Selling privately

tolland

Hi,

I am putting my flat up for sale privately as I am pretty happy with the process having been involved in a few sales before.

However I am interested in finding out where are the cheapest places to list the property on the web. So far I have listed the site on 4 free listings sites, but have had no response.

Does anyone know what the biggest sites are for private listings, and whether there are any specific forums or websites or tutorials with good advice on selling privately?

thanks,

T

googler

How long has it been on the free sites?

If you dare, tell us where and get some opinion on whether or not your lack of response is due to the presentation, the price, or the sites themselves.....

tolland

Apparently I am not yet allowed to post links, but I can say that I posted to the co.uk versions of craigslist, roofandwalls and the dot com version of buyitprivately

and I was thinking about sites like the littlehousecompany or housenetwork but its not clear which of those sites is the most successful for their advertising networks.

benjo

I know you havent specifically asked this question but I hope my response isnt unwelcome.

I viewed many properties late 08/early 09, of those, three were being sold privately (all lovely places). They all had a few things in common.......

1. A questionable valuation. One had not been valued at all, its price was determined by how much the owner 'needed to make' in order for him to buy his next house.

The other two had been valued by estate agents, the vendors felt the local estate agents 'didnt appreciate' how nice/special their houses were, didnt agree with the valuations and decided to set what they felt was an appropriate price.

2. During a period of time when the local/national housing market was in decline and many, many local properties were being reduced in price to reflect the change in market conditions, none of these vendors reduced their prices.

3. Some 18 months down the line, all three properties remain unsold, I suspect because they were and remain overpriced given our local housing market.

I'm a big fan of money saving and if you can save estate agents fees - all power to you :beer:, my only experience of this led me to feel that private sellers were not fully in touch with the local housing market, Im sure that doesnt apply to you, but worth keeping track of.

Goodluck in selling.

PasturesNew

tolland wrote: »

Apparently I am not yet allowed to post links, but I can say that I posted to the co.uk versions of craigslist, roofandwalls and the dot com version of buyitprivately

and I was thinking about sites like the littlehousecompany or housenetwork but its not clear which of those sites is the most successful for their advertising networks.

Never heard of some of those... and that's the thing with this type of method/website, they don't get the coverage that sites like Rightmove do.

Here's a list of sell your own house websites, there are 3-4 free ones you can try on here:

http://hubpages.com/hub/List-of-Sell-Your-Own-House-Websites

I'd agree with post #4 that said private sellers don't tend to have a grasp of the value of their house ... and don't keep up with market changes.

tolland

I can imagine its a big problem not having the estate agent to bring you down to earth ;-)

I have a friend who is an estate agent, and he has lots of good stories about how clueless sellers can be. In one place he was doing a viewing at, there was a shopping trolley in the front garden and cat food all over the kitchen floor, and dogs hair everywhere and the vendor was surprised that they had lots of viewings and no offers.

googler

IMHO, you'll get next to no exposure at all on these.

I once looked at craigslist to see if there were any properties in my area, and all it had was ads from US-based 'realtors' trying to sell their vacation properties in Florida and suchlike.....

shirlgirl2004

I have seen a house I was mildly interested in sold under housenetwork. It sold quite quickly. I sold privately but didn't need to advertise but yes it is pretty straight forward. I have seen plenty of houses remain unsold even with agents. In the area I had been looking WilliamHBrown were particularly unrealistic with their pricing. Houses were sitting for months (years even!) unsold.

TrickyDicky

benjo wrote: »

1. A questionable valuation. One had not been valued at all, its price was determined by how much the owner 'needed to make' in order for him to buy his next house.

Ive just had a look on housenetwork for where I live. Looks like you're correct. Theres a house thats about £100k more than similar properties are on rightmove for!

Doozergirl

The rule is always going to be that if you want to hit a lot of people then you have to spend money doing it or wait a long time. Big brands spend big money getting into people's faces. You can't hit large numbers of people on a website that no-one looks at.

I just don't bother with private sale sites. I too find the vendors unrealistic in their sale prices and that puts me off even wasting time looking for one that might be reasonably priced. The houses on these sites are few and literally far between, you're lucky if you find one in the town you're looking at.

I think you need a 'for sale' board at least - it's the only way someone like me would find you. And the board will get you people that are at least looking in your specific area.

House Network is an online agent - not free but it is much cheaper than a high street sgent and will get you onto Rightmove and the other big property portals where buyers are looking in numbers. That's my tried and tested method for selling cheaply.

phlash

House Network - great service.

Some people have jumped the gun in their opinions above, because House Network of course gets you excellent coverage.

The big plus for me, is getting to speak to the buyers at a viewing.

House Network gives you access to alter details and price etc live online, great tool.

My friends used it and recommend accordingly.

PS. Oh and of course great price!