The estate agents are coming round..

[Mr Phoebus]

The estate agents are coming round..

reapply more chloroform then.

 

[spen666]

...

The most important person in the sale of any property is your solicitor. Make sure you get one that deals with conveyancing and is local.

I'm not sure its necessary to use a local solicitor, but I would avoid using one of the conveyancing factory type of solicitors

 

[Twenty Inch]

Read Freakonomics by Steven Levitt.

To summarise the relevant chapter: estate agents will urge you to take the first offer that isn't laughable. This is because subsequent offers will be good to you but are unlikely to increase the agent's commission by a significant amount.

i.e. 3 percent of 100k is 3k. Nice wad for an agent and he'll urge you to accept. You want to hold out for 110k as it's worth another 10k to you. The extra commision is only £300 and he won't want to spend an extra ten days marketing your house for £300 when he could spend it marketing someone else's to make another £3000.

 

[HJ]

I sold my house last year. I had three agents round, with a 20k difference between top and bottom valuation (range - 155 - 175k). 2 of the agents gave me the hard sell and were utterly odious. The third agent looked round, told us what it would fetch, said not to take offers, and would wait for our call - no hard sell. He also had the lowest commission. We gave him the job and the house sold for full asking in 3 days.

Moral of the story - work your way through the local agents until you find one you don't want to punch.

Thank god we use the offer over system up here, that way the buyer decide how much it is worth...

 

[asterix]

Don't let him try to undervalue the house in order to achieve a quick sale. One tried this with me and I ended up selling for £20,000 more than he suggested. he completely failed to understand the kind of buyer who might want the house, which was exactly the kind of buyer who bought it.

Ditto. £15,000 in my case 5 years ago and my late father's house. I was a bit surprised at the valuation, less so when he found a buyer in about 3 days. They also made a cock-up producing the details and it wasn't advertised in the local rag before the offer came in.

 

[simonali]

I had the estate agent round to measure up on Tuesday and already have an interested party who have viewed the house today!

I now think I'm being tucked up, as the agent obviously had this potential buyer, knew how much they had to spend and look like they might be getting an offer submitted before they've even produced any particulars yet.

My house isn't on any websites yet and I haven't had the HIP man round yet either.

 

[gbb]

Be realistic, sole agency, don't believe anything, give him a cup of tea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ditto.
Do your homework as well. What are similar houses going for ?
Sole Agency....they all advertise on Right Move or similar anyway. Whats the point of multiple agents, when theyre all advertising with similar or the same media.
DONT believe anything they say...theyre masters of saying the right thing at the time, irrespective of whether its relevent or true.
Be patient....house sales in Peterborough appear VERY VERY slow at the moment...cant say for anywhere else.

 

[Gerry Attrick]

Make the slimy beggar a cup of tea, then talk his commission down, it is negotiable. We "persuaded" the agent selling our previous towers to come down to 0.75% from1.5%. Hey presto.......a saving of half.

 

[Chuffy]

Yup, do your homeworkon local prices and get three of them round. We had four round to value Baggy's flat. Three of them quoted the same value entirely independently of each other, the fourth quoted 28% less. Turned out he was a property developer as well as an estate agent...
To be fair to the agency who sold it, they sold it quickly, for the asking price and were quite happy to undercut the commission offered by the other agency.

 

[Chuffy]

PS - I used to be one....

 

[snorri]

Should I believe anything he says?
Should I make the smarmy twat a cup of tea?

Warning!!!
He? It could be a very attractive she. Just keep your mind on house selling and nothing else.

 

[Abitrary]

Useful tip to anyone selling a house is to bake some fresh homemade bread and brew some real coffee before a viewing.

Even if you dont like these things yourself, doing it will at least show that you are playing the game.

 

[Baggy]

Useful tip to anyone selling a house is to bake some fresh homemade bread and brew some real coffee before a viewing.

I opened the windows to dissipate the smell of blocked drains and hid a suspicious hole in the skirting with a bit of furniture. That worked too .

 

[Abitrary]

I opened the windows to dissipate the smell of blocked drains and hid a suspicious hole in the skirting with a bit of furniture. That worked too .

My mum used to put a lampshade on my head and tell me we were playing statues, when people came round to view our old house.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

Put it on ebay. £1 000 starting bid, no reserve. What could possibly go wrong?