House Selling - Money Saving Tips

pie81

Hi Huntergatherer. I think your best bet is contacting the council - if the property is in any way unsafe or likely to cause problems to your property (eg mice/rats etc) then they can force him to sort it out.

Better to start a new post though, I think a lot of people don't read these stickies as they are so full of spam.

askmr

I think i go on selling with out using an agent to save money

ionsysproj3

it's great tip man i've not thought of it before i saw your post. thanks.

Todder

Thanks for giving out these magnificent tips.
:beer:

Mr.Mulla

Great really Great.Keep up the good work.

nitikasnv

Marcus wrote: »

Greetings all. I’ve been using this site for a while now and have managed to save us a small fortune. Years ago I was an estate agent so I thought I’d see is I could write some bits and bobs in relation to my experiences in the hope that it might save people some cash.

Selling Your House

Methods to Save Money

1) Agents Fees
a. All Estate Agent Fees are negotiable. First, check through the local property paper. See which agents get the most business. Are any members of the NAEA. Busy agents who are members of the NAEA would be my first choices. Select the best 3 or 4 agents and phone them up as potential buyers. See what service you get over a week or so as a buyer - that way you’ll get an idea of how they will market and present your property. A good proactive, busy and well managed agent will still have time and resources to post/email you details and phone you with new properties.

Then get them all to Value your property. Tell each valuer that you have other valuations (BUT NEVER TELL THEM WHAT VALUATIONS OTHER AGENTS HAVE GIVEN YOU - AS THEY’LL MANIPULATE THEIR OWN VALUATIONS) and that you are looking for a fee of 1% with no lock-ins. Most agents will try to lock you in - so that if you instruct them to take your property off the market you will not contractually be able to re-market with another agent for up to 8 weeks (especially with corporates). Make sure you get this down to 1 week after written notice. If you are locked in and you then sell your property through another agent you will get sued for the fees.

Agents are sales persons - they will give you great reasons to lock you in and charge you more... but they also need your business - thus you have the power to ask for and get these things.

b. Once your property is up for sale keep an eye on your agent - mystery shop them ie call them up, give a false name etc. and tell them you are looking for a property that matches your own property’s description - see if they push for you to view your property - are they positive and energetic?

The Duel/Multi-Agency myth.
If you become unhappy with your agent’s efforts it may be time to sack them or go multi agency. Tell an agent that you wish more than one agent to market your property and they’ll try and push up the fees to staggering amounts (2.5%+!!).
Tactics - tell your current agent that you wish for other agents to market your property. Tell them that you’ll keep them as an agent only if they will keep your fees at 1%. If they will not, then sack them (you should only be locked in for a week). I’ve never known an agent not to back down in this situation - they’d lose potential business if they let you go.
Now go to some other agents - probably the other agents on your original list - and tell them that “my agent has agreed to let me go multi-agency and my current fees are 1% - would you like to also market my property at 1% multi-agency?” You can guess what the answer will be...

A 1 % saving on the average cost of a property in the UK (currently £150000) will save you £1500 before VAT.

Duel Agency means you’re marketing with 2 agents - multi agency means you’re with more than two. Agents will try and charge you more for either of these - especially in the case of multi.



2) Solicitor Fees
During you initial enquiries with estate agents, ask them for several recommendations each of good conveyancers or solicitors. You don’t just want the name of the firm, but also the name of the specific solicitor/conveyancer. Remember, some agents will have ‘arrangements’ with some solicitors and some will even have their own - so be warned. A good rule of thumb would be to approach solicitors (by name) who have been recommended by different agents - although some solicitors will have arrangements with more than one agent.

Phone the best solicitors and ask for written confirmation of their charges. Take note of how they treat you - do they speak in plain English, are they friendly and do you get their details as promised the next day. And once again - their fees are negotiable - there’s no reason not to ask your favourite contender to shave £xxx off of their fees if you have evidence of more competitive quotes from other solicitors... they may say “no chance” - in which case you need to make a decision as to whether or not the extra charges are really worth it.

A solicitor can make or break deals for you so shop around. It’s very hard to change solicitors once they start the conveyancing process for you... and it will cost you!

And finally - avoid fee busting corporate conveyancing firms - they will most likely slow down the conveyancing process - these are normally call centre and internet based firms. They can save you as much as £500... but as stingy as I am I would never use them.



I hope this is of use to you and I hope that my info is still correct.
I’ll see if I can write something for buyers when dealing with agents and the like.

Regards
Marcus

Hi,

Thanks its an helpful information.

You have given detailed information.

Thanks

LooniesMum

We are trying to sell a house that belonged to someone in the family who has died. So empty house, no chain. We have potential buyers, but they have put in an offer at £10K below the asking price, to which the family reluctantly agreed. Now the buyers are asking for vendor assisted deposit. As best I can understand it, isn't this duping the mortgage lender?! Can't they find out and then the sale may fall through? Can there be any come back on us as the vendors. I sort of get how it's supposed to work, but should we get involved in this? I know it's not illegal, but is it ethical? Or are we being too 'sensitive' ?!

We have already a letter from the estate agent saying what the asking price is that we agreed to, so there is a paper trail showing the original asking price: if we do this vendor assisted deposit, there would be a false selling price (though we get the same money at the end of it of course) which would allow the buyers to get a 90% mortgage, when in fact it will be a 95% mortgage.

Is it safe to play this game?

ezikiel

Hello,

You gave very good information about house selling and money saving.this is so good for that persons who wanted to buy homes.so thanks for sharing this information.



thanks

Steve_xx

LooniesMum wrote: »

We are trying to sell a house that belonged to someone in the family who has died. So empty house, no chain. We have potential buyers, but they have put in an offer at £10K below the asking price, to which the family reluctantly agreed. Now the buyers are asking for vendor assisted deposit. As best I can understand it, isn't this duping the mortgage lender?! Can't they find out and then the sale may fall through? Can there be any come back on us as the vendors. I sort of get how it's supposed to work, but should we get involved in this? I know it's not illegal, but is it ethical? Or are we being too 'sensitive' ?!

We have already a letter from the estate agent saying what the asking price is that we agreed to, so there is a paper trail showing the original asking price: if we do this vendor assisted deposit, there would be a false selling price (though we get the same money at the end of it of course) which would allow the buyers to get a 90% mortgage, when in fact it will be a 95% mortgage.

Is it safe to play this game?

As I understand this, you may effectively be subsidising the buyer with a further percentage drop of the price agreed that you wont get back.

LooniesMum

Steve, the arrangement as it was explained to me was supposed to result in us getting exactly the same amount as the originally agreed purchase price. The EA also said it would not result in them getting more commission, but I wasn't convinced on that score!!

We were advised against vendor assisted/gifted deposit in replies on the original thread and by our solicitors. It seems nowadays the solicitors have to tell the mortgage lender what the deal is, but that still left us with a chance of the buyers' mortgage deal coming apart at the seams at some point, and more importantly (to me) it would have left the estate accounts looking less than squeaky clean. Technically the estate cannot gift (even if it's just a paper exercise) money to people who are not named in the will. I came to the conclusion that vendor assisted deposit is probably a real no-no for probate cases!

We were lucky - the buyers got a better mortgage deal and we're going ahead without the need to fudge the figures!