The DIY Guide To Selling Your Own Home

The Valuation - How to Value My Own Home to Sell

Getting an accurate selling price is vital. Too high and you might never sell. Too low and you could be losing out by thousands.

The most accurate valuation you could get to value your own home to sell would be from a Chartered Surveyor.

What you need is to find a good local firm. Many of these have been established for generations and really do know the area. Besides giving a highly accurate valuation they could also be a fount of useful knowledge.

It might be an idea to get the same surveyor to also carry out a survey of your property. You can show this survey to buyers. It will prevent them from using any unforeseen problems that might be revealed by their own survey - which they can then use to try to drive your price down.

Besides this the buyer might be able to use your survey for their own mortgage lender (Though this will depend on their lender).

This could help speed things up and make all the difference to achieving a successful sale.

It’s relatively easy to get a free valuation

If you don't want to invest in a Chartered Surveyor, Estate agents offer a free valuation service.

Apply to a few local agents. Tell them you might be interested in using them to sell your house. Sit back and watch the show.

They'll send round a "Senior Negotiator" or someone with a similar important sounding title. The role of this person is to get you to sign up with their agency. (see tips on using an Estate Agent).

Estate Agent's Pricing

When you have several local agents coming round to pitch for your business they will use various stratagems to attract you.

Typically they will slander the others. Expect mutterings about past dark deeds the other local firms have committed and how they would never personally deal with any of them.

But their main tactic to watch for is how the agents use the pricing of your property as a sales tool.

In particular, one of the tricks an agent will use is to deliberately over price your property.

Understandably, you will probably be more interested in taking on the agent who you believe can get you the highest price.

The reality is that this agent knows they won't be able to sell your property at that price. They are just using it to get rid of the other agents - who have suggested a more realistic price.

Several weeks down the line, in the face of your criticism that nothing is happening, this agent will suggest lowering the price. Don't be surprised if their new price is below what the other agents suggested originally.

What you need to do is study the price range being suggested by all the agents. Then choose something in the middle range to sell your own home at...

If you're wrong you can always lower it. (Tip: don't necessarily put your house on the market for that price though. See Your Two Key House Prices in the section on negotiating

When deciding on the price remember that a price like £94,750, or even £94,950 is much more attractive to buyers than £95,000. It might be irritating but it works.

 

Always set a reasonable price. No matter how nicely you do up your property if the price is too high it just won't sell.

Note that what you are really doing by getting a good valuation is making sure you are not selling it for too little.

UK Property Valuation Websites

There are various websites that claim to be able to show you the value of your property. (They tend to use the Government's Land Registry database).

The problem with them is they are too scattergun in that they will take the average sales prices for a street or particular area. However the types of properties and what they can fetch can vary hugely, even within a relatively small area. Sometimes even direct neighbours can have very different valuations. So this can skew the true value of your home.

We would suggest you try dealing with a local expert - like a surveyor or agent - and focusing only on your property.

You can use the websites as a general guide. You could try the following - which were all free to use at the time of writing. If that has changed please let us know

Hometrack.co.uk

They claim to provide an up-to-date and allegedly independent review of prices and trends. England & Wales only.

HousePrices.co.uk

Let you search the Land Registry database.

Landreg.org.uk

The UK government's Land Registry service gives useful information on property prices. It's a little bit harder to navigate but worth a try. (Sorry they don't allow us to link you direct to the relevant area - that would have been too simple ;-)

How to sell Your Own Home Guide Contents

 

How to Sell Your Own Home Guide - Summary

The Pros & Cons

The Valuation - How to Set the Right Price

Legal Advice When Selling Your Own Home

Marketing Your Own Home Without an Estate Agent

The Description - How to Describe Your Property

Preparing Your Home to Sell

Viewings It's showtime folks

Dealing with offers - Tips and the Golden Rules to Negotiating

Exchanging Contracts and legal stuff

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX – Selling options