Selling Your Property Privately

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Saving money is an important part in the lives of everyone during this time of economic troubles, and selling a house is no different. Why would you use an estate agent to sell your property and claim high commission rates, when you could sell your home privately? People seem to believe there is some magic formula or equation that estate agents use when selling a house. There are times when a homeowner can sell the property as effectively as a professional if they understand the fundamentals involved.

Saving Money on Valuation

The homeowner can save a considerable amount of money bypassing an estate agent, depending on the commission fee percentage. You could use this saving to make your house more affordable to a potential buyer, becoming more competitive in the housing market. Study the asking and selling prices of similar properties in your area, and this should give you a rough estimation of the price bracket. Search estate agent websites for your information, or contact online companies who provide the housing statistic of your area (for a fee).

Contractual Issues

It will be important for you to seek out expert advice from a solicitor in drafting an airtight contract for the selling of your property. They will provide you with all the necessary advice regarding the clauses and terms within the contract, and duly draft it for you.

Marketing and Advertising

Getting the information out to potential buyers is fundamental for a homeowner and will be the difference between selling your property in a relatively short time or waiting in the shadows for something to happen. Accumulating a detailed sales kit, by listing required information by law for your property is a start. You will need to list vital information, such as nearby schools, utilities and facilities, house and land dimensions, recent repairs or renovations and any other information that would attract a buyer. Although erecting a For Sale sign might seem like a thing of the past, it is still instrumental in catching passersby and creating local interest. Internet listings are a wide-reaching method, because most potential homebuyers use the web to search for houses in this day and age. Letting your friends know of the decision to sell is vital in spreading the word around, and printing an attractive flyer and posting it in communal areas will also generate some interest. It is not hard to sell your property privately, because you will be concentrating on one house, whereas an estate agent will be trying to sell hundreds at the same time.

View answers to similar questions

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  • Is it possible to sell your property privately?

    Is it legal to do this, and is there any cost involved? If I decide not sell privately and go through an agent then what sort of fees am I looking at apart from the solicitor and agent's and what sort of sum are they looking for?
    Many thanks for all answers.
    Not sure what you mean by "privately".

    An agent markets your home and finds buyers. They will usually offer a point of contact for the seller after the sale is agreed, such as for them to pick up the keys on the day of completion. They typically charge from 1% - 3% of the selling price. You can choose not to use an agent, and either advertise yourself (in the paper, online, with a board etc) or sell directly to an interested party.

    The solicitor deals with the legal aspects. The buyer's solicitor does searches and investigates the title to make sure the seller is entitled to sell and that the property is worth the money being asked. The main job for the seller's solicitor is to draw up the contract. This is not as difficult as it sounds because standard conditions are used, but you do need to make sure that it is done properly. A solicitor will generally charge a few hundred pounds for each sale or purchase. You do not have to use a solicitor, but for the cost involved you need to be very confident that you know what you are doing if you decide to go DIY. In any case, if you have a mortgage the lender will probably insist you use a solicitor, because they need somone who is "professionally" trustworthy to ensure the funds go to the right places at the right time.

    Whether you use an agent or a solicitor or not, you will still have to pay for searches (10s or 100s depending on where you are and what you need), a valuation / survey (a few hundred to about £1000 depending on what detail you go for), mortgage arrangement fees (could be anything from £0 to £1000+). If you are buying a property for more than £125,000 you will need to pay stamp duty land tax, which will be at least 1% of the total value, or 3% if the price is over £250,000 or 4% if over £500,000.

  • What are the best "free" and "pay" websites to sell property privately in the uk!?

    Mostly looking for a free option but would consider good pay websites. I know there are many out there but looking for some indication as to which one is the best one! Will be selling in the southend-on-sea area. Thank you for your time
    These sites can be used for advertising by private sellers
    http://www.fish4.co.uk/iad/homes
    http://www.houseladder.co.uk/welcome.aspx
    http://www.loot.com/ .
    Also take a look at these national sites but I'm not sure whether private sellers can advertise
    http://www.halfapercent.com/
    http://www.findaproperty.com/
    http://www.propertyfinder.com/
    http://www.rightmove.co.uk/ .
    Also take a look at developing a website to adevrtise your website http://www.madasafish.com/ and use Pay-per-Click advertising on google and yahoo to make sure you get on the top of any searches.

  • Re; selling your house and renting it back (UK)?

