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Buying Guide |
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Introduction to selling your own home You don't need an Estate Agent to sell your home You can use Sell4Less if you are already selling with an Estate Agent? The different types of contracts traditional estate agents make you sign are listed below: Despite some level of guidance on our website we strongly recommend that you ask your estate agent which type of contract you are on and inform them that you wish to act as your own estate agent in order to market and sell your home. This will give your estate agent a fair chance to explain the type of contract that you are on and your liabilities regarding the contract. “If nothing else informing your estate agent should encourage them to market your home more aggressively to find a buyer and secure their commission.” As previously mentioned you can still advertise your home with Sell4Less however if you are in a contract with your Esate Agent you may still have to pay their commission until if you find a buyer before the contract expires. How do I Sell my House? Choosing how you’re going to sell your property
Home Information Pack (HIP) Marketing your property Agreeing the sale Instruct your solicitor Exchange of contracts Completion Preparation is a key element to selling your property that is neglected by many property sellers. If you neglect preparation your property may remain on the market for a long period of time or the selling price be reduced. Your main aim is to make people envisage themselves living in your house. This means trying to neutralise it as much as possible but making it feel as homely as possible at the same time. There are a number of tips we can give you to achieve this. If you are looking to maximise the value of your property and get the quickest selling time you should do the following: If you have time you should paint your walls, skirting boards and doors so the house has a fresh look to it. You will be surprised how much difference it makes! If any of your rooms have very bright colours you may want to try and neutralise them. People do tend to prefer neutral colours when purchasing a property. Ensure that your property is clutter-free. This is a small and easy thing to do that many people neglect. If you don’t have a loft or any other storage you can always hire some for a couple of months, this will also help reduce the amount of belongings you need to move in one go when the time comes to move house. Clean your house, another simple thing to do that makes all the difference! Air the property. By opening the windows and letting out any odour that you may not smell, but others do, makes your property a lot more inviting. Try to remove any pets from your home before viewings as some people may be allergic to animals. Get your carpets professionally cleaned. This will remove any stains and odours that your carpets may be harbouring. If your kitchen and bathroom are looking tired you should try and get them sparkling clean with some kitchen / bathroom cleaning products (if they contain bleach they tend to do a good job). Try to get the grout clean, if you cannot you may need to re-grout the joints. It may even be worth putting in a new kitchen or bathroom as these are the two main rooms that people pay attention to when buying a house. Mow your lawn, trim your hedges and tidy up your garden. De-personalise your house by removing family photos etc. Remember that people are looking for a home that they can envisage themselves and their families in, not your family. Choose the correct lighting for each room to reflect the mood of the room. Clean your windows and open your blinds right up to allow in plenty of light during the day. Organise rooms so that the purpose of each is very clear. Please remember that you are selling your property, not getting personal and sentimental about the subject. You are trying to attract the widest audience you can to it. There are companies (such as homestage.co.uk) that you can pay to get your property into its best possible selling state, if you don’t have the time or inclination to do it yourself. A HIP is a governmental requirement for property to be sold in England and Wales and must be obtained before the marketing of your property can commence. There are a number of companies that offer Home Information Packs. Sell4Less offer very Low Cost Home Information Packs which are much cheaper than the price charged by a high street estate agent. We also offer a FREE Home Information Pack to anyone who buys our conveyancing. Setting the price of your property is one of the hardest parts of selling it, set it too low and you could stand to lose thousands of pounds, too high and you will get no interest from the market. However you shouldn’t let this put you off. If you get a lot of enquiries you can always have a closed bids auction and REMEMBER YOU DON’T HAVE TO ACCEPT ANY OF THE OFFERS if you don’t want to. If you don’t have much interest you can always lower the asking price by