selling a house for the 1st time. Any hints and tips greatly appreciated.

[DebiTheScot]

We've got as far as deciding to sell and I've phoned 3 estate agents (oh my goodness how charming can they be?!) who are coming on Monday and Tuesday to value the house.

And have made an appointment with the mortgage advisor at the bank our current mortgage is with for Thursday to talk about how much we can borrow.

So what else do we need to do? What order do we have to do it all in? And is there anything we should look out for or be aware of?

BTW we're in England, not Scotland as my name suggest.

[HouseHunting]

Well, after you have had the valuations from the 3 EA you can decide who to go with - don't automatically go with the EA who values it the highest b/c where we live one of the EA are renowned for over pricing just to get the vendor to sign with them & then after a couple of weeks harrasses them to lower the asking price. If any of your friends have sold ask them who they would recommend. Also, try & barter the commission rate down, we go t1.3% when the EA said they do not go below 1.5%. You will need to get a HIP & the EA can help you with this.
Make sure you are happy with the photos that they take & review/amend the brochure as you see fit - it is your house & you want to show it off to its best potential.
It is good that you are going to see the mortgage advisor - our friend's friends didn't & they found a house of their dreams & put an offer on it only to discover the bank wouldn't lend them as much as they needed. Think they needed another £80k!
Good luck!!

[trollbeadaddict]

In addition to the great tips from Househunting.....

1. I know it's obvious, but make sure the house is totally spotless for both estate agent photos and viewings (flowers look good too!).
2. Don't assume the estate agents are experts or active all the time - make sure they listen if you want to reduce the price if people aren't viewing or no offers are coming in (ours didn't even realise that we were open to offers).

Good Luck!

[rebl]

I would go to an indepedant mortgage advisor. We did what you are planning on doing and went to where our current mortgage is with and the product available to us would cost us £200 a month more than the product offered to us from another bank and that includes paying a hefty penalty for going elsewhere within our offer period.

As others say, don't just go for the cheapest commision agent or highest value agent. We went with the lowest valuation agent but with the middle valuation we had been given. Sold at the valuation our agent had given. Certainly paid off for us. Also chose based on the brocher look and round here, the ones who are shifting properties. Driving around our area its our agent who has the sold signs up not the others.

Good luck with it. Its the beginning of a long but exciting journey.

[Sidge]

Remember it's you that decides what to put your house on the market for, the agent can suggest an asking price (and obviously they tend to know the market) but it's up to you what you put it on at.

Before pictures and viewings declutter, then clean, clean and clean again. Many buyers will overlook decor not to their taste, but a gleaming house will bring them back for a second viewing more than a cluttered or grubby house.

Ask a good friend to come round and look at your house with a really critical eye, they may spot things that you don't because it's something you see every day. Stuff like removing the odd bit of furniture to make it seem bigger, or changing something in the garden for example.

Don't borrow to the max if you can help it because then you will be mortgaged to the hilt and have no wiggle room should rates go up, income go down etc.

Have fun house hunting!

[DebiTheScot]

Thanks everyone, some good things we hadn't thought about there- checking the photos, not necessarily going with highest valuation...

Yes will go to an independent mortgage person too but thought we'd start with our current one.

Def don't want to borrow to the max as rates will go up, there's no doubt about that.

Have spent the weekend doing a 1st stage declutter and tidy for the EAs coming tomorrow then will do a further declutter and clean before the photos and viewings. As we are 4 people in a samll 2 bed house there's a LOT of clutter but have a friend with a big garage she only uses for storage and I'm hoping she'll let us use that to move some stuff into.

Will get a friend round too, that's a good idea.

The 1st EA who's coming tomorrow is the biggest in the area and have sold 3 houses in our street in the past 3 months so I had thought they'd be the favourites to go with but then I heard a scare story about some horrible stuff they were doing to a friend just last week when she moved (not same branch as ours would be but still).

[oldnewmummy]

Use an agent who includes a floor plan in the brochure. A lot don't, and it's hard to envisage without.

[DebiTheScot]

yes we've noticed a few round here don't and yes it is really hard to picture what's going on.

Anyone know how much the HIP should cost?