[britzy]

We are considering selling our home privately as we really begrudge giving hugh amounts of money to an estate agent when Im sure we could do it ourselves .I have found a good website www.lawpack.co.uk who advertise on line ,on leading property websites and for a small cost will provide a for sale board if you want one,and we would get our HIP pack done privately .
I was wondering if anyone else have done anythink similar but if not I just wanted to share this with you in case it was helpful to anyone.
The immigration process is costly enough and unfortunately we have expenses to pay to our morgage lender when we complete,due to fixing the rate to 20 years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.:no
Helen

[cathgates]

Give it a go, let us know how it goes. You can always approach your local property paper and see if you can put in a private add with a photo?
Ebay is always worth a try?
I would advise you to use a local solicitor though - a couple of our local estate agents offer discount with some of the groups who do business purely over the 'phone although they can be a little cheaper, you cannot deal with someone there and then.
We often have people in our office who are using them, and the process often takes a little longer and when the postal strike was on, we had a few sales that almost fell through due to delayed and missing paperwork.
If you live in an area that is considered a weekend getaway, or somewhere close to places such as the Dales etc, you could try advertising in maybe the Sunday Times property supplement as a holiday home for those who can afford a second home!! Let them know where you are close to, how far to major motorways, rail links etc, give a 'phone number and email address, then you can send them loads of pictures? Just a thought if you are close enough to somewhere. I live near to Matlock and other green areas of Derbyshire, but unfortunately not quite near enough, otherwise I was considering this - just one advert to see how it goes.
The other thing to consider is, if you are paying out on advertising, you may as well check out the cost of an estate agent, they usually all offer discount with a local solicitor as well. If you have a house next door to you for sale, then a private sale is a good thing - you get their viewers as well!!
People do sell their house privately all the time, but in such a slow market you need to be prepared to wait maybe a little longer - you may be lucky, and someone sees your house straight away, but consider everything not just the cost of an estate agent.
Cath X

[lockstock]

We sold privately - but didn't have to go through the advertising route. Someone just came in and asked! The solicitors found it hard to grasp that not only did they not have to deal with the purchase of another property (ie we weren't buying here) they also didn't have to liaise with an estate agent. At the end of it all they triied to charge us over three times the standard rate. We complained and got the normal rate - but beware, get a quote from the solicitor first in case they try it on,

[britzy]

Thanks Cath.
Will consider everything you have said.The slow market does worry me but I am tempted to give it a go early on to see if we have a response will let you know if we have any success, if we decide to go that route.
Helen
ps thanks also to member lockstock ,will definately test it out with the solicitor first .:nice1

[gil]

britzy, that was one of the avenues we tried, but had absolutely no leads from, not a single call. We used a couple of private sale sites, but it was the old-fashioned estate agent approach that worked for us eventually (that was in 2005-6 and it took 15 months).

Wishing you a swift sale,

Gil

[BkyMonster]

I thought of selling our home ourselves as there is a weekly-monthly flyer for the for sale by owners in my area. I think you pay 1% or a set fee, whichever is more and they give you advertising space, a sign and such.
Decided against it, even though we feel we could use the extra money saved by not using an agent, because a good agent can help you a lot. Our agent has already been hobnobbing with other agents in the area and has gone above and beyond with the advertising--doing things we would have never had any clue how to do.
She's really earning her keep and we're lucky to have her. :)
I'd say if you can find a good agent to advertise your home then it is worth what you pay them. If you can't find an agent you trust to get you a good price then it certainly is worth doing a lot of the legwork yourself. Good luck :)

[buzztalks]

we sold privately without too many issues. Had a 'For sale' sign made at the local printers, bought some 2x2 and painted it matt black, attached sign, stuck in garden, plus we took out a photo ad in local press. I also bought the domain name which was the address of the property - ie www.41diamondridge.co.uk, had a mate do a very simple website, and that literally was that. We got three agents to come around prior to all this to give us their valuations. We priced at the top end - always easier to negotiate down, never up!!

we also spent about 8k doing all those jobs around the house that you tend to put off. Neighbours thought we were barking!

Had loads of interest, and sold at the asking price. Solicitors were fine (if a little incompetent) and charged us 500 quid.

