Advice on Selling House

KMK

I have just retired and have decided to sell an unfurnished family cottage which has been rented out, to boost my pension. The tenants have left today and as the house is 100 miles away my sister went to the hand over. She was shocked at how the tenants had treated the house. I can afford to do up the house but I am 100 miles away and unable to organize and oversee installing of new kitchen etc and will have to try and sell it in its present neglected state.

Am I right to cut my losses and sell cheaply or take on the stress of renovations from 100 miles away? Are there agencies that will oversee such work for a fee?

Advice gratefully received.

Doozergirl

You don't want to take on the stress of refurbishing a property when the fact is that many people seem prepared to pay a premium for a 'project'. Paying someone to do a job when you're 100 miles away sounds pretty stressful too as it's very hard to specify what you want from a distance andthere are always decisions to be made.

In my area particularly, there seems to be a lack of stock needing work and as such, people are tripping over themselves to buy them and wasting vast sums of money in the process.

The two best ways best way to sell a house needing work are to
a) Sell it on the open market, advertising it as needing upgrading and use 'offers over (something incredibly low)' as a guide price. It creates a shocking amount of interest and several offers.
b) Put it into auction with a local Estate Agent that holds small auctions on a regular basis. In my area, properties get large, regular adverts in the paper, the auction room is full to bursting and the properties always go for more than they should when you consider the cost of work. If we find a good project that someone hasn't already shouted about from the rooftops, we've said that next time we'll risk the auction fee and see if we can sell it on straight away in exactly this way.