House Selling - Money Saving Tips

LAINEY28_2

Trying to sell our house at the moment and its valued at £78,000 out of pure interest I contacted the buy your property businesses. ...offered £60,000. I don't think so!!!

I am actually loosing sleep over this house selling business...getting really paranoid thinking I should be doing more or just that no one likes my house ??

Should I be constantly phoning and annoying the Estate Agent asking what they are doing to sell my house?

got a 1.75% deal with the EA for selling and solicitor fees although home report and advertising has just cost us a whopping £850 ?? Is that normal????? We have deferred the payment which added 'admin fees' ????

james125_2

If you don't deal with conveyancing quote i will advise you to turn to them. Specialist firms offer an excellent level of service.
Conveyancing quote online can be a quicker, easier and often cheaper option. Geographical location of the conveyancer is irrelevant as everything is done online and you don't need to meet at the conveyancer’s office and that saves your time.

moneybagsuk

LAINEY28 wrote: »

Should I be constantly phoning and annoying the Estate Agent asking what they are doing to sell my house?

Absolutely yes

LAINEY28 wrote: »

got a 1.75% deal with the EA for selling and solicitor fees although home report and advertising has just cost us a whopping £850 ?? Is that normal????? We have deferred the payment which added 'admin fees' ????

Sounds excessive - advertising should be included in the 1.75% and not sure about the home report, HIPS have been abolished you know?

robertcarroll

smoberly wrote: »

I would be really interested on your views on marketing without an estate agent. I have been looking at for example myproperty for sale and it seems I can save thousands. I was thinking of putting it on for a month or two and seeing what the interest and reverting to a high street agent if nothing happened.

I don't see any reason not to take this route if you're not in a hurry to sell. At the end of the day, if it doesn't work, what have you lost? And if it does sell, you've saved yourself a lot of fees. In England there's less financial risk involved in putting your property on the market when you're trying something a bit new (e.g. self advertising) because you don't have to worry about getting a Home Report up front and, since recently, even HIPs (a cheaper pre-market report) have been scrapped, making the financial risk of putting your property on the market less. In Scotland, it's a slightly different story. Including VAT, a Home Report on a £200,000 property might cost you over £600. If your self-listing doesn't work out and you decide not to proceed, you've lost a fair chunk of money. Having said that, if you go with a rubbish estate agent, it doesn't work out and you decide not to proceed, you're probably even further back because you'll probably have paid a chunk of money in 'marketing fees' at the outset too! If you are happy to do the other things that a very good estate agent can do for you (professional quality photography, negotiating multiple offers for you, dealing with awkward questions in viewings and on the phone, producing well-designed property particulars etc etc) then I'd say 'go for it'. At the end of the day, estate agents were not always estate agents and many don't have a lot of sales qualifications so there's not reason, if you enjoy that kind of thing, why you shouldn't be able to do this for yourself. Let us know how it goes if you do decide to go down that route! Anyone else tried any of the self-marketing sites?

robertcarroll

LAINEY28 wrote: »

Trying to sell our house at the moment and its valued at £78,000 out of pure interest I contacted the buy your property businesses. ...offered £60,000. I don't think so!!!

I am actually loosing sleep over this house selling business...getting really paranoid thinking I should be doing more or just that no one likes my house ??

Should I be constantly phoning and annoying the Estate Agent asking what they are doing to sell my house?

got a 1.75% deal with the EA for selling and solicitor fees although home report and advertising has just cost us a whopping £850 ?? Is that normal????? We have deferred the payment which added 'admin fees' ????

Although the percentage fee of 1.75% sounds quite expensive, when you put it in perspective of how much it amounts to as a figure in pounds sterling it doesn't sound too bad. It's easy to focus on percentage figures rather than on the total fee that you're paying. However, at the end of the day, it's the amount of money that you have in your pocket after the property's sold that matters. That's the daft thing about fees in percentage terms: if you have a £500,000 property, get a 0.5% deal, everything thinks you've got a fantastic deal. Chances are though that the estate agent won't do much of a different job than the job they are doing on your property at £78,000 and they'll walk away with £2500 (plus VAT) when the property sells (which is more like 3% of the value of your property!). If your fee includes conveyancing when the standard conveyancing fee will usually be somewhere around £500 (plus VAT) minimum (in Scotland at least), I actually think you've got quite a good deal. I'm presuming you're in Scotland because you mentioned the Home Report. If not then these figures are possibly a bit out of line as I think conveyancing is quite a bit cheaper in England and Wales due to the process being, generally a bit more straightforward legally-speaking.

