Tag: estate agency

Avoid these rookie mistakes when selling your home

Avoid these rookie mistakes when selling your home

Selling your home isn’t easy, and it can be an expensive and time-consuming process. There are all the expected stresses, and you may be tempted to give up and stay rooted where you are. However, you can make your life easier, and sell your home faster, by avoiding the mistakes we mention in this post. So, if you’re planning on selling your home any-time soon, take the following into consideration to achieve a fast house sale.

Woman sitting and thinking about a house

Mistake #1: Not shopping around

In all aspects of your home sale, compare the prices and online reviews of the people who will be helping you. Talk to different estate agents in Lewisham, and find out how much they charge in fees. While you may be tempted to go for the cheapest, you should also research their reputation and how effective they are at selling. You can also tell a lot from their website, and how well-advertised their other properties are. You should also compare conveyancing solicitor quotes here, as while you can sell your house without an estate agent, you can’t forego the legal side of things. And again, do your research, asking solicitor firms for testimonials, and seeking the wisdom of family and friends who may have advice on who to work with.

House marketing

Mistake #2: Not adding value to your home

To ensure your home sells faster, there are a variety of ways you can add value to your home. There are lots of things you can do, such as renovating certain rooms in your property or installing smart technology, but if money is an issue, the least you can do is add a lick of paint to the interior and exterior of your home, get on top of any repairs, and tidy up any area that looks worn and not terribly presentable.

House made from jigsaw pieces

Mistake #3: Putting off the home buyer

When it comes to those all-important home showings, your home needs to be presentable. If your house is in a mess, with dishes piled high in the sink and with clutter on the floor, and if you have pets and children running around leaving disaster in their wake, then you aren’t going to give a good first impression to buyers. Similarly, if you don’t give potential buyers room to use their imagination when looking around, perhaps because you’ve gone overboard with renovations when adding value, and designed the home as you’d like it to be, or if you insist on following the buyer around the house giving them your suggestions, you’re going alienate their sensibilities. Ensure your home is presentable, consider what else might put the buyer off your home and, if need be, go out for the day and let the estate agent do their job and show the buyer around without your intervention.

House for sale illustration

Mistake #4: Setting the property price too high (or too low)

When selling your home, you want to get as much money as you can, while beating off the competition. But by selling your home at too high a price, you may not be in line with the current housing market. If the buyer can buy a similar house for cheaper elsewhere, then they probably will do. If you decide to set your home at lower than the expected price, the buyer might ask why this is the case. Rather than have the incentive to buy your property, they may determine something may be wrong with it. And even if they do buy, you may run at a loss! To make a wise decision, speak to your estate agent. They have more idea about property prices than you do, and they should give you the right figure to both profit you and attract the attention of home buyers.

House and man with a megaphone

Mistake #5: Not making the effort to market or sell your property effectively

The estate agent will do much of the marketing for you, by advertising on their website, and any that are affiliated to them. However, you can put the effort in yourself. Advertise your home on social media, and provide links to the estate agent’s website. Consider setting up your own website or blog to market your property, and again, link your social media followers (and their friends) to the site. Place ads in the classifieds too, or directly approach people you know who are currently house hunting. The more you can do to sell your property, including the unusual ideas here, the higher the chance of a speedier home sale.

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Finally

We hope this advice was useful, and that it alleviates the stress you’re probably feeling if your house is up for sale. And if you have any further advice, perhaps from your experiences now or in the past, then be sure to let us know. Good luck with the sale, and thanks for reading!

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Why selling fast doesn’t mean selling for less

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When we put our homes on the market, we’re met with a mountain of administration to tackle, estate agents to wrestle with and a never-ending cycle of anticipation, offers and fall-throughs. But what if you could speed up the process? And what if you could do so without losing money? It’s certainly possible…

The majority of us sell our homes using estate agents. However, estate agents can cost sellers a lot of money, charging anything from 0.75% to 3.0% of the agreed selling price, plus VAT. So, using the national average charge, selling a £250k home could result in you owing an average fee of £5,400 – all going directly into your estate agent’s pocket.

But, is this a bad thing? Not necessarily. A good estate agent with strong local knowledge, effective communication skills and an ability to negotiate could mean that their fee is money well spent. But, sadly, that’s not true for everyone. Many sellers report feeling dissatisfied with their estate agent’s services, finding that communication often breaks down and that their processes are frustrating. If you feel this way or want to avoid the cost of using a traditional estate agent, there are a number of other routes you could can go down to sell your house fast without losing money…

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Using an online estate agent

Firstly, new homes, old homes, small homes, flats (or any other home for that matter), can be listed on sites such as House Simple, an online estate agent. Due to the fact that online providers like this have fewer overheads than traditional agents, they tend to charge much smaller fees. They’re also able to tap into a huge number of potential buyers, promoting your property across a large marketing network including sites such as Rightmove and Zoopla.

If you’re happy to show potential buyers around your home yourself, and are able to answer questions directly rather than relying on an agent as a middle man, you might be able to sell your house fast, and at a high price. House Simple currently helps sellers achieve 99% of their asking price and find that properties listed through their services take an average of 25 days to sell. Just be sure to research this option thoroughly by reading the small print and using a reputable online vendor – not all online agents are professional or able to secure you a good price.

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Becoming a DIY agent

Alternatively, you could sell your house quickly and cheaply by acting as your own estate agent. Use your local knowledge and take advantage of advertising, social media and word of mouth, photographing your home professionally and listing it on websites like Tepilo or Gumtree before showing prospective buyers around your property. It’s a more labour-intensive option than hiring an estate agent and involves lots of administration and paperwork, and requires excellent negotiation skills… but if you’re good at it, you’ll have full control over the speed of a sale and will be able to save yourself lots of money.

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