It is now easier than ever to sell your own house and avoid the agent fees. The benefits and pitfalls are highlighted in the article Death of a Salesman. What follows is a step by step guide on how to go about it.
Valuation
The most important factor when selling your property is deciding the value. Getting it wrong can be disastrous. Price too high and the property will not shift, price too low and you have put yourself out of pocket. Risks aside, valuing your own property is relatively simple. The best approach is to look at similar properties in the area that have sold recently, see how much they went for. All this information can be found Online, www.upmystreet.com is a great and easy to use resource. Another option is checking the land registry: http://www.landregistry.gov.uk/.
If you feel uncomfortable doing this then many agents offer free valuations. This could be useful if your property has any unusual features that may add to the value. Get several agents to value the property to give you a good estimate. You are under no obligation to deal with these agents, just use their expert opinion for pricing the property. There is a possibility that these offers could be on the optimistic side of the value your house will achieve.
Home Information Packs
These are now compulsory on all properties with 3 bedrooms or more. There are many companies that offer these packs, but if you are smart enough to sell your own home you will probably want to put one together yourself:
Advertising
Your biggest asset when it comes to advertising is the internet. Sites like http://www.gumtree.com/ are useful and free so it will not hurt to advertise there. Post as many adverts as you can in as many different places as you can. Remember to keep visiting the sites and updating so the advert remains visible to users. I would also recommend setting up a separate e-mail account to deal with enquires. This will mean that your regular e-mail will not be clogged up with people asking questions. You can also make it personalised to your house e.g. 23MapleDrive@gmail.com.
Another web option is to use a Property Portal Site. These sites will place an advert for you on a collection of partner sites. They usually charge in the region of £80 - £100. This takes the pressure off you psoting adverts yourself and most places throw a For Sale Sign into the deal, to help with local advertising.
Local advertising should not be overlooked in this digital age. Many sales are made locally either to local people themselves or to people visiting the area they wish to move to. You can place adverts up in shops and in the local papers for a small fee.
Every time you get an enquiry ask where they heard about the property so that you can best gauge where to concentrate your advertising.
A well made for sale board with your contact details is very important. You can either make one yourself or contact a sign maker, there are many places on line offering customised and professional looking signs for around £35. Viewings Make sure you have a diary and keep it near the phone at all times. You need to leave enough time for people to have a good look around and this can be a hard art to judge, some people will pop their head in each room and others will be picking things apart with a small tooth comb people are late sometimes as well.
The other problem you can face without an agent is that you are letting strangers into your home. It might be advisable to have a friend with you during the showings. The risks are small but it pays to be on the safe side.
Offer
Once the viewings have been made the offers should hopefully start flooding in. Accept which offer you want. Sometimes the highest is not always the most convenient, they may want to move in earlier than you can manage or some other factor may make it impractical. Accepting an offer does not bind either you or them into anything just yet.
Legal
This is the stage that you will need to seek outside help from your solicitor, they will deal with changing the legal title over from one person to another.
Completion
When the money has been handed over to the solicitor from the buyer all is complete. On this day the keys must be handed over and the property vacated. Congratulations you have sold your house and not paid estate agent fees.
For more information have a look through our selling your house FAQs. |