logging in to your Sell4Less account and changing the selling price in your advert. At the end of the day buyers actually set the price by the supply and demand of the market along with the desirability of the property in question. All Estate Agents do is use their knowledge of the market to ESTIMATE a reasonable asking price for the property for marketing purposes, based on the location, condition and property type whilst taking into account the current market conditions according to the media and what buyers are likely to be prepared to pay. There are a number of things you should take into account when you are thinking about selling your property. Things such as the quality and distance of local facilities, schools, sports centres, or if you live in the country how far from the nearest house, the amount of land you are selling, size of gardens and number and size of out buildings etc. The location of your property is paramount to the value of it. For example, an ex-council house will generally be much less money for the same size house on a non-council estate. Also (in the UK) the number of bedrooms a property has is very important. Perhaps the best way to value a property is to look and see what similar properties in the area are selling for. This can simply be done by searching for properties in your area on Sell4Less and Fish4homes if you see similar size houses as yours with the same number of bedrooms, features and condition then you know you should market your home for around the same value. If you market it for less then it should get more interest. If you market it for more they you will probably receive less enquiries unless your property is in superior condition or has better features. FREE VALUATION: There is also a website that can give you a rough idea of the value of your home. It’s called Zoopla and it uses sold prices to estimate current property values based on area specific statistics. However please bear in mind that these figures can be as far as 30% above or below, especially if there have not been any property transactions in the area for some time. Value your home for free. Please note that houses do tend to sell for 5-10% below the asking price although this does depend on market conditions and area. In a slow moving market this figure could be much greater or in a fast moving market houses may sell for more than the asking price. You have made the right choice by coming to Sell4Less.co.uk to start marketing your property! If you would like to market your property further you can take out a private advert in the newspaper. Free papers (such as AdTrader) are a good place to start with text ads or you can pay a small fee to have a picture with your advert. Alternatively you can pay for an advert in your local paper which will cost more but will probably get you a better response. It is a good idea to print out a few property brochures of your house and place them in your local shop window as well as leaving them in your house and car in case you have an unexpected visit from a potential buyer or just bump into someone that is looking to buy in your area. Make sure that you keep letting your friends and relatives know that your house is for sale and forward an email with a link to your property on the Sell4Less website so if they meet anyone who is looking to move to the area they can let them know about your house. Always speak well of the area you live in, especially to any potential buyer, but DO NOT lie or attempt to mislead people as you will be agreeing to abide by the regulations set down in the Property Misdescriptions Act 1991 in order to market your home with Sell4Less. Up to 80% of property viewings are generated from a ‘For Sale’ board positioned outside the property, meaning this is a crucial piece of marketing material. Many home buyers search their desired location by driving around board spotting and are likely to look for your property online or call for more information if they see your ‘For Sale’ board. They also help potential buyers locate the property when they come to view (it’s much easer to see the ‘For Sale’ board than to find the house number). You can purchase a bright, eye-catching, professionally printed Sell4Less ‘For Sale’ board from Sell4Less and additionally we can put the board up at your home for a very small fee. Buy a ‘For Sale’ Board. It is very easy to create your private advert on www.Sell4Less.co.uk. A small amount of preparation will help you a lot.
Perhaps the easiest thing to do is to click the following link, it is free to register and create an advert, when you are 100% happy with your advert simply build your advertising package. [Sell my house now] Alternatively: Now it’s time to create your advert! Open your internet browser and go to www.Sell4Less.co.uk. Now either enter your email and password followed by the login button or press the ‘Register as a new customer for free’ link. The next page requires you to fill in your personal details, then press submit. Now you have registered, you will be taken to your personal admin area.
