Selling your house privately, any luck

Poppycat

Has anyone tried selling privately? if yes any success. I no 3 years back a friend sold there just down the road just with a for sale notice in the window and it went in 2 weeks, the market has moved on since they got £65k then but they have risen since.

With the added costs of moving, stamp duty, moving costs, surveying, solicitors, EA is so expensive. We are on a very tight budget with little actually cash so any savings so I wondered if its worth selling private.

I no roughly how much the house is worth, being on a busy street we could get some good exposure via a house for sale notice.

House down our street, next-door but one to me just sold for £107,000 and we have a better property, assuming they have central heating, we have a 6ft extension, new boiler (condensing), private access to the back via locked gate (there's is a long passage way), shed, bigger back yard, laminate flooring in 3 rooms, not badly decorated although kitchen and bathroom need some updating, brand new double glazed patio doors (August 2006)

There's 3 houses on out street that are up for sale out of around 65 houses.

I have been approached several times recently with leaflets if we were interested in selling and one EA said there desperate for these type of houses, whether that's bull I don't no although last night we went to see a house for sale and seller asked if we were selling ours, as they daughter was after one on our street

I dread the sell and buy thing although I am desperate to find another house, I obviously want the right house for us.

Any savings I can save would help us, I am already planning on moving with a large van to save on costs.

Thanks for any suggestions

pawpurrs

You can still get agents out to value your house, this is free. Why not try housenetwork online to sell your house as they use rightmove.co.uk, wish I had done this now, as all my viewers saw the house on this site, and the agent hasnt done much tBH, as an ex agent I have done the sales chasing myself, and even negotiated the deal myself.

Poppycat

Thanks pawpurs I wondered about internet selling, it may help.

I did get some values from EA early thsi year (March I think) it ranged from £105k to £125k, 2 came in at 105k the other 125k I think the top oven was too high.

We have since added a patio door to the rear which really makes the through lounge more pleasant, lots of light etc, it cost us 1,200 and is very high quality one. Not sure if that will add much more value we did actually have patio doors before and they were rotten tbh and the old alumium type with think panes between the glass.

I bene on rightmove before oine EA uses it as there web site and I seen other houses for sale using other EA who still have there own web site. Thanks for the advice.

zag2me

as already mentioned these guys look nice and cheap if you want to do it the internet way

http://www.home.co.uk/selling/housenetwork/

Lets face it, most people use rightmove to find a house first.

springtide

I sold a house privately a few years back, and although in many ways it was great as I avoided all the fees, I found it an incredibly stressful overall. It was the first time I had sold a house and I had to deal with a pretty tough nosed man who was used to negotiating and made me feel very nervous. Looking back I would definitely do it again as I'm a bit tougher now, but I wouldn't recommend it if you are of a nervous temperament, as it can be quite stressful if any problems arise. Having an estate agent as your middle man can be very useful at times when you can use them to your favour, as they want to get the highest price too.

Good luck if you do it, and make sure you are very clear about what is and isn't included in the price from the outset.

Poppycat

I wondered with the internet sites like housenetwork they appear to have different rates, like




I wonder what would happen if I sell it by other means, word and mouth, letter drop, or sale sign in windows, I assume they would still get ther fees.

Tomthumb

I sold our Hotel online in a couple of weeks and we will hopefully be completing on 1st Dec I just scoured the internet for all sites where it was free to advertise property and put our details on them. I used homesonsale.co.uk and a free trial on houseladder. I also put it on classifieds.co.uk and preloved.co.uk I also put the printed details on Ebay for sale for 99p each to give it more exposure. Get yourself a free website and put lots of pictures of your house on it and loads of area info and direct people to the page to save typing all of the details out over an over.

I haven't found it any more stressful than using an estate agent, it's all in the hands of the solicitors at the moment and we've saved a load on EA fees!

Good luck with seling

Poppycat

Thanks Tom and everyone else contributed, its so nice for you folks to help.

Good luck with the sale Tom

Looks like we are going to have to get the house spotless, mind you 2 houses we saw last night wasnt entirely clean and tidy.

I no on the housey program it says to unclutter get rid of pets etc, brilliant idea, tell kids to begger off, get rid of cat and bin all the clutter or sell it on, not very good when one has little space to dump things and dont really have much rubbish as we bin or take it to tip when we do anyhow.

Richard_Webster

I see one of the people in this thread was an ex estate agent - he would have known what questions to ask his buyer and how to chase up the chain.

That's the trouble - it isn't just advertising and finding a buyer - it's making sure it goes through!

Have a look at http://www.choosing-estate-agent.info/selling_privately.htm where there are some tips about this and the main page of that site also suggests how to choose an estate agent if you end up going that way.