Great 'Sell your Own House' Hunt

ltn

I was struggling to see what the local estate agents did for their money after 3 of them came to value my house, and not one of them had done their homework, beyond a cursory glance at mouseprice etc.

I decided to sell my home myself and acheived 25% more than their average valuation, and since I've noticed prices on the same road have been in line with my sale price!

My advice to make it easy and successful are:

1, Get your home looking A1 - it pays.

2, Do your own research on house prices, be thorough, and stay realistic.

3, Get a professional photographer to do the pics. Cost me about £100. It's the biggest thing you'll probably ever sell, their equipment and expertise will make it look it's best.

4, Use a local printer to make your brochures. They can do a small number for you. I paid about £2 per brochure (no min number) and the results were far superior to home printed brochures (tried both).

5, Advertise in your local paper and pay the extra to have a nice photo with your ad. Better still, ask if your local rag will do a feature on your house in their property section - make it sound interesting and they might!

6, Put a professional looking sign up. A sign maker can do one for you. No crappy bits of card/ ply board. It'll look bodged and reflect badly on your house. The biggest chunk of enquiries came from ours.
Put a mobile number on there and address of the website you choose to advertise on - so what if the neighbours want a nosey! Invite them round - they might have family / friends who want to live close by.

7, If you don't like negotiations get your solicitior, or even a trustworthy friend to deal with it for you. Don't be afraid to ask for proof of financing.

8, Be patient and keep calm, your house will sell!

In short, there's nothing an estate agent can do that you can't do yourself (in fact you can probably do it better). I used houseladder, but just had a quick look at housenetwork and they can get you on rightmove / globrix for not too much money which sounds good to me.

Hope this is some help someone.

Suzanne

Davehat

I sold my house privately over 3 years ago because like so many others I was aggrieved at paying estate agents thousnds of pounds for not much! At that time there weren't really any sites to do it, so I put a board in the garden. It did sell eventually but it took a long time. I am selling again and this time I have used comparethehouses.com. I used them because it was very easy to use, the property details look professional and its free. I still think this way of selling is a bit of a gamble, but if it's free, then why not? My advice would be to take some good photos and put some effort in to your descriptions. I have also sent an email to friends and family to let them know I'm selling and asked them to pass it on to anyone they know who is looking.

Dave, Leeds

sshaw101

Kitcaboodle wrote: »

I confess that I am mainly a lurker but, I find myself also suspicious about the number of posts from people who joined this month who seem to have signed up purely to plug a site or trash one recommended by other people who've been around here for longer. I am interested in this subject, as my in-laws are trying to sell their place at the moment and haven't had much luck with estate agents. It's a shame if this thread gets de-railed by dodgy posters.

Hi

My in-laws are currently selling their house - I have talked them into doing it online with hatched.co.uk.

Had the guy round yesterday to take photos and measure up very professional and the cost compared to high street estate agents is unbelievable, it is saving them about £3k. Their house should be listed next week so will see how it goes and report back.

As for EPC we paid £38 (roughly) using Fridays Property Lawyers which appears to be the cheapest around. Do it through the internet and they contact you within 24 hours - had the EPC completed 2 days later.

Davesnave

sshaw101 wrote: »

Hi

My in-laws are currently selling their house - I have talked them into doing it online with hatched.co.uk.

Had the guy round yesterday to take photos and measure up very professional and the cost compared to high street estate agents is unbelievable, it is saving them about £3k. Their house should be listed next week so will see how it goes and report back.

As for EPC we paid £38 (roughly) using Fridays Property Lawyers which appears to be the cheapest around. Do it through the internet and they contact you within 24 hours - had the EPC completed 2 days later.

I have sold two Westcountry houses privately; one in the boom times, which was done solely on word of mouth, achieving the asking price, and another at the start of the Crash. I also sold a more 'difficult' house in Wiltshire through an agent in 2006, and in negotiations, she bettered the price I was willing to accept, more than covering her fee.