To create your advert - click on the ‘Create a FREE Advert’ on the Selling tab, or from the left hand menu. You will then be required to choose either a property for sale or to let. The next page will appear with the details that you filled in whilst registering. You can change these details if you wish to sell a different property. Enter the details you require in the address boxes and select the options that apply to your property. Click next to be taken to the next tab. If you choose to buy one of our HIPs you will need to click on the Purchase button under the required HIP. You will then be asked to confirm the order, once this is done you will be taken to our secure payments page (which looks like this:) Choose a payment type and follow the on screen instructions. Once your payment has been processed our HIP provider will call you to arrange a time and date to visit your property for an evaluation. They can normally visit within 24 hours if you request but this cannot be guaranteed. Once the evaluation has taken place, you can expect the initial energy rating graphs to be emailed to you within 24-48 hours. The final pack should be emailed to you in 14 days but could take up to a month. If you wish to carry on with your advert whilst you wait for your HIP to come through you can confirm that you have ordered a HIP, then come back and upload the HIP file later. Once you have pressed next you will be taken to the Property and Room Descriptions page. Firstly Click on the Overview Add/Edit link. The property overview edit page will appear. In the dialogue box on the left, you will need to leave a brief description of the property you are selling. There is a list on the right hand side of the page that you should think about whilst writing this section, but remember to keep it simple, get the good points of your property across and keep it brief. There is plenty of time later to add detail to the individual areas of your house. Photos can be added in the next section. Once you have finished writing about the overview of the property click the ‘submit’ button. Then click on the ‘Add New Room’ button. This will bring up the Room Descriptions dialogue box. Fill in the room title (Kitchen, Bathroom etc), then fill in the dimensions that you took earlier into the dimension boxes. Give the room a brief description (there’s a good guide for things to say on the right hand side of the page). Photos or videos are added later. Repeat this process for each room in the house. Once all the rooms are added you can drag and drop them into the order you wish. Normally we would advise separating the floors into groups starting with the ground floor and putting the rooms from the largest to the smallest or from ‘best’ to ‘worst’. Now click on the Outside Spaces ‘Add New Area’ button to add the details of your garden, roof terrace, separate garage or any other outbuildings you may have. Again, photos can be added later. Once you’re happy with your overview, room descriptions and outside space description check the box to agree that you are the legal owner of the property and have the right to sell it, check the box to say that you agree to Sell4Less Ltd’s terms and conditions. Start by clicking the main image button and select a photo to use as your main image (normally the front view of the property). If you have a short video of your property or a ‘virtual tour’ you may wish to add this to your advert. To do this click on the ‘Add Video’ button, browse to the video file. Give the video a name (such as ‘virtual tour’) and description and click ‘submit’. Your video will now be uploaded to your advert. Once you have added all the photos and video you want click on the ‘next’ button to go to the advertising package page. You can choose which package you wish to use here and add the relevant items to your basket. Firstly choose the board you would like by pressing the ‘add to basket’ button, then choose which advertising service you would like by adding it to your basket. When you have chosen a ‘For Sale’ board and/or one of our services you will need to click on the ‘click here to purchase’ button at the top of the page to be taken to the Protx secure payment site. Follow the instructions on the Protx site to pay for your items. You should then be directed back to your admin area. Now your property is advertised you need to prepare yourself for viewings. This is where people decide if they like the property or not and hence whether they’ll put in an offer or not so in many ways it is the most important part of the selling stage (and a stage that most estate agents will leave you to do anyway!). People will either email you or call you through Sell4Less.co.uk to arrange a viewing of your property if they found it through one of our advertisements. You should try to accommodate a time when they wish to view if you can. Remember to take a note of their name and telephone number in case you need to call them again, this will also help you remember their name when they come to view your property. You should keep your property as clean and tidy as you can whilst it is on the market because you never know when you might get someone wanting to arrange a last-minute viewing. As people call you can list your viewings in the calendar in the admin area of your www.Sell4Less.co.uk account. You should always be at your home at least 10 minutes before the arranged time of any viewings. Try to make your home welcoming by de-personalising it as much as possible, make sure everything is clean and tidy. Try to get some nice smells such as bread baking if you can, or even just the smell of polish will give people the sub-conscious message that the house is clean. Show people around the house and do your best to keep out of the way, let the visitors into the rooms first as this will make the rooms appear bigger. Just point out the important parts of the rooms and answer any questions that the potential buyer may have. Always be polite to the potential buyers, remembering that they may make one of the biggest investments in their life by buying your property and they won’t want to give that money to a rude person! Once you have shown some people around your property, you can expect some offers to come in. Remember that you DO NOT have to accept any of these offers if you don’t want to, there is also no shame in telling someone that you want to think about it for a while if you are not sure whether to take the bid and want to talk it over with someone. If you are confident, you could run a closed bids auction or even a ‘Dutch’ auction. If