House Selling - Money Saving Tips

JackRS

Sorry if this is already in this thread but would appreciate views on the fees for selling. Please share your wisdom on the quote below, is it resonable?

Legal Fees for the Sale of a Freehold Property Valued at £275,000 £515.00
VAT
£103.00
Total
£618.00
Disbursements and standard additional costs Official Copies of the Register 1 £6.00 Redemption of Mortgage 2 £114.00 Bank Transfer Fee 3 £42.00 ID Verification4 £12.00
Sub Total
£174.00
Costs for Sale including Fees, Disbursements and VAT
£792.00

Estelle_Page

Hi Marcus ,

Thanks for your advice. I have a innate fear of estate agents and was appalled at how much it was going to cost us to sell our house last year.
We had great success with a online estate agent and was thinking of writing a little guide to how it went and it saved us loads of money.

Estelle

Richard_Watters

I see lots of properties that people are selling, or thinking of selling. So many of them can be made much more saleable with a just bit of time and effort, and without spending any money.

Here’s my tips to help you sell your house without spending any money:

1. Clean it! Don’t just get the hoover out for 10 minutes. Do a proper clean – wash every surface, scrub every stain, bleach the grout, wash every window (inside and out). Use cleaning materials with an attractive light fragrance, lemon is good. When you’ve finished it should be how you’d expect to find a room in a quality hotel.
2. Tidy! Remove things that shouldn’t be seen - newspapers and magazines, toys, food packaging, etc.
3. Tidy the garden. Prune, cut and weed. Get rid of any junk.
4. Allow as much natural light to enter as possible. Switch lights on in any rooms that seem dark.
5. Get rid of nasty smells. Your house probably smells, even if you’re a non-smoker and don’t have pets, because most houses smell! Although you’ll be used to it, so you won’t notice. A good clean helps but use a smell neutraliser as well.
6. Add nice smells. Seems corny, but there’s nothing nicer than freshly brewed coffee and the smell of fresh bread. Avoid aerosol air fresheners – most people don’t actually like the smell of these. And will wonder what you’re trying to mask.
7. Add flowers from your garden (if you don’t have a garden or it’s out of season you might want to spend a couple of quid here).

To some of you the above will be blindingly obvious and I apologise in advance to anyone who finds this patronising. In my experience though, very few people get 10 out of 10!

alexpricex

It is certainly not somebody looking to invest in prime property. The present buyer's industry makes it tough for sellers to begin with, and simply whipping out the Febreeze and fresh-baked cookies will not cut it. Make smelly houses something of the past with these easy recommendations for deodorizing a home. Who wants to live in a home that smells bad?

kixxb

Very useful thread - I'm just about to start getting valuations for my property and I'll definitely be doing some "mystery shopper" type calling beforehand!

Does anyone have a feel for how these independent valuations can help with part exchange bargaining? We would like to go down this route to a)guarantee a sale and also ensure we don't have to find temporary accomodation (the house we want doesn't have a confirmed completion date yet - in fact they haven't even started building it!!!)

doughnutmachine

I work abroad and wanted to sell my flat in the UK. While in the UK, on holiday, I got Slater Hogg round to value it. They wanted something like £1200 to put the flat on the market and another £1100 when it sold (£2300 total).

I didn't want to give SH an initial £1200 in case they couldn't sell it. So the agent said he would take £600 to put it on the market and the rest when it sold. Only at the time of signing the contract did the agent said I would have to pay the additional £600 if I took the flat off the market. I wasn't too happy about this, but since I was flying to work the next day I couldn't really do a lot but sign the contract.

In three months I had a total of three viewers (no offers). So I had to take my flat off the market and pay the additional £600.

I read the papers and know the house market is very slow. There is no way I would have paid £1200 to put my flat on the market.

I have to admit that I feel Slater Hogg ripped me off

I'd advise anyone thinking of selling their house to ask the additional fees they would pay if the Estate Agent cant sell it.

mikeeb21

Hi there, I am putting my house on the market in the next couple of weeks and have come across various on-line agents which on face value seem to do the same job as a high street agent (other than attend viewings).

Is this true, is there anything that a high street offers that an online can't/does not. The savings seem imense (£500/£600 flat fee for online vs 1 to 1.5% on the high street) and I am a little cautious that it seems too good to be true.

Has anyone use dan online site, if so any recommendations?

Thanks

Mike

topsy73

Felt compelled to add to this thread! We put our house on the market on 5th August ...in 3days we had 9 viewings and two offers within the first week!

I have to agree with the post about certain tips...we cleaned, decluttered and painted the house, removed larger pieces of furniture and believe all of this helped to make our house much more 'saleable'

Sharon

lynneinjapan

mikeeb21 wrote: »

Hi there, I am putting my house on the market in the next couple of weeks and have come across various on-line agents which on face value seem to do the same job as a high street agent (other than attend viewings).

Is this true, is there anything that a high street offers that an online can't/does not. The savings seem imense (£500/£600 flat fee for online vs 1 to 1.5% on the high street) and I am a little cautious that it seems too good to be true.

Has anyone use dan online site, if so any recommendations?

Thanks

Mike

I haven't personally used an online agent but if I had a house to sell then I probably would. I think that over 90% of buyers start by searching online nowadays, so all you really need - if you're happy to conduct your own viewings - is an agent who advertises on Rightmove and Zoopla. (I believe the agent does need to actually have a representative visit the property as they are required to vouch for the accuracy of the description.)

One well-known blogger in the world of property investment has reported a good experience with Hatched, but I'm sure there are plenty of others that are equally good.

Georgesmum79

What ever you do, do not buy, sell or in any way deal with a firm called BPL solicitors in Dorchester. They are part of the iConvey ('con' indeed) chain. We have just sold a house and my rather inexperienced (in the property world) OH used this firm. To cut a long story short, not only did they very nearly cost us the sale (there was nobody there to do the work when exchange was supposed to take place!), but once they did do the work, we struggled to get the £15K balance out of them. I was prepared to go down there and get arrested if need be...... They are unprofessional, clueless, not enough staff and impossible to get hold of. The solicitor who did the prep-work was ok, but from there on it was HELL!! We are going to complain to them now that we have the money and demand compensation. We will go to the ombudsman if need be, the stress they put us through was incredible.

Do not touch these people with somebody else's bargepole!!

Ps. I do not work for their competitors, whoever that may be, I have nothing to do with the legal profession or conveyancing. I have already been accused of working for Persimmon because I have had a good experience with Charles Church, so just making this clear.