Selling a house privately

Sothy

Hi

I'm looking at moving this year - now I'm quite lucky that I bought my little 2up/2 down years ago before the prices started to spiral, so I have lots of equity (I think) and my house is a FTB's house so witha bit of luck, with the mortgage rate at the moment I may get some interest...

Now, having looked around (and asked friends who have moved a few times) it seems to me that if I can I should try and sell privately - go through the solicitors etc but skip out the estate agent.

So I'm thinking to get a few local estate agents to price my house, then put it on the market privately. Do I still need to provide a HIP's if I do this?

Then the next one - as well as driving around potential area's looking for 'For Sale' boards, many people nowadays browse through the web. Can anyone recommend any sites they have used to list their house?

After a look around, there seem to be 2 main ones...

www. housenetwork.co.uk
seems to be very professional and lists the houses in the big sites like Rightmove, but they are also comparatively expensive (£345 - £700 depending on package)

www. mypropertyforsale - much cheaper (£99 - £150) but doesn't seem to list in the bigger sites, I think www. home.co.uk if you pay the extra £50

Any advice / recommendations would be welcome!

Thanks

googler

"sell privately - go through the solicitors etc but skip out the estate agent."

Not quite the definition of 'selling privately' that absolves you of the HIP obligation. If you put a sale board up outside your house, if you put it on a website, if you place an ad in your local newsagent - that's 'putting your house on the market', not 'selling privately'.

If you decide to sell to your neighbour/brother/cousin without advertising to the general public, that's selling privately.

Sothy

googler wrote: »

"sell privately - go through the solicitors etc but skip out the estate agent."

Not quite the definition of 'selling privately' that absolves you of the HIP obligation. If you put a sale board up outside your house, if you put it on a website, if you place an ad in your local newsagent - that's 'putting your house on the market', not 'selling privately'.

If you decide to sell to your neighbour/brother/cousin without advertising to the general public, that's selling privately.

Sorry - I mean 'Putting the house on the market'

Apparently (reading the last post of the sticky in this section) I will need a HIP and an EPC for this. Looking at that selfsame sticky, the earlier posts that cover my question were in 2004ish so would like some recent advice on what service people have used..

Thanks!

googler

Which area of the country are you in, and crucially - how many houses do these sites have for sale in your area?

If there aren't many, what guarantee do you have that anyone will see your house on these sites? Why would they look there?

If I were a seller, I wouldn't use housenetwork, because there's around 550 homes for sale in my county - none of which are on housenetwork. They're all on other sites (not Rightmove).

Sothy

googler wrote: »

Which area of the country are you in, and crucially - how many houses do these sites have for sale in your area?

If there aren't many, what guarantee do you have that anyone will see your house on these sites? Why would they look there?

If I were a seller, I wouldn't use housenetwork, because there's around 550 homes for sale in my county - none of which are on housenetwork. They're all on other sites (not Rightmove).

I'm in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. on the Rightmove site there's hundreds of houses for sale, and housenetwork lists on there as well as findaproperty, which seem to be the biggest sites people check out (I know that I did).

I think I'll post on home.co.uk, and create my own website with pictures and such (about £6 for 2 years!) and go from there...

Davesnave

Assuming you find a buyer this way, and that's quite a big assumption in these troubled times, who is going to do the negotiation? If it's you, then I feel that's another obstacle.

As a buyer, I would run a mile from negotiating directly with the seller. Owners of property become emotional about it, and many lack sufficient maturity to separate their feelings from the process once bargaining begins with no skilled intermediary.

Finally, people who try to 'skip' agent's fees may be seen as penny-pinching and unlikely to be as open to negotiation than others. It doesn't matter what the reality is, it's the perception that counts.

Still, if you're in no hurry.........

david29dpo

If you market the house, be it with an agent, a home-made board, internet, shout from the rooftops etc. you need a HIP

mouk

sorry to barge in

im in a similar situation and am looking to sell my house to a family friend.
do i still need to produce & provide hip?

Georgie4

Estate agents do cost but the way the market is at the moment I think it may take you a LOT longer to sell your property without it being marketed in your local area. There is also all the hassle of viewings and chasing up solictors etc when you do get a sale - solicitors will be far more inclined to give information out to an estate agent about their client than they will to you. I would also be wary of a site that was offering a 2 year price - what does that tell you ??

david29dpo

mouk wrote: »

sorry to barge in

im in a similar situation and am looking to sell my house to a family friend.
do i still need to produce & provide hip?

As long as there has been no marketing, no.

Richard_Webster

It isn't just a case of finding a buyer but of making sure that a sale will go through.

A good estate agent will check whether the buyer is likely to be able to get a mortgage of the amount he wants. Can you do that? Do you know enough about the mortgage market to tell whether a potential buyer is a no-hoper or not?

If your property is not first time buyer matrerial then there could be a chain beneath your buyer. Are they OK or will one of them pull out?