    Does anyone know anything about people/companies who buy your property and rent it back? I know there are some unscrupulous companies, but they can't all be dodgy surely...? Me and my husband have a home worth £140,000 and a mortgage of £80,000 and £50,000 debts in loans/credit cards/overdrafts.. and we have no way EVER of ever paying back all this debt.

    So we have had our home on the market for a year, to enable us to pay off our debts. (then we were going to rent privately...) Illness and unemploment and disability has made us unable to afford to be homeowners anymore, and I'm not going to go into how the debt got run up, it's a number of reasons, and is NOT all down to 'squandering...'

    But, we cannot sell our home... We have made 'reduced offers' to our creditors as we cannot afford the full amount, but we cannot make these reduced offers forever, as the bank and loan andccredit card companies will want their full amounts paying again soon..

    So we thought about selling our home to one of these 'buy and rent back' companies... so we can pay off most of our debt.... What are peoples' thoughts on this? We have a £70K mortgage and £25K secured loan, and the rest is unsecured debt. I know they won't give us the full value of the home, but if they could just give us enough to pay off the mortgage and secure loan, and maybe an extra £10K, we can just pay what we can afford to the unsecured debtors, coz at least they can't take our home...

    And if anyone can advise me, do you know any companies that do it???

    Thank you. :) I am in the UK by the way...
    They pay around 70% of their market value of the property. You won't get enough to cover all you owe.

    Talk to http://www.cccs.co.uk - they are the UKs largest debt charity and should be able to help.

    Has your agent told you why your house is not selling? It is part of their job. If you ever watch property programmes on TV, you can often see why places don't sell - weeds in the garden, paint missing from the front door (those two cost £10 to fix), dog smells, overcrowded with furniture (makes it look small), tatty/old kitchen (brighten it up with a lick of white gloss), tatty/old bathroom (get rid of purple paint, replace with white. New vinyl flooring in a small bathroom isn't much).

    If you can DIY, you could fix all this, and give the downstairs walls a lick of neutral paint (Biscuit Crunch?) for around £150. It is a lot, but worth it if it gets you an extra £10k on the sale price AND sells quicker.

  • Selling your house without an estate agent?

    I live in the UK & have just had my house valued by an estate agent at £314950 however they want 1.5% commission so I`d like to try & sell it privately to save money (its in a very popular area where property is still selling quickly)I`ve looked at quite a few websites where you can pay a fee then advertise through them. Has anyone ever done this themselves & can anyone give me some advice as to good websites to use & anything extra I might need to know.
    Many thanks in advance ..... **** N.B - I AM IN THE UK ****
    However have you considered using a fixed fee estate agent?

    Instead of setting their fees as a percentage of the value of the property the fee for this type of estate agents is fixed. Therefore the fee doesn't increase with the value of your home.

    I think you should be able to save money with this type of agent without the possible difficulties of trying to sell your home independently.

  • Internet Property Retailers?

    Can they be used together with 'sole agency agreement' without trigering agent fees?
    Has anyone been constrained to pay agent fees under the 'sole agency agreement' while the property was sold privately through advertisement on a IPR.
    Thanks for your answers
    Firstly, be careful with 'internet retailers'. Some websites are online estate agents and others are purely private sale sites.

    If a website offers to act as a third party in any way (arranging viewings, passing on phone enquiries etc), then they are an online estate agent. If the site merely publishes your property information and you are left to deal with buyers, then it is a pure private sale site.

    Secondly. Check the exact contract wording with the agent. Sole agency agreement does in fact allow you to sell privately without paying the agent any sale fees, so long as the buyer was not first introduced by the agent.

    Some agents have tried to combat private sales and can word their contracts slightly differently but with maximum impact. 'Sole selling rights' would mean that the agent could claim their fee no matter how the home was sold.

    See this blog for further details
    http://www.tickeverybox.com/blog/?p=383

  • Which one Council flat and cheap rent or Mortgage and owning your own home?

    I am 25yrs old i have an very expensive repayment mortgage.
    My husband has quiet allot of friends that rent privately or from the council he thinks that renting and receiving housing benefit is
    better i don't think it is better when you own your home you can always sell it a move on but with a rented council property it doesnt belong to you.
    WHAT DO YOU THINK?
    you buy for say 100,000 you pay a mortgage the ammount you owe comes down eventually you own the property. in the meantime the value increases and 20 years down the line its worth 200 000 thats a fair return if you match what youve paid less 200 000.rents increase all the time,money down the drain with zero return.the sheltered housing problem is an if and but senario.always better to buy

  • with an assured shorthold tenancy, how much notice does the law state your entitled to before your evicted?

