Quick Sell Companies. Good or Bad idea?

eowen97

My husband and I have been trying to sell our grade 2 listed flat now for a while. We had a 12 week contract with sharman quinney. We had about 3 viewings and no other interest. We took it off the market and now we have a few options. 

Put it back on the market and try again 

Or 

Use one of those quick sell sites that basically give you the money. 

We would put the flat up for £130,000 and we need at least £120,000 so that we have the deposit for the next house and a little left over.

What would you guys do in our situation?

I am also 10 weeks away from giving birth. Would you wait till after I have had the baby and deal with the first few months in our flat or try and rush through everything and get it done within 10 weeks?

pinkshoes

eowen97 said:

My husband and I have been trying to sell our grade 2 listed flat now for a while. We had a 12 week contract with sharman quinney. We had about 3 viewings and no other interest. We took it off the market and now we have a few options. 

Put it back on the market and try again 

Or 

Use one of those quick sell sites that basically give you the money. 

We would put the flat up for £130,000 and we need at least £120,000 so that we have the deposit for the next house and a little left over.

What would you guys do in our situation?

I am also 10 weeks away from giving birth. Would you wait till after I have had the baby and deal with the first few months in our flat or try and rush through everything and get it done within 10 weeks?

If you have tried to sell it at £130k with no success, then clearly it's not worth that if no one is willing to pay that price. 

A quick selling site will want to make a profit, so by all means call them, but they'll probably offer about £90k to £100k, and probably even drop the price just before exchange. You are NEVER going to get £120k with one of these companies.

The best thing to do would be to try again with an estate agent (offers over £120k), or put it in a traditional auction (with a reserve of £120k).

Why do you NEED £120k? Could you not just take a loss to be able to move on?

eddddy

The way quick sale companies typically work is something like this.

The don't buy the house themselves, they just act as 'a staging post' between you and a buyer.

• They want your house sold within, say, 7 days - so they estimate what selling price they have to set.

• It sounds like you've been asking £130k and got very little interest. So they might decide that it will sell within 7 days, if they set the price at £100k

• The company will aim to keep 20% of the selling price and give you 80%

• So you might end up with £80k

• (if they can't find a buyer at £100k, they can walk away)

TBH, it doesn't really make good sense. If you wanted to go down that route, you could

• stick with a standard estate agent
• reduce your asking price to £100k, to sell within 7 days,
• and pay an estate agent 1% or 2% instead of 20%.

But if you want to get £120k, that route won't work for you.

theartfullodger

Unless desperate to get shot of it, don't.

Albermarle

The  same question is asked on here regularly.
The answer usually is - if you are prepared to accept a much lower price ( which is all these companies ever pay), then better to just reduce the asking price via the usual estate agent route, to generate some interest.
You might be lucky in that by dropping the asking price, it generates a few interested buyers who then bid the price back up again ( same recently happened with a family member).
However it sounds like you will be lucky to get £120K, and certainly not close to that with a Quick Sell company.

GDB2222

“ I am also 10 weeks away from giving birth. Would you wait till after I have had the baby and deal with the first few months in our flat or try and rush through everything and get it done within 10 weeks?”

The good news is that a newborn baby can be in your bedroom for months, so you probably don’t need to move urgently. The last thing you need in the third trimester is all the stress of moving, and after the baby is born you and your husband will both be far too tired to want to move. 

Besides that, most sales take longer than 10 weeks. So, even if you sold for a pittance to a quick sale company, your new  purchase will still be in progress when the baby is born. 

ReadySteadyPop

Just reduce the asking price, you could use PropertyLog or similar to see how much other sellers nearby are reducing by and maybe slightly undercut them to get a sale?