Putting house on market

[kerrymucklowe2020]

Advice 1 what to ask / how to find best estate agents and 2 how to stage for viewings / get best price thanks

I've just done this and met with 2 estate agents, let them pitch me and telling me their offerings. And they valued. Both the same valuation but different price packages. I made my choice on my gut feel and chose the more expensive. Wasn't wrong as they have sold my house twice for more than the asking price / expectation.

Twice more than asking price @jelly79? That's just not true, is it

I think she said "have sold my house twice" (comma, draw breath) "for more than the asking price"

ie, accepted an offer for more than the asking price, then it fell through, and then they have once again found someone who has offered over the asking price.

Haha @Grobagsforever you are right that's not true. But also not what I said.

Went on the market and sold for £4K over the asking price. Fell through due to CV.

Went back on the market and sold for £5k over the asking price

Twice the price would of been lovely like 🤔

OP - I am planning on putting my house on the market in the next year or two.

Selling / buying a house is likely to be overwhelmingly the biggest financial decision most ordinary people every make.
I certainly intend to speak to at least 4 estate agents.
We live in a City and there are plenty of options.
This isn't something I've done for nigh on 20 years, and, making the right choice could make a HUGE difference in speed of sale, support we get, and price obtained, so I am going to talk to as many people as possible before signing up to anything.

In terms of 'dressing' or 'staging' the house - the advice everyone seems to agree on is to declutter, declutter, and declutter again.
Try to remove too many personal things - photos, nicknacks on shelves etc.
People talk about 'kerb appeal' - what is the first impression when someone drives past ? People will go and have a look at a house if it is a road the don't know and some will decide after that whether to book a viewing.

Look around where you live - what agents have the most signs up? What agent has sold on your street? With rightmove and such they are more or less on par, but agents do tend to dominate a neighbourhood and certain types of properties. Don't pay for anything - ads etc should come from their commission. Make sure they do the viewings and definitely say you want notice - 24 hours at least.
Get all those small jobs done - loose cupboards, scruffy skirting boards and so on. You don't need to spend much money, but get your garden looking cared for and some planters of flowers can brighten up a patio or front garden. Declutter - you will hopefully be moving soon so get rid of all your junk. If you have dogs take them out for viewings. And then clean clean clean. Shampoo your carpets, wash your windows, clean your oven. People do look inside cupboards too so get them organised.

Thanks all. Tiny street) cul de sac. So no drive by. Also v v few houses come up in this area. Have definitely started decluttering. Do potential buyers also look in wardrobes- do I have to tidy / sort those too? Re the price they all charge the same standard price plus vat. One EA told me to look at their trustpilot reviews but,behaving seen (a certain names) "got your back" program am a bit sceptical of trustpilot. Have looked a get an agent though and also have an EOC

*EPC

if you use get agent to refer you to an estate agent they charge the agent for the referral and so you may pay more or the agent will have to swallow the fee which is what they are supposed to do apparently. So if you find an agent you like advise you deal with them direct and say not interested to get agent phone callers.

kerry - I didn't mean 'happening to drive past' I meant, when house hunting, I'd look on line and then deliberately go and have a look at houses where I don't know the road..... sometimes you can rule out a house (lack of parking or some people want a south facing garden or whatever) by seeing the house from the outside.

I’d post in my local FB group for recommendations.

We are considering putting ours on the market. We weren't particularly looking to move but we saw a house that seemed to tick all our next house boxes come on the market. It did sell very quickly even before we could view it. The next one also sold yesterday and our viewing later on today was cancelled.

We have tried to book Viewings of other houses but EAs are very reluctant to show us as we aren't on the market yet so now we are preparing ours to put on the market.

We have met two EAs. They seemed to offer the same level of service so not sure which one to pick.

As for preparing the house, some rooms more so than others. We have just repainted the hallway walls. DH will be filling in holes and such like today. I will paint the banister today as it looks filthy. The doors all need cleaning. Scuffed skirting boards every bloody where. It's amazing how I never saw these things but now they are glaringly in my face. Everywhere I look needs something or two done in preparation to sell.

I tidied (weeds and swept drive and path) the front garden on Thursday as we noticed a couple of cars properly slowing down and looking directly at the house. Being a small town I'm not surprised if EAs have mentioned our house in-passing to some people looking even if we haven't signed with any of the EAs.

@notyetthere sounds like we're in the same position! Also looking in horror at the state of mucky skirting boards and washing walls. We've pressure washed the drive and I've put a plant out and a new mat. Got some new gravel to put down too. Will be spending the weekend touching up scuffs and polishing everything.

We've not viewed anything as we're not on the market yet so can't. We met two estate agents last week and have chosen one who is taking the photos next week to go on. This is the first time we've sold a house and I have no idea what we're doing!

@MikeEhrmantraut yes to the grubby skirting boards, doors. I even found a dried up strawberry behind the radiator that to the toddler. We clean this area maybe once a year!

Luckily the front garden is looking great at the moment. Flowers in bloom, hedge trimmed and drive is only 1yr old so still looking new. We ought to instruct an EA early next week. Fingers crossed nothing we like comes on and gets sold within that time before we have had a chance. Places are getting sold quickly round here.

We do have a dilemma though. A house down the rd from us sold really quickly just before lockdown. We had that EA round since ours is similar to that one so they would potentially have a list of buyers looking for similar. However, it came back on the market last night. Gah! We almost picked this EA based on this. Now we just dont know.

We got three estate agents in, two came out with similar figure and one came out lot higher, but we didn't trust that figure. The one we went with sold their estate agents to us, and we 'we looking for someone who can sale. Also look on rightmove, what's the photos like, what's the description like. Ask them what they think of property, are they going to give you honest advice

It took us 3 months to get our house ready to sell. The de-cluttering was a real killer, and we updated one of the bathrooms which really did look awful before with an old green 1970s suite. Then there was the decorating. We spent a lot more than we had hoped to, and the decorator was a bit of a cowboy in hindsight.

I thought we should do everything we could to make the house as attractive as possible to potential buyers. Even down to buying loads of flowers before a viewing.

The ongoing cleaning is knackering!

We have just gone on market and chose a local estate agent who gave us an honest valuation and charged a fair commission. Before doing so I totally decluttered and washed down paintwork, moved all furniture into middle of rooms to hoover properly and got the garden looking neat. We have been lucky and had over 20 viewings in less than two weeks.

If you know othe people in the area then ask for reccomendations. If not look at right move sold house prices and look at the previous listings and compare listed to sold house prices and see who had the best record. Meet with a few and let them pitch and just see who is most confident and proactive etc and just go with your gut.

As for staging declutter and make sure it all looks clean. Ive been in so many houses full of junk and mess and dirty and it's very off putting.

I'd also try and make sure you're out when viewings occur or at least stay out their way. I thjnk people feel more comfortable so start imagining things when no one's home.