stubbyholder

Anyone tried selling their property themselves/on 'tinternet/local newspaper advert? In other words by-passing the traditional route of using an estate agent, in an effort to save £££'s.If you did any words of wisdom? -would you do it again?
S

luchi

We were going to sell the house ourselves, but when it came to the crunch we decided to instruct Estate Agents as our time is limited ( must leave for Oz by 18th July) and also that were thinking that more people would feel safer buying property via agents rather than private.
Tips if u r going ahead with the private route: Find a good property solicitor, if buyer says has cash availible...make sure that that cash is not tied up on their own house until they have sold it, u can always ask to see formal confirmation of their money promise - even if via solicitors, if u are selling by a sign outside the house, put " Viewing by appointment only" that will weed out the noisey - parkers who have nothing better to do! This isn't very much, but might get you thinking!

Wendy

Here is a really good site for selling via the internet, one of the packages comes with a sign

www.houseladder.co.uk

furkew

i've done it twice here in Holland, and it's very easy.

I also got more for the house than both estate agents first quoted.

It can mean you need to make yourself available for viewings, but I found because you know more about the house than the estate agent, it makes it more personal, and you can play on the buyers reactions.

I don't know if there are things to look out for in the UK selling yourself, but here it's a doddle.

saves lots of money, and so far in my experience, sells a lot quicker.

Mandy&Cliff

We sold ours, had a board made paid about $50 (this keyboard does not have pound sign). I put the mobile number on the board, had a few calls then one lady rang around 6pm spoke for half an hour came round at 7pm and offered full price at 8pm.
We had a book about selling houses yourself and there was an addaddress contact and they sent out copies of contracts. I filled out the contracts and sent them to their solicitor he was unhappy at first and said he would only deal with a solicitor (I said what a load of B**LS) if his clients wanted our house then he would have to deal with me. Everything went through fine then, You would normally have the deposit held in sort of trust account but their solicitor held the monies (obviously as security for his clients) on the day of completion all went through and all monies including interest were paid. I would defdefiantly do it again. Remember when selling you do not need agent or solicitor because until you have all money owed you do not release the land title or the keys.

Sunny_Glesga

USE THE HASH KEY FOR THE £ SIGN

Mandy&Cliff

Hash gives me # I am writing this from OZ on a computer bought here thats why the keyboard has $ not sterling.

Weasy

Depends on your house. We sold our last house by just sticking a home made board outside and making our own property details using digital camera etc BUT it was at the height of the property boom and a very popular style house. This time we are using housenetwork.co.uk as the fees are great and, as this is a more individual property we felt we need to be on rightmove etc....

Hope this helps

Louise

sunshinesarah

Good question/thread.

We tried selling privately for a few weeks with a decent sign put out which we organised (paid $165 inc photos). I opened the house up on a weekend - sometimes all day. I live in a new development where there's a lot going on and a lot for sale and a lot of people driving around so i thought it would sell by itself. We got Ok numbers through but I felt they were just nosy parkers out for a drive on a Sunday afternoon.

The person who suggested a "view by appointment only" makes good sense - wish I had done that.

Whilst you can get on the net as a private seller, we learnt that most buyers first go to internet and then real estate agents windows. We wanted to be on realestate.com. which seems to be the main website people go to. We have just been in Thailand for 4 weeks and decided to put it on with an agent who don't charge to go on net or do open homes. In four weeks we have had over 200 hits. Although we have not sold yet, we are thinking that we may stay with an agent albeit that they charge a ludicrous amount of money.

There's a website called www.owner.com.au and I have seen a few signs around but when I had a look at our area, there was only about 7 for sale where as realestate.com had hundreds.

Difficult one. I think it depends on the market too which I'm told has picked up here on Sunshine Coast. I never expected to sell quickly and luckily we are not in any rush so I'm just sitting patiently, currently on with agent.

Good luck
Sunshine Sarah

ABCDiamond

Here is a quick tip, hold down the "ALT" key and type 0163 whilst it is held down, and the result is.......... £



Alternatively use "GBP"

flip

I found it depended most on the location, the market and the house - we had a pretty house on the main road through a village enroute to London during the boom - we made our own board (very tacky), did our own details (very good), asked for offers above what the local estate agents suggested and had many viewings and 6 or more offers above asking price all within days of the board going up.

More recently though we had a lovely home on a cul-de-sac and tried selling it ourselves but because there was no through traffic it was more difficult.

If you decide to sell it yourself you could try asking at schools if you can put posters up and advertise open days & mention it to everyone you know. Do your own sales particulars and give yourself a timescale - if no success in this time then appoint estate agents but agree with them a caveat that if they don't introduce the buyer to you then you don't have to pay a fee. It may be that some of the work you've done is what gets you a buyer and there's nothing more frustrating than paying someone for something you've done yourself.

One final warning. We eventually sold our house to our tenants and our landlord agent tried to screw a payment for introducing them to us. He'd already had his pound of flesh because they charged to find the tenant and our monthly fee was more than normal because we were going to be abroad but actually do no more work so be aware something like this could appear in the contract.

Good luck

Flip

tucs

sold my last house myself and it was very easy. I got 3 quotes from estate agents (to get me the asking price) then word of mouth got around and i started to get offers (living in Ireland it is very much more of a sellers market) saved a fortune and also upped the asking price as interest was good,
When it came to sale time i just got a run of the mill solicitor and everything went like clockwork.
This time though the house price is high so it will fall into a different type of buyers price range and will take longer to sell. So i am using an agent. Still got 4 to call around and i managed to get the sellers % down. One started at 1.9% but wanted to go down to 0.9%. I ended up going with an agent who is charging 0.7%

Best of luck