    We have been privately renting our home, our bedroom is unlivable, the mould is almost covering 1 wall, and also on another wall. our wardrobes have warped and gone mouldy and also our clothes are unwearable. i asked the environmental health to come and take a look at our problem. he found over £10,000 worth of damage that needs fixing asap. The house we live in is up for sale and i doubt the landlord will shell out the 10 grand, if he is wanting to sell the property. where do i stand legally? could my family possibly be homeless for xmas?
    yes i do pay for the property, and i live in the uk, so i'm assuming the uk eviction laws are slightly different to the us laws. but i know nothing at all, although reading up as much as poss atm
    I'm a lawyer but it's been a while since I studied property law. I think after the first 6 months expires he has to serve a notice to quite on you which would give you at least 2 months before you'd legally be required to move, however what is alsoconcerning is that you are living in a rented property with so many problems which will effect your enjoyment of the property I assume you are paying for? You might in fact be entitled to compensation, however, as is usual with these things, it might just not be worth the hassle. I'd get in touch with a lawyer - you'll get details of who you should contact by looking at your law society's website. Hope that helps, good luck!

  • Should black people become Christian, Muslim, or none of the above?

    The Quran on slavery:

    Qur'an (33:50) - "O Prophet! We have made lawful to thee thy wives to whom thou hast paid their dowers; and those (slaves) whom thy right hand possesses out of the prisoners of war whom Allah has assigned to thee" This is a special command that Muhammad handed down to himself, allowing himself virtually unlimited sex. Others are limited to four wives, but may also have sex with an unlimited number of slaves, as the following verse make clear:

    Qur'an (23:5-6) - "..who abstain from sex, except with those joined to them in the marriage bond, or (the captives) whom their right hands possess..." This verse allows the slave-owner to have sex with his slaves. See also Qur'an (70:29-30).

    Qur'an (4:24) - "And all married women (are forbidden unto you) save those (captives) whom your right hands possess." Even sex with married slaves is permissible.

    Qur'an (8:69) - "But (now) enjoy what ye took in war, lawful and good" A reference to war booty, of which slaves were a part. The Muslim slave master may enjoy his "catch" because (according to verse 71) "Allah gave you mastery over them."

    Qur'an (24:32) - "And marry those among you who are single and those who are fit among your male slaves and your female slaves..." Breeding slaves based on fitness.

    Qur'an (2:178) - "O ye who believe! Retaliation is prescribed for you in the matter of the murdered; the freeman for the freeman, and the slave for the slave, and the female for the female." The message of this verse, which prescribes the rules of retaliation for murder, is that all humans are not created equal. The human value of a slave is less than that of a free person (and a woman's worth is also distinguished from that of a man's).

    Qur'an (16:75) - "Allah sets forth the Parable (of two men: one) a slave under the dominion of another; He has no power of any sort; and (the other) a man on whom We have bestowed goodly favours from Ourselves, and he spends thereof (freely), privately and publicly: are the two equal? (By no means;) praise be to Allah." Yet another confirmation that the slave is is not equal to the master. In this case it is plain that the slave owes his status to Allah's will. (According to 16:71, the owner should be careful about insulting Allah by bestowing Allah's gifts on slaves - those whom the god of Islam has not favored).


    The Bible on slavery (old and new testament):
    The following passage shows that slaves are clearly property to be bought and sold like livestock.



    However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)



    The following passage...
    Yawn.

    I'm not a Muslim. I disagree with Muslim theology. I have absolutely zero reason to defend the Qur'an. But while some of your comments about slavery in the Qur'an are correct, others are not. They fail to understand the historical context of the work.

    All of your comments about slavery in the Bible are incorrect. They all lack an understanding of the cultural and an historical context of slavery in 1400 B.C. In those days, warfare meant that everyone -- men, women and children -- were killed. Instead of this practice, the Jews gave some of their enemies the opportunity to become slaves. Some slaves sold themselves into slavery for the money. Jews had specific laws for the treatment of slaves, and slavery was for a set period of time. The slave even had the option, after their term of service was over, to remain with his master forever. (Now, if slavery in 1400 B.C. was so terrible, what slave would volunteer to stay with his master?)

    So I think you're trying to put a 19th century A.D. idea of slavery into a 14th century B.C. box here.

    It's also worth noting that your idea of slavery is prejudicial. It isn't ONLY blacks that are slaves, you know. (I think this is your 19th century context coming through again.)