Selling a House & Estate Agents Advice

[Dave7]

Online for me. Save a fortune. We dealt with the veiwings. But i think you can get them to sort that side as well. We used House simple. Have no trouble recomending them.

Serious question. When you say "save a fortune"? On a house valued, say, £175K how much do you expect to save?
We are aware that we will have to down size before too long and am pondering this question.

 

[Dave7]

We sold the last 2 on our own. It isn't difficult if you know anything about your market. Agent valued first house 50k below what we got for it first week out the gate. Some agents just want their cut as opposed to getting you the best deal regardless of what they say.

If your house is anything other than bog standard ie the same as others in the area I dont think the average agent has a clue.
We have a large 3 bed semi to which we added a full granny flat (when the MiL lived with us). So it is now unique.
Its in a low value area so worth £180max**
About 3 years ago we got 3 valuations which varied by £50K** (so 30% difference).

 

[PK99]

Online for me. Save a fortune. We dealt with the veiwings. But i think you can get them to sort that side as well. We used House simple. Have no trouble recomending them.

Whether you saved or lost money depends on the price a conventional agent would have achieved vs the Online price.

There is no simple correct price for a house.

 

[Slick]

If your house is anything other than bog standard ie the same as others in the area I dont think the average agent has a clue.
We have a large 3 bed semi to which we added a full granny flat (when the MiL lived with us). So it is now unique.
Its in a low value area so worth £180max**
About 3 years ago we got 3 valuations which varied by £50K** (so 30% difference).

That's exactly right. The agent just looked at the figures from others in the vicinity and took no account that I had just finished renovating the internals to a very high standard and put on a new roof. He reckoned there was a glass ceiling. Well if there was, we smashed it mate.

 

[derrick]

Whether you saved or lost money depends on the price a conventional agent would have achieved vs the Online price.

There is no simple correct price for a house.

I paid £1500.00 the Estate agent wanted £5000.00 pound. The local eastate agent also under estimated the price, we got £7000.00 more than they estimated. You would have to be a complete idiot to go with our local astate agent.

 

[derrick]

Serious question. When you say "save a fortune"? On a house valued, say, £175K how much do you expect to save?
We are aware that we will have to down size before too long and am pondering this question.

Our house was worth a lot mor than that, see my other post.

 

[PK99]

I paid £1500.00 the Estate agent wanted £5000.00 pound. The local eastate agent also under estimated the price, we got £7000.00 more than they estimated. You would have to be a complete idiot to go with our local astate agent.

depends on the quality of the agent...

 

[MrGrumpy]

Mrs Smoo lost her Nan just before Christmas and now has the uneviable task of selling the house.

We have very limited experience between us, I've bought two houses and sold one in 25 years, and the MIL has lived in her home for around 35 years.

So would you go with a conventional high street agent or one of these online jobbies or something totally different?

We don't really want the hassle of dealing with viewings TBH, think we'd rather just give whoever a key and tell them to call when they've got an offer, so guessing this may limit who to use but any advice from the CC massive would be gratefully received.

T.I.A

We let the solicitor dealing with the whole estate sorting out the house etc when my Auntie passed away. However it’s a very large estate and still not sorted out yet. Just easier all round for us. Particularly now that my father who is executor has a terminal illness.

 

[geocycle]

We sold ours with a local agent, very positive experience. Online quote was £1000, agent was 1.75% of sale. They got a lot more than £1000 but had a real incentive to get a buyer and a good price.

 

[derrick]

depends on the quality of the agent...

They are there to earn what they can, I would not trust one, I have sold a few houses in my life, have always felt i had been ripped off, but back then there was no other choice, Now ther is,

 

[derrick]

Whether you saved or lost money depends on the price a conventional agent would have achieved vs the Online price.

There is no simple correct price for a house.

As said earlier the local estate agent under estimated by £7000.00, Rip of trying to earn a quick quid at your expense.

 

[Globalti]

Same here... local agent suggested a price, I thought a bit, rang him up and said "add ten thousand". Then rang again and added another five. "You'll never sell at that price" said he. I had two buyers trying to gazump each other and sold it in two days. I HATE estate agents.

 

[Chris S]

i thought probate had to be completed before property could be transferred or sold?

You can do all the viewings, exchange contracts, etc before you get probate. You only need probate to do the actual transfer to the new owner.

 

[Chris S]

Yes. Online Forms are awkward but not impossible. Don’t let a solicitor charge you £5k for them to do it.
We had the probate form back in 3 weeks.

So far it's cost me a few hundred pounds and taken 6 weeks, it would have been quicker if it wasn't for the Christmas break. I'm just waiting for the Land Registry to transfer the house and then it's all done.

 

[Archie_tect]

When my dad died in May last year, the local solicitor charged me £1000 to deal with everything including probate and

You can do all the viewings, exchange contracts, etc before you get probate. You only need probate to do the actual transfer to the new owner.

I would have thought it would be the first question any purchaser's solicitor would ask, before exchanging contracts and doing any searches which involve their client spending their money... "Does the vendor own the building?"