You just have to be prepared to answer the phone any time day or night, take people through your house at any time day or night, and remember the 80/20 rule. That is 80% of the people just want a nosey and aren't seriously in the market.

The whole experience was very liberating and refreshing. However it has it's downside. I now have real problems dealing with estate agents, especially the NZ ones. I don't see how they add any value to the process, and I can't cope with the hype. Just imagine having a billboard in the UK advertising an estate agent??? Just wouldn't happen would it?

happy to provide more info if required. Good Luck

[bob_the_engineer]

I sold our UK house privately, IT SOLD WITHIN A WEEK and here is how I did it.

I priced the house reasonably, then I took the agent cost off the house, my motivation was ”not to pay the UK estate agent” who (unlike their NZ counterpart) do absolutely nothing for the money! I thought I’d rather save the fee for the family that bought than see an agent get it, so it wasn’t about me keeping the extra cash.

I bought the internet name with the house road, say it was on high street, I bought www.highstreet.co.uk I think it was about 30 quid.

I loaded win98 onto an old P2 PC and loaded PWS (Microsoft personal web server, its on the installation CD as an option).

I then used this website www.zoneedit.com to point the domain name at my IP address, and told the people I’d bought the domain name from that zoneedit was my DNS. It sounds terribly complicated but its quite easy, all the info is on zoneedit’s site, and the service is FREE!

Then all I did was take a few pictures, and put a website together, you can even use something as simple as word, just write a word document and there is an option to save it as a html.

Having set us the website (very simple, some pictures an email and phone contact and of course the price); I chopped an old door in half painted FOR SALE on it, added the website address and stuck it in the garden. The first person that looked at the house bought it and I had one waiting in the wings, he was really interested because his mum lived nearby, but it was first come first served.

Anyway, once I’d got an offer I simply handed the buyers details to my solicitor (paid him a couple of hundred quid) and the house was sold.

Good luck with the sale, Bob

[James 1077]

we would get our HIP pack done privately .


Check on this one but I think that if you sell your house privately then you don't need a HIP.

[renew]

HI,
I have used littlehousecompany for a previous flat and current house. The previous flat ended up in a bidding war which was good for us. The current house has been more problematic. The main thing that I put this down to is that first time round the dominant website Rightmove allowed private seller adverts through 3rd partys. But Rightmove no longer allows this so you end up advertising on the less popular websites.. You can make your own mind up as to why....

If you have the time give it a go, you can always try both estate agents and private sale at the same time even if you sign a sole agency agreement. Ensure that you dont sign a sole seller agreement as then you have to pay them if you sell privately, if you sell via another agent....

cheers

Ian

[renew]

Check on this one but I think that if you sell your house privately then you don't need a HIP.

My understanding is that if you offer the house for sale either with an estate agent or privately you now need a HIP. You would not need a hip if someone knocked on the door and asked to buy it without seeing a for sale sign, advert etc. Which does happen but its rare

cheers

[James 1077]

My understanding is that if you offer the house for sale either with an estate agent or privately you now need a HIP.

Yes, just checked this and you are right. Which means that if I was in britzy's position then I would certainly have put the house on the market on 13th December - and simply have increased the amount of marketing on it over the last few days! The initial marketing would have been a small ad in the local newsagent's window, who unfortunately don't keep records on what goes up there and when! :)

As a sign of just how pointless a HIP is our estate agent informed me when I put our flat on the market that a total of 2 people had asked to see a property's HIP since they were introduced over summer - and this is from the largest agent in our area!

[ourquest]

I priced the house reasonably, then I took the agent cost off the house, my motivation was ”not to pay the UK estate agent” who (unlike their NZ counterpart) do absolutely nothing for the money! I thought I’d rather save the fee for the family that bought than see an agent get it, so it wasn’t about me keeping the extra cash.


I think that Bob makes an excellent point here. Getting property sold in any market is about correct pricing, and what a private sale does is it allows you to price lower and still get the same amount of equity out of the sale. How long it actually took various forum members to sell is a bit irrelevant, as every property is very different...all that matters is that you get yours sold in a reasonable timeframe, and the single biggest factor is your property's price in comparison to similar homes in your area, as buyers will always compare value.

[britzy]

Thanks everyone for all the information..
Cant believe how lucky some of you have been, hope we are as lucky.We will certainly chase up some of the leads youve suggested.
Helen