Great 'What I wish I'd known as a newbie house seller' Hunt

Paul_Ojelay

I have over a decade of experience in buying & selling houses and have helped 100s of clients do the same. Main tips:

• Make it an investment decision, not an emotional.
• Plan and reseach well in advance - regular check rightmove or similar website sold and for sale prices.
• Have a definate minimum sale price and timescale written down and have a written back up plan in case you do not achieve it.
• Pretend to be a buyer and see how low other sellers in your area will go after bartering.
• Never trust an estate agent. Get at least three agents to value your property and barter with their fees. Make sure they take lots of photos to use on internet advertisement.
• Make sure your property interior & exterior is clean and tidy. White & magnolia paint and replacment cheap cream/natural carpets will help sell.
• Remember most buyers are led to buy on emoitional not investment decisions.
• Be nice to potential buyers. Ask them what they are looking for. Provide email & contact number.
• Use a conveyancer who has a good relationship with your IFA.
• Use an IFA who offers advice with a choice of fee or commision rather than a mortgage broker. The aim of most mortgage brokers is to sell mortgages. You may need advice without a product involved and the sale of a property is a major life planning event for most people, which may affect your retirment planning, tax postion, inheritance issues, etc.
• Have somewhere to move to & take book sufficient time off work.
• Makesure your inform all institutions of your change of address.

Muldoon_2

Hi Guys
We have just sold, for £1k over the asking price! we made the house immaculate inside and out, The wife made the agent come back and retake some of the photos , paid 1% fees got a hip through our agent £250. Used a fantastic of the "internet" solictor (Lambert & Pugh in Norwich, we are near Brighton) who was £550 cheaper than any local one So got the HIP and survey with the savings. We sold for £8k more then the house next door. People who viewed both could not believe how much nicer our house was. De-clutter, do the tip run, De-clutter again! We had four full price offers the first weekend of viewing!

Bufger

Direct contact with your buyer can help reduce anxiety in the long periods where the sale doesnt seem to be moving. It can also identify which end of the deal is lagging behind so the relevant party can get it moving again.

This is only advisable if you are a reasonable judge of character. Nobody wants direct contact with someone that will constantly hastle them but it is often comforting knowing that the other people are still moving towards the sale and arent likely to pull out of it.

Its better to be open an honest than be caught out hiding something towards the end, this can easily ruin the sale and lead to your buyers pulling out. Honesty is the best policy!

pie81

Here's what I learned when selling for the first time last year:

Consider using a site like homenetwork to sell. You'll have to do viewings, negotiation of price, and chasing up the chain yourself (we decided against it because of this), but you'll save loads on EA fees.

Always get several EA valuations and don't be tempted by any that seem too good to be true. They are. Do your own research on similar properties that have sold recently in the area so you can judge what is a fair price. Bear in mind that you will always be biased in favour of your own home - after all you bought it!

Negotiate with the EA before signing, not only on their fee, but also on their terms. Read their contract carefully. Many still try to get away with terms that allow them to charge a fee even if you sell the place privately to a friend, or even if you fire the EA and then sell to someone completely new through a new agent. If you see terms like this, cross them out before signing.

Don't get the HIP from the EA (at least not without shopping around first), they are often overpriced. I'd suggest Hips4u.

Once you've accepted an offer, make sure your buyer is getting on with things. You have taken the place off the market, they should be showing commitment too by booking in the survey asap and getting mortgage arranged. If they don't get on with it, give them a deadline and then put the place back on the market.

Also check with your solicitor regularly to check where everything's got to.

Don't lie on the HIP or the seller's questionnaires, they form part of the sale contract and you can be sued if they are wrong.

Many buyers these days will try to knock the price down as a result of "defects" in the property. This is fair enough if it's something large, like damp or roof issues, but if it's just minor niggles stand your ground. (Our buyers tried to knock the price down just because they thought some plasterwork needed repairing and the fusebox was old...)

Noggin_the_Nog_2

When I sold my old flat, it had been occupied by tenants and was pretty empty of pictures and decorative things when they moved out. It looked pretty bleak and would have looked awful in photos.

I went to IKEA in a taxi, spent about £120 and came back with colourful rugs (£2 each, I seem to remember), throws, pictures, decorative baskets to put on the empty shelves, bright teatowels to hang in the kitchen, fresh towels for the bathroom, attractive cushions, etc., and managed to get the whole lot in a taxi back.

