DIY selling your house - tips?

[nick smith]

Thinking of selling my house, D-I-Y, i.e. without the agent / fees.

Anyone here done this and have any tips, mainly "where to advertise" ?

Thanks,

Nick

[nightjar]

Oddly enough, the most effective place to advertise is through an Estate Agent. You will pay a percentage of the sale price, but, by shopping around and negotiating, you should be able to get that down to 0.75%.

If you do want to go it alone, be prepared to wait to sell. Your potential buyers are most likely to be looking in Estate Agents' for their purchase, so, unless you are going to spend more than the agent's fees on advertising, it will probably be luck if they notice your advert in the local newsagent / small ads / whatever. Even then, you will almost certainly get a lot of time wasters.

I have just sold a house without an agent, but it was more luck than intent; the purchaser approached me because she had noticed the house was empty and she liked the look of it. The house had been standing empty for nearly three years and it eventually took about another eight months to complete. As it happened, I had just had it valued, with a view to placing it with an Estate Agent, so I had a price to start negotiations with.

Colin Bignell

[Jeff]

"nightjar .uk.com>"

advertising,

The only exception to the above is when a close neighbours house is for sale, you will get viewings off the back of that - our family bought a house that way

Regards Jeff

[s--p--o--n--i--x]

Someone up the road from us are using these people:

£89 and it includes a "For Sale" board, from what I can gather.

I'd also suggest adverts in your local classified paper and if the property is particularly unusual, ebay.

(Don't worry, under ebay terms and conditions, property ads are for information only and are not binding. It's also a fixed fee of £35 regardless of what the property sells for)

sponix

[Al Reynolds]

Or for £129 they will list on all the major websites except RightMove, including

and as well as several newspapers' website property sections.

You can't get a private sale property listed on RightMove - they do a good job of protecting their members' interests, which I suppose is fair enough.

For me the big turnoff of selling privately is vetting people. How do I know that the 'viewers' aren't just burglars coming round to case the joint? I'm not sure how much extra vetting estate agents do, but it does feel like it's safer.

I suspect private selling works best in an area where people drive past regularly, or where there are people nearby who want relatives to move into the area. I live at the top of a cul-de-sac where people don't move very often, so I doubt a for sale board would make much difference. They say that half of people house-hunting now use the Internet as first port of call, but I suspect that's a bit high.

Al

[jg.campbell.ng]

All this from having sold a house myself -- in Dublin 15 years ago; trouble free. But, like second-hand car sales, it greatly depends on the area -- some places, I guess away from major centres of population, an estate agent may be essential.

Find out where (newspapers + ?) the estate agents advertise houses in your price range. That's all. If there is no clear cut choice, that may again point to the requirement for an estate agent. If you are going to be at the phone only for certain times, advertise those times.

Timing may be important. You have a bit of a window now until a few weeks before the school holidays. Then things go quiet until a week after the schools open in Sept. Of course all depends on the demand. Some houses / streets sell themselves as soon as they go on the market.

As regards filtering dreamers from real buyers, even with an estate agent you'll probably have to do that yourself anyway. You should plan some line of conversation to get out of them their current housing and financial circumstances.

Arrange viewing times and write then down (is 20 minutes per viewer enough?).

Important. Have photocopies of a nicely prepared description + photo -- see estate agents handouts -- ready for everyone. Apart from anything, it saves a lot of question answering and follow-up telephone calls.

Again depending on area, you'll get the odd family whose Sunday afternoon hobby is to visit houses for sale. If large families arrive, it does to have a second person on the premises.

You might find the exercise somewhat unpleasant, but my experience was vastly preferable to (recent) dealings with estate agents (as I've often admitted, I'm now too lazy for any sort of d.i.y).

(I'm sure this is a faq; and there must be loads of guides on the web?)

Good luck,

Jon C.

[s--p--o--n--i--x]

AFAIK, agents do no vetting of clients.

[Al Reynolds]

Except that most agents don't want to waste time showing people round a property unless they think they have a reasonable chance of getting a commission, so they do try and get an idea of whether they are serious buyers.

The estate agents round here will happily send anyone details, but won't let you look round houses unless you have sold your house and have a decision in principle on any mortgage needed. I doubt they check these details of course, so it doesn't stop people lying and pretending to be serious buyers...

Al

[s--p--o--n--i--x]

If you *say* you have a mortgage.

Nope, they don't check.

sponix

[Jethro]

Estate agents *should* register applicants, and perform a money-laundering check *before* proceeding to send details, and arrange viewings. I'll wager not a lot do (correction, I *know* not a lot do, as their software won't cope), but that's no excuse.

If you read the industry press, it's something they are waking up to, after a few court cases where they have been sued (and lost) because they didn't keep appropriate records ... I believe "compliance" is the name of the game.

[John Rumm]

Alas RightMove is the one you really want to be on...

[Al Reynolds]

True - for about 75% it is the first port of call (according to RightMove ;-). Propertyfinder isn't a bad second though, and their stuff is listed on Wanadoo property and Yahoo property, which I guess a fair number of Internet users will pass by chance.

Al

Al

[nick smith]

Thanks for the input / replies - I'll try those first

Nick