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Selling at Auction
mavisangelica
Posts: 457 Forumite
Has anyone sold a property at auction?
We are seriously looking at putting our house into a property auction and are trying to get a definitive answer on what we will actually pay. On Saturday we went in to see the Estate Agent that runs one in our area and she gave us a copy on the terms and conditions and stated that the the buyer pays the fees.
Now reading through the contract, under Auction Pack it mentions 2 different options, one with legal fees and one without (one is 3.5% + VAT and the other is 3% + VAT - both with a minimum af approx £4,000)
I gave hubby a list of questions to go back into the EA, mainly asking what exacty we will have to pay if everything does go ahead and it does sell. (for instance do we may marketing costs.)
He went in this morning and the EA was suspiciously cagey and vague and just said have you not read the pack. (Well we had and that was why we were back asking questions.) She has arranged to come out 'with a new pack' this afternoon.
The costs we will have to pay will have a bearing on the reserve price so want to make sure that we don't get landed with an unexpected bill.
We are seriously looking at putting our house into a property auction and are trying to get a definitive answer on what we will actually pay. On Saturday we went in to see the Estate Agent that runs one in our area and she gave us a copy on the terms and conditions and stated that the the buyer pays the fees.
Now reading through the contract, under Auction Pack it mentions 2 different options, one with legal fees and one without (one is 3.5% + VAT and the other is 3% + VAT - both with a minimum af approx £4,000)
I gave hubby a list of questions to go back into the EA, mainly asking what exacty we will have to pay if everything does go ahead and it does sell. (for instance do we may marketing costs.)
He went in this morning and the EA was suspiciously cagey and vague and just said have you not read the pack. (Well we had and that was why we were back asking questions.) She has arranged to come out 'with a new pack' this afternoon.
The costs we will have to pay will have a bearing on the reserve price so want to make sure that we don't get landed with an unexpected bill.
Ditch 100 in January Challenge 100/100
Ditch 100 in February Challenge 114/100
Ditch 100 in March Challenge 100/100
Ditch 100 in April Challenge 75/100
Ditch 100 in February Challenge 114/100
Ditch 100 in March Challenge 100/100
Ditch 100 in April Challenge 75/100
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Comments
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Auctions all vary, so do what you are already doing and fully understand the T&Cs. Make sure also you understand what happens if the house fails to sell at auction.0
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Well, it turns out that the EA was economical with the truth. The buyer pays SOME of the fees (which I guess are the auction fees on the day) but the seller has to pay 3.5% + VAT once it is sold. When questioned, their response was that it is very expensive to hire the Rugby Club.
From what I can gather it is their own auction and not one shared with other EAs so will make some enquiries about others in the area.
In the meantime though our existing EA has finally produced a viewer so fingers crossed :jDitch 100 in January Challenge 100/100
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mavisangelica wrote: »Has anyone sold a property at auction?
We are seriously looking at putting our house into a property auction
....
Hi mavisangelica
Out of interest, why are you thinking of selling at auction? Normally people go down this route if, for example, their house is of interest to developers, or it has defects that make it unmortgageable, or the seller is in a dire financial situation.
It's very difficult (and very rare) for owner occupiers or BTL investors who need a mortgage to buy at auction. So you will be targeting a very limited group of cash buyers. And they will be expecting to pay a very cheap price.
It sounds like your motivation may be that you are not getting any interest in your house:mavisangelica wrote: »In the meantime though our existing EA has finally produced a viewer so fingers crossed
That's probably a pricing issue. If it's a regular mortgageable house it would always sell for more through a regular EA, than it would at auction.
To illustrate what I mean... you might have to drop the price by 15% to get a quick sale through an EA, but you might have to drop the price by 25% to get a sale at auction.
If you really want a quick sale, you could ask your regular EA about dropping to a low 'guide price' or 'offers over price', and setting a closing date for offers. That way you would not be excluding buyers who need a mortgage. So you will get a better price than at auction.0 -
It's been on the market since February last year. First large chain EA we had 1 viewer and 2 no shows. Changed this February and did not have a single viewer. Price started at £160,000 and then eventually dropped to £145,000.
