Selling your own house yourself

antilles

Hi everyone

I put my house up for sale 6 weeks ago, using a local estate agent. I'm sure this thread will probably annoy any estate agents on here, but it's seeming to me that estate agents seem to charge a lot of money for what they do, and I'm giving serious consideration to selling it myself. I'm on a 1.5% sale fee, managed to haggle their price down a bit.

I'm doing the viewings myself (originally I asked the EA to do these but I wanted to give it a go as I felt I could sell the house just as effectively).

I also did the valuation myself, basically by looking at other similar sold properties in the area, the price I came up with matched the exact valuation provided by the 2 EAs who came out to quote me.

The initial chat with the EA I listed with seemed good and they had a lot of local knowledge, which impressed me.

However, since then, it seems to me that all they've done is taken some photos, listed the house on some portals, and stuck a sale board up. They just seem to now take phone calls and pass viewings onto me. I've only had a couple of viewings in 6 weeks, I suspect the house is on the high priced side for the area.

I guess what I'm saying is, am I missing something? Do EAs really do that much in the background? Has anyone listed their house themselves, and can anyone provide recommendations for a portal to do this (I've looked at a couple online but am unsure which to go for).

Would be interesting to hear from any estate agents on here too to get an opposing point of view, i.e. do you guys work some magic in the background that isn't immediately obvious to me?

I'm quite a practical person so I don't mind doing some legwork and research myself in order to save a lot of money, if that helps?

wwl

See recent thread about online estate agents
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5302810
Seems like high street agents are becoming an endangered species

Gonzo1987

How confident are you with negotiating offers? Chasing up solicitors and surveyors? It's not just finding a buyer it's making sure the sale gets through to completion.

eddddy

An EA is (or should be) a knowledgeable salesperson.

In very, very simple terms:

- In an electrical shop, the salesperson should tell you all about a TV, and so make you more likely to buy it.

- At a car dealership, the salesperson should tell you all about a car and so make you more likely to buy it.

- With an EA, the salesperson should tell you all about a house, the area, the local schools, the transport connections, the range of properties available, and so make you more likely to buy the house.

Some people really value a salesperson's input. Others hate dealing with salespeople.

- People who buy TVs from salespeople in shops tend to be persuaded to pay more (than if they bought the TV online).

- People who buy cars from salespeople at dealerships tend to be persuaded to pay more (than if they bought from an online seller).

- So perhaps people who buy houses from EAs/Salespeople are also persuaded to pay more.

(Assuming that the EA is a good salesperson. Lots of EAs are not very good at their jobs.)

pinkteapot

You can't really sell 100% yourself, as you can't put a property on Rightmove, and realistically that's where it needs to be listed (unless it's highly unusual).

To save on high street EA costs, you can use an online EA, which charge a few hundred quid.

However, I would say that in my experience EAs (decent ones) come into their own once you've accepted an offer. We never spoke to our buyers or sellers directly - the EA is a go-between. Bad idea to be in direct contact. It's a business deal and if you need to pull out, renegotiate, etc, you don't want to be buddies with the other parties.

In our last move, we were middle of a chain (stressful) that took a lot of tying up and keeping onside (chain took three months to form as various people couldn't find properties to buy quickly). EA was good at ringing around, keeping everyone happy and ticking over. Once the chain was formed, EA was ruthless in chasing all parties to get us exchanged ASAP.

Our good EA had a dedicated "sales progressor" - someone whose full-time job was chasing up chains to find out what was going on. I'd always choose someone focused on this stage of the process in the future.

Admittedly our EA may have been extra-dedicated because they were selling four out of five properties in our chain and were in for about £15k in fees.

My other tip in choosing an EA is to view houses and see what EAs are like to you as a buyer. There was one EA who, based on their pitch at valuation, I'd have used to sell. But they were awful when we viewed. They knew nothing at all about the property, didn't phone us afterwards to ask for feedback, were completely disorganised, never sounded like they had a record of who we were when we phoned...

k3lvc

We've done it with an agent who agreed to us marketing it ourselves alongside them - they managed 2 viewings in the 4 weeks they had whereas through word of mouth we managed 6 and 2 offers which led to a sale

Don't underestimate the mental strength needed to do it yourself, particularly if it's part of a chain. You need to remain unemotional to keep your sale on track and sometimes the ability to rant down the phone to an estate agent would almost be worth the 1.5%

LJS2014

I sold using an online agent who basically just listed my property on Rightmove. I did my own viewings and my own negotiations. I opted to do my own sales progression too so liaised between buyer and solicitor directly. This wasn't completely stress free but I felt I had one less person in the middle and I felt more in control of what was going on. For me, the decision to do it this way came down to not having much equity in my property and not wanting to see what was left of it go to an agent for doing something I could do myself. I appreciate that wouldn't be the ideal for everybody but I'm very glad I did it that way and saved myself (what to me is,) quite a lot of money.

teddysmum

I sold my late father's bungalow without employing any professional, though I it was over 20 years ago and I have a vague idea that some of the things I did (with help from a library book) are no longer allowed.


Granted that the bungalow is on a very popular estate, but all I did was buy a printed 'For Sale' poster and put it in the window. The second party to view bought.


I had two estate agents value and quote for their services, but chose not to employ them.


I drafted a contract, using a format from the library book and passed it to the buyers' solicitor, who picked on a few minor points (wording ). The document was reprinted and everything went ahead.


Cost to me? About £1 for the poster.

antilles

Interesting mix of viewpoints! The house I'm selling is only worth around 80K so the savings from using an online agent would be not be huge anyway (assuming I let them handle all the chasing and phone calls etc). So I think I need to sleep on this a little before I make a call.

Good points on all the chasing - I can now see that most of the tougher work happens after an offer rather than before. I'm in the lull period at the moment!

Thanks for the replies everyone!