How can I sell my house?

[challacombe]

I am very frustrated as I have a lovely large family home which I need to sell quickly due to my husbands business. It has everything going for it including 4 reception rooms and 4 bedrooms 2 of which are masters with lounges dressing rooms and with ensuites. The reason I mention this is that it would be suitable for so many potential owners as offers dual living so grannys, teenagers or business use would be great for someone. What I can't get my head around is that the agents just do not know how to market my house. As it is unique and doesn't hit the tick box way they work it is being disguarded. So many times I have had to return the details as being wrong and as for some of the photos...! We are close to the beach and being just one hour from London I decided today to phone agents closer to London who may have applicants wishing to move out slightly. Honestly you would think i had asked them to transport their applicants to the moon! The answer was that if they had anyone they would look on Rightmove. My argument is how will they find me if they don't know Thorpe Bay exists? They won't and therefore they are not being offered a good all round service by agents or Rightmove. I just wondered if anyone has any has any suggestions how to get around this. I find that if something doesn't fit a tick box then it stands no chance. How would someone know to look in an area if they don't know that area exists?

I agree. I don't really know what estate agents do to earn their money. Right Move is full of crap photos and regurgitated text.

I think there are websites where you can sell your house yourself. Don't know any by name though.

Great marketing by you though! Just told the whole of mumsnet that your beautiful house is for sale and where it is - you're a genius and you've just found a whole new use for mumsnet - well done.

I've recently been through the process of trying to sell my house and all that that involves so feel your pain.

I started out with one agent who was frankly useless. Fortunately didn't sign anything with him and ditched him after 3 weeks.

Choose your agent very carefully.

Let several agents come and give you a valuation and go with the one who you feel most comfortable with; not necessary the one with the highest valuation.

However, if your house is unusual and of high value then you might be better to go with an agent such as Hamptoms or Savills.

They will know how to market your house country wide and even internationally. Hamptoms particularly, deal with the medium to higher end of the market.

I think that's ok Mrsstarlord isn't it? Loads of MNers post links to their houses to ask for it to be 'critiqued' for the market.

Good luck OP. The market is odd at the moment, some properties are taking a long time to sell.

I think it was very subtle. Thorpe Bay just casually dropped into the conversation. No link but a mention of Rightmove. Very disingenuous. Bravo OP.

I have managed to negotiate the agent fee down to 1.5% plus vat. You also have to pay to have the energy calculations and floor plans done which is approx £100. I have found that the majority of the agents rely totally on Rightmove and seem unable to use any initiative when it comes to getting potential viewers. If they haven't responded to a particular property then that is it - It doesn't seem that many are able to say to someone if you are viewing property 'a' then you might also like to see property 'b'. It is quite strange. I have looked at the do it yourself websites but although much cheaper at a few hundred pounds each the cost is the cost whether you sell or not. The worry is that there are quite a number of these sites around but afre not very well known. Therefore there will not be many viewers. An individual can not place on Rightmove which does seem to be the site everyone knows and uses although it has its limitations as I am finding with the description and photos of my house. What really annoys me is the attitude that even with a fee of thousands agents will not offer property out of their immediate area. Rightmove also limit to so many miles either side of a postcode. This will obviously mean that unless someone either knows and searches for a particular area they will not know it exists and may have the perfect property waiting for them.

Yes but they would not need to know that Thorpe bay exists. All they would do for example on rightmove is put the location they are interested in,and set the search perimeter to x amount of miles around this if they were willing to go further afield. They wouldn't need to individually type everyone of the villages or towns in

What's the big deal about someone plugging their house? I hope you sell it quickly OP it sounds lovely.

hmm. If yours is the one at 1.6 mil. I'd say it's over priced and looks quite dated compared to some of the others

Well I just looked up Thorpe Bay rightmove, and searched the highest priced properties. If yours is one of those OP, you're very lucky ... they're beautiful! Good luck with selling!

I have had a few agents come to view. They have varied in their valuation by £100,000 which is quite unbelievable. We went in the end with the average. I don't think Hamptons or Savills would be interested in us as i'm sure they are high market. I didn't put a link to my property and didn't consider this to be marketing it. I was interested if anyone knew of ways to gain interest without me having to pay thousands to advertise nationally. My argument really is with the system and attitude. We are led to believe we are gaining a good service but in reality it is just a tick box. The old fashioned way of getting on the phone and talking about a property doesn't seem to exist anymore. We pay a lot of money to agents to wait for someone to go on to Rightmove. I was interested in how others sold their houses.

OP I'd post the link to your house here. It may save you loads of money and estate agents are lying thieving bastards any way

Go on then op, which is yours?

I think if your home is £1m+ and in Southend it will struggle to sell. People with £1m plus to spend generally won't want to live in Southend....

NO No No mine isn't in that league at all. Mine is 500,000 to 550,000 Gosh I wish!

Going back to Rightmove - it is limited in the miles in surrounds a postcode so you would need to know the particular area.

Doesn't bother me in the slightest, thought it was very well done. You've just increased the traffic to Thorpe Bay for rightmove massively. You should get commission from your neighbours

Post the link please cos I can't be arsed looking for it

I don't think I am allowed to put the link but I will tell you my postcode. SS1 3TY I would be interested in your comments if that is allowed.

This is a good game OP. Is it this one linky??

If not you could just link to your property and let us properly critique it

Go on OP you have to link now!!

That was one of the reasons I ditched the first agent I was with.

He just sat back and waited for people to call him about particular houses on Rightmove.

The agent who I'm dealing with now is brilliant and very much marketed my house in the manner your describe.

Hamptoms sold a house in my area recently for £600.000 so they don't just deal with the mega rich market OP. Although would feel quite rich if my house was worth that much.

Well if I have increased the traffic to Thorpe Bay then I am happy about that. It is a lovely coastal area just outside Southend on Sea. Perhaps anice place for holidays too! lol

Ok OP IMO the decor (sofas/curtains etc) are doing the house no favours at all. The bare bones of the house is actually quite nice but the decor is making it look incredibly dated and that will definitely put some people off!!

Also the photo of the garden shows it entirely in the shade which will put people off.

go on, give us a link! Please please please?