you want to run a closed bids auction you will need to give all the interested parties a closing date to give you an offer (which should be closed in an envelope), once all the offers are in you can open all the envelopes, the highest bid should win the sale, again you DO NOT have to accept the sale if the bid was not high enough and can continue marketing your property until you receive a suitable offer! If you decide to run a ‘Dutch’ auction, you will need to give a closing date as above, then phone the lowest bid asking if they would like to bid more than the highest bid (do not let the potential buyers know the identity of the other potential buyers as this is against the data protection act!). If the lowest bidder proceeds with a higher bid, they remain in the auction; if they refuse to bid higher then they are out. You repeat this process until there is only one bidder left (the winning bidder). Make sure that you keep everybody’s details on file until the transaction has completed as the highest bidder may pull out so you could then offer to the second highest bidder if you wish. Once you have accepted an offer on your property you can expect the buyer to have the property surveyed to ensure that there’s no structural faults etc. You will need to put your solicitors in touch with the purchasers solicitors who will get all the legalities sorted out. Need a Solicitor? You will be required to sign the Deeds of the property over to the buyer. Your solicitors will give you a completion date by which you MUST be moved out of the property and ready to hand the keys over. |
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Buying Guide Introduction Buying a property is probably one of the biggest investments you will make in your lifetime! So make sure it is the right one for you if you intend to live in it as property transactions can be expensive. To purchase a property you will need to find out how much you can borrow. As a general rule you will need to pay at least a 10% payment on the value of the property from your own savings. Then you can borrow around four times your income and three times your partners income (if you have a joint mortgage). If you need a mortgage you can get an independent financial advisor to discuss your options through Sell4Less, independent mortgage and re-mortgage advice. There are a number of different types of mortgage on the market all designed to suit different people’s circumstances. This is a rough description of a few of the most common mortgages on the market. You should however seek professional advise from a qualified, FSA (Financial Services Authority) approved advisor who has access to the whole of the market before deciding which mortgage suits your needs; to do so please click the link above.
Fixed Rate
Variable Rate / Tracker
Interest Only
Off Set You need to know how much you can afford before you look at too many properties. Set your spending limit bearing in mind your monthly mortgage repayments and the fact that you will need funds available to pay your solicitors’ purchase fees and stamp duty on the property plus any mortgage arrangement fees. Once you know what you can afford you can look on various websites to find properties such as; Sell4Less.co.uk, Nestoria, Fish4Homes and Rightmove.co.uk to name a few. Other places to look are the local newspapers and property magazines or estate agents’ windows. Check websites such as Zoopla, NetHousePrices and Ourproperty for the latest and past sold prices in the area you are looking at. Zoopla also provides a free rough property valuation based on past sold prices and market indexation, however this is not 100% accurate and you should only use it as a rough guide. To get the best idea of value you should check these prices against the asking price of the property you are looking at and make assumptions on the price that you are willing to pay. Also go to the area in question with a printout of the sold prices to gauge the exact location and size of the houses in relation to the price they have sold for. This should give you a good idea of what the property you are looking at is worth. Phone or email the vendor or agent to arrange a viewing of a house you are interested in. If you like it when you leave then you should arrange at least one more viewing if not two to ensure that it is what you think once you have had the time to reflect on the previous viewing. Leave breaks between viewings of at least a couple of days if you can. If you still like the property after the second or third viewing then is the time to make an offer on it. You should look closely for telltale signs of wear and tear that may require replacement kitchens or bathrooms as this can be expensive. If there’s any brown marking on the ceilings it is probably due to water damage. This can be caused by leaking roof or pipe work. You should make sure that these have been fixed before you purchase the property as water damage can be very expensive to repair. The general condition of the property should be good. If there is much unfinished work it is likely that the vendor has many more unfinished jobs around that you will not notice until you move in. Once you have found a property in your price range that you like then it is time to make an offer. Start with a low offer, there is always room for negotiation later if they say no and you never know your luck! Once you have made your offer you will need to inform your conveyance solicitors who will ensure that everything is in place and the transaction is legal. If you need a property solicitor please visit Sell4Less Conveyancing. Before you proceed with the transaction you must ensure that you get a survey done on the property and if you are buying privately or through an estate agent we recommend that you get a full independent survey as well as your mortgage company’s survey for piece of mind. Once your solicitor has conducted all the searches and completed the paper work you will need to read very carefully and sign some deeds relating to the property and instruct the mortgage to go ahead. Never sign the deeds until you are 100% happy with what you are purchasing and sure that it is what you were bargaining for. Your solicitors will guide you through this process. When everything has finalised your solicitors will let you know the date of exchange (this is when you get the keys to the property and your solicitors hand over the money from the mortgage).
Once you have completed and received the keys you are ready to move in.
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