An agent who sells a house for £200,000 is likely to take some £4000 in commission. A lot of money. The cost of selling a house privately, by contrast, is likely to be a few hundred pounds at most.
Anyone can advertise property in the newspaper, or in fliers which can be widely distributed. Anyone can put a For Sale sign up outside their home. Selling property online is another possibility. There are many websites which offer the facility, and many prospective buyers who consult them.
How to Sell a House: the Usual Method
Those who are not interested in selling property privately will have to employ an estate agent – admittedly the best and easiest way to advertise property. It usually works, but most agents charge around 2% of the selling price, so the cost of selling a house that way is high.
Estate agents are not much loved. Sellers complain that they do not do enough to justify their commission; buyers complain that, in their anxiety to make a sale, they offer misleading information. Both complaints are on occasion justified, but a good agent knows how to sell a house, and is unlikely to offer the seller a really poor service.
At the very least, a local agent will be able to set a realistic price and to advertise property effectively. In addition to a photograph (or several) of the house in question, potential buyers will receive those details which estate agents know from experience are most important to the purchaser.
Selling a House Privately
But nothing that the estate agent does is especially difficult. and many might wonder if it is worth paying someone several thousands of pounds to do a job which they may well be able to do for themselves. Can anyone seriously claim to have no idea of how to sell a house? Selling a house privately is just a matter of setting a realistic asking price and achieving maximum exposure.
As regards price, a house is likely to fetch roughly the same as other similar properties in the area – a little research into recent sales should suffice. Alternatively, anyone can get an estate agent to suggest an asking price. Those who consider this a little underhand – the agent visits a house in the hope of getting the business, after all – a surveyor may be engaged to give a professional valuation.
To advertise property, the obvious place is the local paper. Other house advertisements there will offer a useful model. And those interested in selling property privately are well advised to put up their own For Sale sign. None of this is free, but the cost of selling a house privately is not prohibitive
Selling Property Online
In the internet age, many people have learned how to sell a house online. Scores of websites offer this facility, charging between zero and £500. The most expensive sites will offer many extras – such as doing the photography, and putting up a For Sale sign – but for those sellers prepared to do the work for themselves, the cheaper sites can be equally effective.
In selling a house privately online, several photographs – preferably one for each room as well as one of the front of the house – will help, as will a floor plan. Generally speaking, to advertise property effectively it is better to do too much than too little. So for selling property online, give as much detail as possible.
Of course, online selling does not preclude using other methods also. In fact, the best way of selling property privately is to cast the net as wide as possible: advertise in the local paper and do anything else that might help. For those prepared to make the effort, selling a house privately is entirely feasible.
Finally, whether an estate agent is employed or not, there are a few basic home improvements which can expedite the sale and maximise the price. They add to the cost of selling a house, but they are well worth doing.
Iain Manson - A Life – of Sorts Born in 1950 of a Scottish father and a Welsh mother, Iain Manson was brought up in Scotland, and graduated ...
