Selling My House

pacey1986

Hi everyone,

I'm putting my home up for sale come February with any luck, whilst using January to get it in it's best condition to attract more interest and hopefully sell it quickly.

I've read plenty of tips thanks to some great articles and posts on this forum, but hopefully by starting this thread I can get some help from you guys every step I take. I've never sold a house before, and it all seems quite daunting with the work I need to do and the fee's involved.

A question I have straight off is should I sell this through an agent, or advertise it myself? I have a close friend who works for a building society who strongly advices I do it by myself. Thoughts?


As I pointed out above, my first port of call is to get this house into the best condition for a sale, and my target is to get this done by the end of January. We have occupied the house for 2 years, and whilst we're not the messiest family we have 3 cats and 2 dogs which haven't helped. My lists consists of:

Garden maintenance.
A fresh coat of paint throughout.
A few household repairs.
Re-carpet certain areas.
Relocate clutter to a storage unit.

Can anyone suggest a good check list or order to do all this in?


Any questions/feedback would be welcome.
Thanks.

phill99

Relocate clutter to a storage unit.
Garden maintenance.
A few household repairs.
A fresh coat of paint throughout.
Re-carpet certain areas.

kingrulzuk

pacey1986 wrote: »

Hi everyone,

I'm putting my home up for sale come February with any luck, whilst using January to get it in it's best condition to attract more interest and hopefully sell it quickly.

I've read plenty of tips thanks to some great articles and posts on this forum, but hopefully by starting this thread I can get some help from you guys every step I take. I've never sold a house before, and it all seems quite daunting with the work I need to do and the fee's involved.

A question I have straight off is should I sell this through an agent, or advertise it myself? I have a close friend who works for a building society who strongly advices I do it by myself. Thoughts?


As I pointed out above, my first port of call is to get this house into the best condition for a sale, and my target is to get this done by the end of January. We have occupied the house for 2 years, and whilst we're not the messiest family we have 3 cats and 2 dogs which haven't helped. My lists consists of:

Garden maintenance.
A fresh coat of paint throughout.
A few household repairs.
Re-carpet certain areas.
Relocate clutter to a storage unit.

Can anyone suggest a good check list or order to do all this in?


Any questions/feedback would be welcome.
Thanks.

Im in the same boat as you. and would like to sell my house ASAP. but dont know where to start.

Any help good people???

Mojisola

When you live in a house for a while, you don't really "see" it any longer.

If you can get someone who doesn't know your house well to come round and be honest about what they think, it can help you see what needs to be done.

Having the whole place repainted can make buyers suspicious that you're trying to cover up problems like damp.

Make sure the house looks good from the front. If people are put off at that stage, they might never get as far as booking a viewing.

SuzieSue

If you have never sold a house before then I think that you should use an agent.

Get quotes from, say, 3 agents and find out what their policy is regarding requiring purchasers to have a meeting with their in-house financial adviser. If they insist on it then I wouldn't use them to sell your house as it will put people off buying your property. It is mainly the national chains like Connells and Countrywide who do this (they might be called something else but still be part of a national chain). They will always say that they are doing it for your benefit so that you can be sure that the buyer has the funds in place, but it is purely for their own benefit.

cavework

Smells!
Honestly , one of the worst things for putting off potential buyers is the smell of dog.
Remove all evidence of the dog , ie basket bowl etc when you have viewings, keep the cats outside. Mop the floors with a deodoriser and make sure it is squeeky clean
Also de-personalise the house.. remove some of the family photos even though you love them The viewers need to imagine themselves living in the house .
Shove everything in the cupboards so there is no clutter ..it's a PIA but those viewers need to feel there is loads of living space.
Go and look at a new build show home .. you will notice that many essentials we all need for everyday living are missing but that doesn't stop them selling houses.
Don't let the estate agent add too many photos to Rightmove etc , you want to entice prospective buyers into viewing in person and make sure they are in a position to buy!!
Good luck
PS
I would use an Estate Agent. I used a local set fee Estate Agent this time who only advertises on the internet. They sold my property in 12 weeks and as it's empty oversaw all viewings as it is key safed, They have kept me updated every week and are even meeting the buyers surveyor on Friday at the property.
They have saved me a fortune

ethank

Last Christmas, after 8 happy years in our flat. I decided that I needed a house! So I was in the same boat as you.

You should go through every room and completely depersonalise it. Though proud I was of all my qualifications, family members, and my pets. I removed every last picture, almost taking me out of the home.

A buyer does not want to visualise you in what is potentially their property, they want to visualise themselves.

I painted each room a different colour, but at a very light shade. I upgraded all of the lighting, and then went to our local Next Home and spent about £400 on pictures and pieces of art to place all over the flat.

We had to laminate two rooms with flooring also. All in all we spent around £900 - but we got what we needed from the sale.


I would always use an agent. I would also look on the agents website to see what other properties they have for sale. For instance we initially went to who we thought were the best agent in the area - however they had 8 newbuild flats half a mile away - they did not really push ours. When we changed Agents, The person who sold ours told us - have not got any flats on our books at all.... So we got a lot of attention.

googler

pacey1986 wrote: »

A question I have straight off is should I sell this through an agent, or advertise it myself? I have a close friend who works for a building society who strongly advices I do it by myself.

Your friend may hold this opinion, but has he/she actually done this, and done it recently?

Where would you advertise it? I'd suggest there's nowhere you could place it that would get it in front of as many people as an agent could.

Ky-An

I'm selling my house, I boarded my loft and threw a load of stuff in there. Now my house is clutter free hasn't made a difference though still have not sold. Guess the price is too high.

Yorkie1

googler wrote: »

Your friend may hold this opinion, but has he/she actually done this, and done it recently?

Where would you advertise it? I'd suggest there's nowhere you could place it that would get it in front of as many people as an agent could.

+1.

Assuming you're in England/Wales, then most potential buyers will use Rightmove to do their preliminary searches. You can't advertise directly on RM as an individual, so you would need to use either a standard estate agent or an online one. The latter will charge a lot less but you will need to do the viewings yourself and, possibly, more of the negotiations on price and then chasing once a sale has been accepted (you'd need to research this aspect a bit more).

ethank

Although there are lots of differing opinions about Estate Agents..... It is worth paying the fee not to have to do all of the chasing yourself.

The Sales Progressor at our Estate Agent, was constantly on the phone to solicitors and other agents to make sure everything was moving. In my opinion well worth what I paid!