There are now 3 properties in our street up for sale - one has been on the same length as us and next door went up in May.
To be honest, we weren't in a rush to move - just wanted to move from a three bed semi to a detached bungalow within a 10 mile radius. Half heartedly looked for something but hadn't found our dream house. Catch 22 as didn't want to look too hard in case we didn't sell so then didn't have the motivation to push our sale. Also didn't want to drop the price too low as we wouldn't be able to afford to move - don't want to take on another mortgage.
Roll on 20 months and we have put an offer in on a bungalow which is dependant on us selling ours so now need a quick sale - also now have a little leeway in terms of price of ours.
Present EA have merged with another and have slopey shoulders - when you go in you have to speak to the original EA staff - (and make an appointment) they don't ring you back or reply to emails - and have the excuse that they haven't updated the price on their website because there is a 'problem' (there has been a 'problem' for over 2 weeks).
The auction route looked attractive as here 'up north' the majority of properties on the various auction websites appear to be family homes - also the attraction of no fees would counteract the drop in price. After speaking to the auction EA they said to set the reserve price above what we were expecting. Also the fact that everything should be sorted very quickly meant that we could move quickly and hopefully secure the bungalow as there is also another offer in (with the people in the same situation as us).
Anyway, we have now dropped the price to £135,000 and out of the blue we have a viewer tomorrow night so fingers crossed.Ditch 100 in January Challenge 100/100
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We considered selling ours at auction we were told no fees apart from £199 + VAT through I am sold .com or something! I dunno what to do, I hate this selling malarkey!0
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When we sold our last house in 2011 we considered selling at auction as we wanted a quick sale because we were hoping to relocate back to the South to be closer to our parents who were elderly/ill.
The market in our then area (North Essex) was just not moving - unless you were selling a newish, inexpensive, manageable-sized bungalow (which was the polar opposite of our house, lol!) and we thought auctioning might be the way to achieve the fast sale we wanted.
We had a poor response from the auction houses we contacted though - I think our house was too well restored to be the typical auction property - as they either said it wasn't ideal or else failed to return our calls.
In the end we opted for putting it on with a small local EA and priced it realistically which very surprisingly attracted an offer we were happy with (although we still made a stonking loss) within the first two weeks. As we were already mortgage-free we were able to bear the *loss* and tbh just being able to move away meant everything to us.
It does sound as though your agents have been pretty rubbish, but at the end of the day a property that's priced correctly will sell. Are you brave enough to give us a link to your house so people can give you some unbiased opinions?
GL with the viewing that's lined up btw
Mortgage-free for fourteen years!
Over £40,000 mis-sold PPI reclaimed0 -
You are unlikely to get offers over the stamp duty threshold so £125,000 is probably the maximum you will get. Unfortunately that may be the reality of what the house is worth. EAs often suggest marketing at impossibly high prices to get the business.mavisangelica wrote: »Anyway, we have now dropped the price to £135,000 and out of the blue we have a viewer tomorrow night so fingers crossed.0 -
You are unlikely to get offers over the stamp duty threshold so £125,000 is probably the maximum you will get. Unfortunately that may be the reality of what the house is worth. EAs often suggest marketing at impossibly high prices to get the business.
This wasn't to have been a problem as we are/were in a disadvantaged area and we would have been exempt. Unfortunately it has dragged on for so long that now this doesn't apply. If I knew that this was putting buyers off then I would quite happily reduce the price by the amount of the stamp duty in negotiations.
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-38023357.htmlDitch 100 in January Challenge 100/100
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Ditch 100 in March Challenge 100/100
Ditch 100 in April Challenge 75/1000 -
Thanks for being brave enough to post a link to your house OP
My first observation is that I can't see a floor plan on the property details, something that always puts me off as we have lots of large furniture items so we need to see how the rooms are configured (doorways, windows etc) in order to know if these could be accommodated......Mortgage-free for fourteen years!
Over £40,000 mis-sold PPI reclaimed0
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