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“Lesley Newton told us
about her first experience of selling privately”
I
had been in my flat for 9 years, but I wanted a garden and
to get away from the high management company charges.
I’d also grown out of the 'communal living' thing and wanted
more privacy and to be responsible for my own space. My
boyfriend and I had decided to buy a house together and had our
eye on a specific house. When we saw it for sale on the internet
we decided to sell my flat.
After trying to sell via an
agent last year and being frustrated by their practises and the
lies they told, I wanted to try and sell without their
‘help’ They had assured us that people they brought round
had secure jobs, passports and deposits but I lost two buyers
over passport issues, which cost me over £2000 in legal costs.
I had read about private sales in the Sunday Times and knew
that my flat did not require a hard sell and
would view very well. HouseWeb was mentioned specifically
and I liked the look of the site when I checked it out on line. I
was in a hurry at that time as I had found my dream house but
thought I would give the private sale two months and see what
happened.
Doing the advert was very easy - I took photographs of the
flat - some on my phone but later on a standard digital camera
and uploaded them – it was very straightforward to cut and
paste the property description on to the site. HouseWeb helped
me with advice regarding the photographs and there was always
someone available to speak to.
We sold the flat in 4 weeks. Although we lost the first buyer we
later accepted an offer which completed within 10 weeks. Doing
it this way we saved approximately £3,000. I sold it for the
valuation less what their charges would have been as I wanted to
pass on the benefit of selling privately to my buyer - so I made
the same profit but without the hassle of dealing with a third
party.
The process was far far less stressful than using an estate
agent - there were only three of us in the chain of two houses -
any questions we had were done by emails so it was instant
response. The solicitors are the ones who do all the work
for far less money! There was no stage of the process which a
fairly capable person with access to a phone or email could not
do themselves.
Unless you have a problem selling your property I would say never use an Estate Agent. It is not a profession -
we realised very quickly that most of the agents who came round
were not to be trusted and in several cases were downright
dishonest. After we accepted offers privately an agent
tried to get us to take higher ones from a buyer they found - we
would not and they kept increasing the offer. Perhaps if you
would not be available to show people around you may want
to use an agent - but we went on holiday during the sale and
left the keys with a friend - we were still able to manage the
process via email/the phone
The tips and hints I would like to pass on to future clients
are
- Ensure
house is immaculately tidy for the pictures and show all
rooms (pay for the package with more photographs); the
more they can see on line the fewer time wasters you will
have .
- Definitely
get the 'For Sale' sign as this does get enquiries.
- Keep
contact details of all who enquire in case the first offer
you accept falls through.
The business of buying and selling is stressful enough and
there is so much to do that you don’t need to add to it using
estate agents - it is so much quicker to just call each other
direct - we had an issue as the survey said a new roof was
needed - we were able to just deal directly with the vendor and
come to an agreement regarding the cost - I know if an agent was
involved it could have got difficult as their main priority is
keeping the cost up as high as possible. The solicitors
were happy to deal just with us rather than agents as well.
Every person who came to see the property was a serious
buyer (all who saw it made offers!) where the agent will bring
round people who they know are looking for something else just
to get viewers through the door. Even if people give it a
go for three months - they may lose £200 but the chances are
they will save far more as we did . I was delighted with the
service from HouseWeb.com - they were so helpful - I had
problems getting the sign delivered at work etc and they went
out of their way to help. I can’t fault them at all.
I think most people who did call saw the house via the other
external sites HouseWeb upload their properties to.
More Case Studies
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