Private house purchase. Has anyone done it?

[SnowGlobes]

Just wondering if anyone here has either bought or sold their house privately. How did it go? Were there issues? Would you recommend it? I'm asking as I'm thinking of leafleting favourite roads in my area. Thanks.

Sold our first flat privately to friends, but that was 1987 and in Scotland, so may not apply to you. Friends knew we wanted to move (we'd just had ds1 and wanted somewhere with a garden), they were about to get married and our two-bed place within walking distance of the city centre was ideal. We didn't have the hassle of viewings, they didn't have to worry about being outbid. We asked for £500 over valuation, they agreed, and we all did the legals, very straightforward. :)

Depends whether it's a thing locally or not. I know it's quite big in Edinburgh, so no-one would blink an eye there. Some higher end estate agents will do it for you if you want a half-way house. Some also have houses that aren't advertised on open market (e.g. Boards outside, pics online) but which they will email to people on their mailing list/approved buyers.

A friend of mine has sold a house privately twice and gotten on fine with it. Her experience has been positive as it saves on estate agents fees, and dealing with buyers directly has saved a lot of posturing and make work.

We (in Scotland) sold our first house to our neighbour's sister and it all went smoothly. We sat in our lounge with the couple and negotiated the price after the survey result came back and let the solicitors do the rest. No hold-ups at all.

DH and I bought last year from our landlord - we conducted negotiations via email, and the solicitors sorted the rest. We were first time buyers, and the only bit that held things up was the survey and organising quotes (so we had a better idea of the work we were taking on).

I wish that private sales were more common, as I would definitely be keen to do it again!

Yes - once you find a buyer just get the solicitors to deal with each other even in England.

We're currently in the process of doing this. I leafletted the area we wanted to buy and someone got in touch, the house was just what we were looking for and we are now in the process of buying it. Once you've agreed on a price everything is handled by the solicitors so seems pretty straightforward. Am just hoping and praying it all continues to go smoothly and we complete at the end of the month!

Yes. But from a family member. I also did all the conveyencing myself via Land Registry forms which was very stressful as I didn't have a clue what I was doing.

We bought a flat privately a few years back. The estate agent did not turn up to do the viewing and after waiting for over half an hour we just happened to bump into the vendor. His contract with the estate agent was running out two days later. So we just sorted it out between us.

My mum sold her house privately. She knew other properties had been bought up by an investor in her road so phoned she him and did a private sale. Got a good price too.

Mum has just sold her bungalow to a neighbour. All done privately. They just exchanged details with solicitors and let them do the rest.

I bought privately from my horror of a landlord. We rented initially from his partner (who was a friend) but they split and he took over. We found out he was about to go bankrupt and he tried to throw us out so he could sell. We had a property tenancy agreement which had not run full term. We did not want to do him any favours but had it valued, got my solicitor to write to him with the offer and he rather reluctantly agreed. It went ahead fine.

We did sell it around 18 months later though and got £30,000 more as there was an upturn in the local market and sold to our neighbours.

We sold our first flat privately. Card through our door from a couple looking in the area. We'd already had 2 valuations for estate agents, so we advised them of our price, they negotiated and we settled on the price. We passed everything into the hands of a solicitor and they handled it for us, there was some to-ing and fro-ing but even when selling with an agent I find you have to chase and follow up, so nothing out of the ordinary.

Thank you everyone