House Selling - Money Saving Tips

derrekmay

If the promoting doesn't cost too mutch you could easily do some promotion on your own.
Just try to select the ones thathave the most potential...

MikeyD_3

Hi everyone
If you live in Jesmond in Newcastle on Tyne there is a new site for property listings, it only does Jesmond at the minute but they will let you list for free until your property is sold if you list it before the end of February.
www.jesmondproperty.com
I have mine on and had 3 enquiries already, there are not many properties on yet so you get noticed easily

AnnaFS_2

Apologies for repeating what has probably been asked before on here: I've done a fair bit of browsing and picked up some useful tips but I can't read absolutely everything that's been posted.

I'm selling my house in Newcastle, Staffs. It's about as uncomplicated as you can get as it is a sale only and there is now no mortgage to discharge: I now have the documents (it's a good thing I got on RBS about them as it took them ages to find them: at first they protested that they didn't have them at all!) I now just have to send a form off to the Land Registry so they will send me an updated Copy of the Register.

I've decided on an agent (thanks to people on here, especially Marcus, for the useful advice), but not on a solicitor/ HIP provider. In normal circumstances I would have done the conveyancing myself, but given my current poor health I don't want to risk making a slip-up. I'd still do the HIP myself if it was going to save any sizeable sum, but got an on-line quote from somewhere that only charge a £40 or so fee for actually doing the work (most of the cost is disbursements), so if the saving is that little I'd be better off without the stress!

Given comments I've read on here, it makes more sense to get the same people to do the conveyancing and the HIP together and I should expect some saving from that as well as the convenience of only dealing with one outfit other than the agents (the agents will supply a HIP but they want around £349 + Vat if paid up front and £399+ VAT if paid on sale, which seems expensive).

Conveyancing quotes so far have varied from £500 + VAT plus disbursements (very few since I don't have a mortgage to discharge and am selling only) from a solicitor who's supposed to be a friend of a friend who's been doing the building work and drafted the contract between the two of us (which, incidentally, doesn't involve any charge on the property!), down to £299 + VAT plus disbursements from a conveyancing company I found through a recommendation on here. I've also got a quote from a regular poster on here for doing both of them, but that seemed rather steep, possibly due to the much greater costs of operating in the South rather than the Midlands (although I could check him out as I have a good friend who runs a surveyor's practice in his area and will undoubtedly have had dealings with him in the past)?

Whilst from peoples' posts it seems that the location of the conveyancer is fairly irrelevant in the case of sale-only, it would appear that people are saying it's a good idea to have a HIP provider who has knowledge of dealing with the particular local council and service providers etc.

The sale price is likely to be around £115K (although I've yet to read the thread about falling house prices: that was what the agent said in November!). I need to get moving fast now and need a relatively quick sale (as do 2 others who have some finance involved in this lol!): in terms of how the house will be presented and the Agent I've sorted all of that, but don't want any unnecessary delays with the HIP production or the conveyancing :-(

I've read peoples' suggestions about discounts for Union Members: I'm a member of 2 Unions (UCU and NUS: some of us do things in the wrong order in our lives lol!), so checked the websites but neither of them seem to offer anything (in the past I remember that NATFHE used to offer a really good deal on fixed price conveyancing, but it's not there on the UCU website now :-( )

Any advice would be greatly appreciated :-)

ginvzt

I was wondering if I could get your advice. We are about to put our hosue on the market. We got 5 valuations, basically all said it could achieve £145k and put on the maket asking £149.950, except one agent that was a bit more pessimistic and said that he would put it on the market for £144.950. The cheapest 3 bed house on the estate is at £147.500 and it is slightly different layout, smaller house.

We discounted a few agents that we don't like and basically have 2 or 3 that we wouldn't mind. One agent we are not keen on very much was because when leaving on Friday night after valuation he said "oh, I will probably be closing office at 15:15 tomorrow" - on Saturday, market day in town, they close just after 3 and are not open on Sunday???

The agent I am tempted to go with, gave as a qoute of 1.25% (2nd cheapest), sounded really good and seemed he knows what he is talking about.He did say that if we wanted to try, we could put house on the market for just £150K and see how much interest it generates. I am not sure about their staff in the office as when we first went in, the girl at the front desk didn't even know the legislation about HIPS! (we were told it will take5-6 weeks to make it and we can't market the house until it is complete!!!) The other issue is that they have exactly the same house as hours on the same estate (maybe 50m away) that is on the market for £154.950. The only difference is 1 extra parking place (parking is not a problem, as it is a closed road and there is plenty on the street, although, buyers might be concerned). Would you say it is wise to go with the agent that has exactly the same house very close for £5k more than we would put ours on? We afraid they might be trying to steer the buyers towards the more expensive house. They advertising looks good in the newspaper and on the website, they also offer to negotiate on the property we would choose to buy, which might be handy (although, we managed to knock £10k of this one a year ago).

What would you do? Would you go with this agent or give it a miss?

Sorry for long ramble...

nelly_2

Philip_Doleman wrote: »

Good Advice.

Have you thought of selling your house privately. I used www.MoveWise.co.uk and sold my house for £129. They also have deals on HIPs and conveyancing.

Well worth a look.

you should have given me a shout mate I'd have given you £130 for it

presentationmall

Very nice tips hope they will be useful for me .Hope they will be useful for me.

saxy1

refers to post, now removed

Browntoa

Gary's advertising post reported to abuse

Financial_Savvy

Just had 3 Estate Agent's around for valuations.

Fees are 1.35%, 1.95% and 1 of a fee of £1500.

House worth approx £125000.

Questions are 1) where can I get a HIP from and 2) what is the best fee I can get out of them?

Thanks

jr991

Although some people have great success selling their own home, and save a bundle of money... selling on your own can have a negative impact. With little exposure, you risk your home sitting on the market a long time and you could actually end up selling your home for less if you find yourself in a position to sell out of desparation after months and months of no results.