I sold the 'Crash' house three more times after the first buyer lost their Northern Rock mortgage! Had I initially used an agent, I think they'd have realised quicker than I did that things were awry and people were lying. After that, I went with an agent, but they didn't prevent further pull-outs by people scared by the market situation. In the end, I sold to someone I knew, who'd wanted the house all along....and at a fair price!

The market is still very dodgy in most places. It could be getting worse in a month or two. For people dipping a toe in the water, a suggestion like the one above might be OK, but you can 'lose' a lot more than £3k by making the wrong choices, especially if you are thinking of handling the negotiations yourself!

I'd also observe that many of the anecdotals here have no indication of date /location, so are quite possibly meaningless in consideration of today's generally stagnant market.

Edit: If you haven't found it already and you're thinking of selling, this thread is essential reading. You don't need to read all two hundred & whatever pages, just fast forward to a few pages from now to see what really goes on!

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/1707749

sshaw101

Davesnave wrote: »

Hi,
This is a well-written, convincing post, but with no others to your name, it is difficult to give it credibility.

No other posts to my name? I have posted over the last month about selling online, moving in with in-laws etc and most recently putting an offer in on a house that is currently under offer!

Anyway I found hatched more suited to my needs and it was between hatched, housesimple or house network. I just thought that hatched had the better financial offer for me (we went for option 2), this wont be the same with everyone though. Although reading older posts it seems as if it is advisable to don't pay your fees upfront, leave something to pay upon completion.

Davesnave

sshaw101 wrote: »

No other posts to my name? I have posted over the last month about selling online, moving in with in-laws etc and most recently putting an offer in on a house that is currently under offer!

Ooops! I apologise unreservedly and I'll amend my post. It was the 'Thanked 0 times in 0 posts' that I read. Very confusing, but it shows what a tight lot some people on these threads are, so have one on me!

However, you can see from the post above, which blatantly breaks the site rules, that we need to be vigilant.

claremc

Hi,

I've never posted anything on one of these boards before but I seen the email this morning and I've recently decided to try and sell my apartment privately and I'd be really interested in what people think about viewings.

Like mazlap1306, I used comparethehouses.com because it was professional looking and I agree the guides are really helpful.

But I'd like to know more about how people handle contact with potential buyers and viewings please.

Any advice is much appreciated.

Thanks.

Clare

sshaw101

Davesnave wrote: »

Ooops! I apologise unreservedly and I'll amend my post. It was the 'Thanked 0 times in 0 posts' that I read. Very confusing, but it shows what a tight lot some people on these threads are, so have one on me!

However, you can see from the post above, which blatantly breaks the site rules, that we need to be vigilant.

No problems Dave.

Did think it was funny when I saw the spam post there, surprised it has lasted on here.

Think online agents are the future - like garlic bread

Will19

We sold our house earlier this year, first time we have done it privately. It was quite a scary prospect, but as soon as you get your solicitor involved everything ran really smoothly. We started advertising in the local papers but we also used myprivatemove.com wich was quite a cool looking site and really easy to use, which has a lot of information to help you through the buying process.

The good thing was all contact from buyers was done through the website so I didn't have my details floating around everywhere. only cost us £49 to advertise.

Definitely sell privately again. :j

John_Pierpoint

If you are selling a house that is recognisable from its picture, you need to really study the market before you can know what YOU are prepared to take. (don't be bullied by the estate agent who simply wants high turnover).

Similarly, if you live on as estate or in an area of very similar houses/flats you will soon manage to work out the value of a make over, the value of off street parking, the value of a statutory permitted extension (or of those now enhanced permitted development rights).

If you know the value of your home to the market have a go at doing it yourself.

Unfortunately it is not a level playing field and the estate agent "free masonry" should have some market advantages over you and of course should have more skill and experience.

What you can do is get together an little network of local sellers and see if you can get the advice of other people in you position; with a bit of luck one of them will have an unsuccessful buyer to pass on to you.

This requires a bit of a "brass neck" and the right sort of personality.

My last personal experience is here and in this instance the estate agent did a better job (or had better luck) than I did.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/1916727