By the time I'd installed that lot it looked fantastic, particularly the burnt orange bed-throw (£6). The photos looked great.

So, my recommendation is that if your home is looking a bit bland or empty, go to somewhere like IKEA where you can get colourful, attractive stuff for very little money, and brighten it up. I'm sure it helped get me loads of viewers!

jayohne

first posting so please treat me gently!!

I sold my last house in 2003 and because the market was buoyant and I worked for a large company with an electronic notice board I chose to sell the house without an agent... and save on the fee.

I valued the house sensibly, took lots of nice pictures or my freshly de-cluttered house and got a buyer pretty quickly for a good price... and saved about £3000 in fees.

But one word of warning....

When I was buying my next house the vendor (seller) had received offers from myself and another potential buyer. As part of the buying process the estate agents will check out each buyer so that they can advise the vendor as to which is the best offer. Part of this "checking out" investigation is to confirm that you are in a position to move i.e. you have sold your current house. The estate agent was easily able to confirm this from the other buyer by contacting the selling agent but since I had no agent I was asked to provide written proof that I had an offer on my current house. It was not possible to get this sorted out in the time frame required and so the agent recommended that the vendor accepted the other buyers offer.

So.. in summary. I saved a load by selling on my own but was at a slight disadvantage when buying my next property.

dander

Think outside the box for finding solicitors. I got a very good deal on mine because the union I belong to at work offered a discount on various legal services with their recommended solicitor - something like this means you win twice because you get a reccommended solicitor as well as the low price.

Even in this internet-based day and age, not everyone uses Rightmove (at least when I sold in 2006 I found this to be the case). An estate agent with a busy high-street location will get you more viewings. A for sale board makes a huge difference, especially if your property is in a "good" location - people do still make enquiries based on seeing a board in a place that interests them.

If there are any problems with your property or issues that you think might cause people to have second thoughts, don't try to hide them. It's better to have people not make an offer in the first place and you don't waste the time and money on progressing the sale, than they keep dropping out when the survey results come back or they find out how short the lease is or whatever.

An estate agent that is open on Sunday is better, many people want to view houses on weekends. However, in my experience (flat in london) a lot of viewings also take place during working hours. Give your keys to your estate agent if you can and keep the place in good condition - then you can let the estate agent take people round at short notice, even if you are working.

Be brutally honest about your house. Recognise what the disadvantages are - even if you can't do anything about them it helps you to be prepared for people's reactions and helps you be realistic about the price if you accept that not everyone will consider living right next door to a pub (for instance) an advantage.

Befriend your estate agent. They are best placed to know what's going on in the market in your area and how people are reacting to your property, both when they show them the details and when/if they view it. People will be more honest with an agent than with the owner of the house. Keep talking to the agent to find out why you're getting the reaction you're getting and figure out what you need to change. Also it pays to keep your profile up at the agents - talk to them at least once a week and your property will stay top of the pile, don't talk to them for weeks on end and they might not know if you are still seriously selling and start to leave your details in the filing cabinet.

MoneyBags

My main tips would be - when selling:

1. Make sure anything in the EA details are correct. When selling our 1st house the property was listed with a parking space - the actual space didnt belong to us - but was actually unregistered land (according the to the land registry) - this mistake cost us £5k

2. Anything agreed when with the EA / vendor when negotiating a price should be included in the "memorandum of sale" sent to all parties once an agreement has been made ... we were promised a range cooker was part of the house only to find out the vendor wanted £500 for it later

mrs_T

Get the boiler serviced and have a report of condition and a receipt. We had to repay a £1000 of our selling price when our purchaser had scottish gas booked to condem our old one the day they moved in. Even more gauling when they boasted what a bargain they'd got all round town plus our kids go to the same school so I still have to see them five years later. We had 25 viewings and only one offer which was considerably less than our solicitor (in Scotland) had told us we would get. I didn't ask for what he said we'd get even when people asked how much we were looking for in the hope we might get more. Offers over is very difficult.

Pink_Amber_2

I am new to this, so I hope I'm doing it right!!

I am just in the process of selling my first property, but I would like to recommend myHIPhome, as they were one of the cheapest HIP providers and they got the information back to me very quickly. In fact I was able to market my property within 48 hours of applying.