Would you ever buy a house privately?

[Edinburghcapital]

I have a 5 bed house in Edinburgh in James Gillespie catchment area. Desirable for a growing family and lovely neighbourhood. Their is a shortage of family homes in this area.
I've thought about doing a home report but cutting out estate agents and dealing with solicitors only. Friends did this and it was very straightforward.
My question is - would you be happy to buy using the set up?
Thanks for your insight.

[Sadoldbagpuss]

Yes no problem, we leafleted when looking for property and would have been happy to cut out estate agents.

[Edinburghcapital]

Thanks for your reply. Feel like the EA do very little in this sellers market.

[thinkingcapon]

How would you market it/advertise? X

[Edinburghcapital]

Was thinking locally on noticeboards or Gumtree. Obviously not giving out full details. The stranger danger element does put me off a bit.

[VintageFur]

I've sold a house privately. Just stuck a sign on the gate. Sold in a week! Fwiw I've seen a few around here with purple bricks - isn't that a medium?

[Sadoldbagpuss]

We bought a sim card and set up a separate email account so that no one had our actual numbers.

[HirplesWithHaggis]

We sold our first flat in Edinburgh to friends without ever advertising it. We had our lawyer, they had theirs, and it all went smoothly.

[Edinburghcapital]

Excellent idea with the SIM card and email. Thanks for that. I'll look at Purple Bricks. Realistically, it's in the £500k bracket (I know Edinburgh prices are shocking) so I'm guessing people might expect the glossy marketing? Thanks for input.

[thinkingcapon]

As an ex edinburger who was involved in a lot of property , I think this is a very unusual tactic.......have you sold before? The agents I've used were great.......and I always negotiated their fee beforehand.
For a house, in that price bracket, I'd not go down the private route, obviously unless I knew of someone wanting that kind of property......
I sold several properties in your area, to investors, and paid a very minimal fee to my agent as much less work needed and no advertising etc needed

[BlaaBlaaBlaa]

Yep we did it without estate agents ....both selling and buying.

It helps massively if you can be in regular contact with your sellers as you won't have estate agents chasing things for you. Solicitors will but it's much easier if you can all talk together.
It also helps if you can get all the information that an estate agent would ....like room measurements if you need to buy new furniture.

[BlaaBlaaBlaa]

Oh sorry just realised you're only selling .

[Edinburghcapital]

Sold two in Edinburgh and three in Glasgow. I was just impressed with my friend's experience that I was thinking of it for myself. Thanks for the advice, really appreciate it.

[thinkingcapon]

I totally get why a smooth private sale seems appealing! Maybe it'll work for you....hope it does, I think I'm just thinking that if I'd done that I wouldn't have made as much over asking price by having several offers to contend with
I'm sure there are lots of Edinburgh fb groups you could post on of your house?

Good luck x

[Edinburghcapital]

I'm thinking the same thing with the 0/0 price. Maybe my friend got lucky. I will see what the Spring brings and Brexit. 😏

[PiperPublickOccurrences]

You'll still need a solicitor for hte legal stuff though unless you're a conveyancing expert.

[MrsAmaretto]

We sold privately - didn’t even market it, just mentioned to a couple of people, word spread and someone at my mil’s work phoned us out of the blue to ask if they could come for a look! We accepted their offer a couple of days later and went through our solicitors as normal.

I’d recommend selling privately as it saved us a fortune & was quicker too. Where we live there is now a local fb group for selling properties too.

[thinkingcapon]

MrsAmaretto which part of the country are you in where you sold privately?

[Edinburghcapital]

Using solicitors was the plan including all the usual legal matters such as Home Report etc.
Sounds like you had great success MrsAmaretto.

[BlaaBlaaBlaa]

We did exactly the same as @mrsameretto ...in fact someone overheard me talking about putting the house up for sale and asked to view it that weekend. They put an offer in on the spot. We found a property in a similar way....friend of a friend etc.

We used solicitors and everything just cut out the estate agent! Saved thousands!

[MrsAmaretto]

I’m in Shetland, but I’ve friends who’ve sold privately in Dunblane too due to word of mouth.

[Nat6999]

I bought my first house privately, went for a look round August bank holiday Monday, agreed a price with owner, both notified solicitors, I already had a mortgage offer, solicitor got searches done straight away, mortgage survey was done, I got keys 12 October. I dealt with each other rather than via an estate agent. Was really quick & efficient, needed a new kitchen, owner let me measure up for new one, I got kitchen planner to design it & process order, got it delivered 3 days after I got keys, family had spent first weekend stripping old one out & painting right through. Moved in 30 October even though kitchen wasn't finished.

[Mossend]

I'm in Scotland too l and bought the house we're in now privately, no estate agents, no offers over, no closing dates, just very straightforward

[Edinburghcapital]

Thank you everybody. I wonder if there is a difference between rural areas compared to cities?

[JanetLovesJason]

Would be very happy to buy that way. When we moved to Edinburgh we asked round friends in case friend/friend of friend knew of something. We got a few responses, nothing turned out to be right for us.

One friend suggested we identify a street we wanted to live in, printed up letters and posted them through letterboxes in case anyone was dithering. He found his house that way.

I think private sales are pretty common in Edinburgh.