chase theirs. If there are EAs involved with the chain then keep on to them to find out that the chain is complete and stays that way. If you ask your buyer, likelyhood is they wont tell you if the chain has problems, so keep talking to any EAs as they will be constantly calling up and down the chain to make sure that everything is in place. You will need to do this job.

Personally I would never sell privately, as although you can in theory save a bit of money, the hassle that you may have to take on board might just not be worth it. You could be lucky and get a straight foward offer from an honest FTB, but chains always lead to complications, and dealing with people again has many complications!

Good luck, its worth a try, but keep a track of things the whole time. Dont let anything slip and dont let people bluff you along the way!