Tell me about private sales

[Movinghomes]

We are currently STC to a chain free cash buyer. Have found a house we love and that ticks all boxes whose owners we know and were/are looking to sell the house - they invited us around to see and ask questions etc.

What next though? They'd potentially save £8000 if they don't have EA fees yet EA does a valuable middleman job. Should we insist they list with an EA? If we don't how exactly do we proceed?

Just go direct through solicitors. Once a property has sold, agents really only get involved to contact solicitors and chase progress to get their fee.

Absolutely don’t bother with the EA. Their main job is to market houses. After that it’s just chasing sols which you can do yourself. We bought our house last year off-market. It was straightforward and can’t see how it would’ve benefitted either side to have involved an EA. Our seller saved a considerable chunk of cash on fees and it meant she offered us the house at a reasonable and fair price. Everyone was happy. Good luck!

Thanks both. How would you negotiate on price though? Without a proper EA valuation relying on what the seller wants or what Rightmove or Zoopla says seems very arbitrary...

I'd rather negotiate myself than have an agent do it for me.. I care more! See what comparables have sold on rightmove. I personally prefer to price it competitively and have people bidding against eachother than have it grow stale doe to being overpriced.

Look at recently sold similar. properties. If you're getting a survey they can do a valuation for you. Appoint a conveyancer, have you got a mortgage. Are they offering it at a good price, have they given you a good deal based on not using an agent. If you insist they use an estate you run the risk of someone else putting in a better offer.

EA always overprice

A friend did this recently. She and her buyer each chose an EA, both EAs gave a valuation, and friend and buyer compared the reports and reached a figure they were happy with.

This is us (hopefully). Friends of DH are selling and have approached us as they know we're looking to buy in the area.

So far they've had a couple of EA valuations and waiting on another. We're in rented and ready and waiting to discuss ££ once all valuations in. Family member is a RICS surveyor so will be asking whether it'd be worth us getting an independent valuation too. No need for an EA, just a solicitor.

That’s basically how EAs value houses. Looking up sold prices of recently sold houses on the likes and Rightmove and Zoopla. You could also still get an EA to value if you want, it doesn’t commit the seller to sign up with the EA to sell it.

When I bought the EAs certainly didn’t do a valuable job chasing and moving things along. I was much more on top of things than they were. Whenever they contacted me about something, my response was always basically ‘why are you asking me about that, I know it was done weeks ago.’

The sellers estate agent even phoned me once with an exchange date, which they had communicated to the rest of the chain. If they had actually checked with me/my solicitor first they would have known that fhe date was completely unachievable. The EA then had to sheepishly go back to the rest of the chain to tell them.

The EA won’t add any value. Just go through solicitors.

We did this at the weekend - been renting a house got served eviction notice, cried for 2 days as children and us so settled in the village. She named her price via email - agent didn't even bother coming round to give her a valuation. I invited her for our first face to face. We prepared our spiel going through the practicalities (she will save 10k in agent fees, we will pay ehr rent till we leave, we will look after it etc) Gave her an offer 10k below her valuation and we met in the middle. Now we just get the solicitors to talk to themselves and hope it goes through! It was very nerve racking but worht it. Good luck to you!