With regard to the lack of viewings, if you're not getting viewers then I'd usually say to people that there are really four variables that they can control in the sale of the property: (1) the asking price, (2) their choice of estate agent, (3) the level of advertising exposure their property has, and (4) the length of time they are prepared to wait to secure a sale. Decreasing (1) usually has a positive effect but means you sell the property for less. Increasing (3) often has a positive effect but can be costly if you are looking at print advertising and isn't always possible if you're already on Rightmove, Zoopla, Primelocation and your solicitors property centre. (2) is slightly more complicated but, assuming you have chosen an agent who has a database of buyers to cross-sell your property to and is reliably picking up the phone when buyers are calling for viewings then you can't ask for a huge amount more. (4) is of course totally down to personal circumstances.

I'd suggest that the first port of call is to ask what your estate agent is actually doing to sell the property and where the property is being advertised then, assuming you are happy with the answers to those questions, you can look at (1) and (4) above as they really are the only other variables that you can control. Hope that gives some level of comfort and an idea for next steps to take...

robertcarroll

mirage wrote: »

We have had our house on the market for 18 months now and really need to sell it due to a new job relocation. Has anyone had any dealings with companies who will buy your house. I understand they will only give you a percentage of your house valuation which i'm guessing is not that high. Just trying to weigh up all our options. Any information would most welcome.

I'm afraid to say that I've had quite a lot of experience of these 'quick sale' house-buying companies. Most are offering a maximum of 75% of the property's value, often so that they can purchase the property without having to put any money in to the finance to purchase it. I have always said to people who ask me whether this is a good idea that the chances are they will not have to reduce the price by 25% to secure a private sale! Perhaps a change of agent to freshen things up and inject a bit of enthusiasm and a new, reduced price will do the trick. Bear in mind too that the 75% they are paying is 75% of the 'market value', not the price that you are hoping to achieve on your current sale. If your property has been on the market for 18 months for example, the chances are that it might take a bit of a price reduction to get the property sold, particularly if the property has been on the market whilst values have been falling a bit in certain areas. So if it was e.g. worth £190,000 and the asking price was £200,000 the quick sale company would offer 75% of the £190,000, not the £200,000. That's £142,500. If you were wanting a really quick sale you could probably put a £190,000 property on the market for £170,000 and it would sell sharpish. That's a heck of a lot more than the quick sale company will give you.

Hope that helps a bit.

robertcarroll

starlitegaize wrote: »

Hi Marcus, This is a really helpful post! Thank you!
Quick question for you: my mother decided to put her house on the market, and at the initial meeting the agent agreed verbally that the lock in period would be 5 weeks - now they're telling her it's 12 weeks.
Plus in the three weeks its been on the market she's not had a single viewing. Yet, they've told her to drop the price (even though it's on at 9 grand less than she paid for it 2 years ago, and 15 grand less than a similar property 250 yards up the road on the same development. I've told her to ring the agent first thing in the morning to cancel dropping the price and that until they've had some viewings she won't reduce the price.
Any advice would be helpful.
Thanks,

For what it's worth, the price/viewings situation is a bit of a Catch 22. There is a strong argument that the reason the property isn't getting viewings is because the asking price is too high and is putting people off. The fact that there's another one on the market at a higher price indicates only one thing I'm afraid: that nobody has bought it either. Sadly though, the only comparisons that can be used are similar properties that have actually sold in comparable areas and also in a comparable market. The market today is quite different to that of a couple of years ago and I'd be reluctant when valuing a property to use a comparable from that long ago.

In terms of the notice period, the difficulty is of course proving the content of the conversation that actually took place. In the absence of a signed contract that reflects the notice period that was actually agreed, the best you can do is to stand your ground and insist that this was the conversation that was actually had.

delly70

If you are wanting to sell your property to an agent that claims to give a quick sale please please do not use Gateway Homes of Leeds. I have been waiting 12 weeks promised the earth absolutely abismal customer service and now they have tried to say they can only give me 80,000 under valuation despite weeks of asking if there was a problem. Directors are at the bank, someone will ring you back, definately completing tomm on an on and on. 50 phone calls to them and they never ring back. I have worked in customer service and can honestly say they get 0% for those skills. The current climate was quoted as an excuse!!! I have learnt my lesson back with a real estate agent offering it at a massive discount to valuation and when I said the price the estate agent said WOW!! I will still clear more that 30 grand than this companies final offer!!!

F_Reed

I once sold a property by auction as I wanted to sell it quickly. It's obviously a gamble to a degree but can be a good way to go!

netchannel

Thanks for telling these tips, these tips are very useful for everyone.