The aim of this guide is to equip you with all the tools and knowledge you need to sell your house yourself.

I am no expert, but a few years ago I managed to sell my home myself without the help of an estate agent and in fact I was able to achieve £7,000 more than what the “experts” said they will market the property for, in order to accept offers just below it.

To cut a long story short, when I decided to sell my house I instructed 4 popular estate agents to come out and give me an indication of what they could sell the house for.
The valuations ranged between £85,000 and £90,000, yet I was able to sell my house myself for £98,000 and at the same time saving the £2,000 estate agency fees although I invested £2,500 in a new kitchen before advertising the property.

Below are the steps I took in order to sell my home.

Step 1.

Called out 4 estate agents for their “expert” advice and discuss their fees, the cheapest was £2,000!

Step 2.

Installed a new kitchen which cost me £2,500, although I did a lot of the work myself. Also bit of painting and wallpapering from what I can remember.

Step 3.

Visited Rightmove and Zoopla to see other similar sized properties for sale in my area, also what had sold in the recent past, there is a specific section on Rightmove for this: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices.html 

Step 4.

Once I had a figure in mind, I searched the internet to find Do It Yourself packages, where my home would be advertised on Zoopla and Rightmove, and I would be expected to conduct viewings and negotiate with the buyer.

Step 5.

I narrowed it down to 2 websites, one was myhouseadvert.co.uk and the other sellmyhome.co.uk, I was expecting to pay around £400 to £500 upfront to have my house listed on Rightmove and Zoopla.
I chose sellmyhome.co.uk when I was offered a whopping £200 off ! So the total cost to me was £239.40.
Don’t be expecting that today!

Step 6.

After payment, Sellmyhome sent out a photographer, who also took measurements, drew a floor plan and also produced an EPC certificate. This cost sellmyhome more than the £239.40 that I had paid them, I know because the photographer accidental sent me a copy of the invoice which Sellmyhome paid.

Step 7.

After a few days my draft listing was ready on Sellmyhome’s website, all I had to do was fill in the nitty gritty bits. Summary for Rightmove and Zoopla, long description, select how many bedrooms, bathrooms, garden, garage etc, nothing too difficult for a home owner. Also the price I wanted to market the property at.

Step 8.

I advertised the property at £105,000 and sat back waiting for the viewings. Soon enough I started to receive emails from Sellmyhome asking me to choose between 3 dates and times for each potential viewing. Each viewing lasted about 10 minutes, just showing around my home and answering any questions they had, how long I lived here etc.

After about 5 viewings and two offers, I chose the highest one at a £103,000, which was way more than what I expected, and set the property to SOLD STC in sellmyhome’s seller dashboard.

Step 9.

I called my Solicitor, the same one I used to buy my home originally to keep things simple. They asked me to forward them the Buyers contact details and also their solicitor’s details.

The solicitor took charge from this point, leaving me to get on with my not so busy life!
A few weeks later I received a call from my Solicitor advising that the buyer had pulled out.

Step 10.

I set my home from SOLD STC to For Sale and accepted a further 2 viewings and I also notified the other lady who had submitted an offer the first time round. She came back for second time and I accepted her offer of £100,000.

Step 11.

I called my Solicitor to advise them of this.
The buyer conducted a survey which valued my home at £95,000 but we agreed on the phone to £98,000.

A another week or two later, I moved my stuff out. When the money was in my bank, keys were handed over to the new owner on the date my Solicitor advised me of.

If you have sold a car in the past then you can certainly sell your house too.

Conclusion

Through a High Street agent my home would have been advertised at £90,000 and even if I achieved the asking priced minus the selling fees of £2,000, I would have been left with £88,000.

By selling myself I managed to achieve £98,000 minus the new kitchen at £2,500 and sellmyhome fee of just under £240, the final figure £95,260, not bad for a fist timer.

The best thing about my experience was that I was in complete control of the sale, I chose to do the viewings when I wanted to, I chose my asking price and there was no estate agent trying to pressure me into accepting an offer.

My ex-home.

Click the link below to see the house I sold.
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-44574572.html

 

Tips

• Call a few Estate Agents for advice, and don’t be afraid of telling them you will have others around, it gives them the chance to offer something special or give good advice.
• Do a bit of research, see what other properties in your area are selling for, compare the condition of their home with yours to determine a suitable asking price.
• Be patient when the offers start coming through, ask to see a mortgage in principal or bank statement for each offer (only accept the offer after you have seen these, something I missed with the offer I accepted the first time round).
• Don’t just go for the highest offer like I did, but go for a strong offer, taking into account the deposit amount, the buyer’s present situation and just the general feel you get about this person, just to reduce any hiccups that might arise later at the time of a survey etc.

That’s it, enjoy selling your home.

 

Sellmyhome.co.uk

I can’t vouch for Sellmyhome today as I used them a few years ago when the company was very new and they only had a small number of properties for sale, so replied to my emails instantly.
Today however, they have over a 100 properties for sale so they must be doing something right.

Also their online seller dashboard makes it extremely easy to track viewings and offers.

I am in the process of negotiating a discount for my readers, and I will hopefully post the coupon code here if I can get one.

 

Please leave your comments below and share this post if you found it useful.

Selling your house is one of the most stressful things for a home owner, second only to giving birth, if you’re a woman of course.

If you don’t want to read the introduction below(although I would recommend it a quick read) you can jump straight to my Step by Step guide to selling your house online: http://sellhouseonline.co.uk/how-to/step-by-step-guide-to-sell-your-house-yourself/

With the advent of internet and now a connected world, selling your house has become a lot easier and cheaper.

Previously the only way to sell your house was to walk into the office of an estate agent and invite him/her to your home to have a look, with that prospect you would hand over everything you had put into your home over to an individual who you have only met for a few minutes, you might speak to different estate agents before you decide, but most people never bothered.

Now, however, before you even decide that you want to sell your house online, the first thing you are going to do is visit Rightmove or Zoopla and actually see what people are actually selling their houses for in your area.
This little bit of information is enough to give you a whole lot of insight, you can decide if it is actually a good time to sell or wait longer, you can estimate the sale price you might be able to achieve taking into account the specification of other houses on the market and also can look at your next potential home in a matter of minutes.

Even with creation of online property portals such as Zoopla and Rightmove, where most home buyers now begin their property search, you needed an estate agent to actually get you onto these online portals, a service which came with a lot unnecessary baggage and a hefty commission based price tag.

Online Estate Agent

All that has changed very recently, all you need to do now is choose an online estate agent, who won’t stick a poster outside their shop window but will certainly advertise your property on Zoopla, Rightmove, Primelocation and many other online property websites which collective attract millions of home buyers every year if not every month, all this for a literally a fraction of what you can be charged by a standard high street agent.

There are generally two packages to choose from, one is where the online estate agent will advertise your property and upon sale will charge you a small commission of 1% or a fixed fee of £999, still a lot lower than any high street agent, the second package is to pay upfront and no commission on sale, this is where there are huge savings to be made, as you can pay from as little as £375 or up to £799 depending on which online estate agent you use.

Please excuse any grammar mistakes in the above article, my English isn’t great but I can save you a bob if you thinking of selling your home.

Read the article below to find out exactly what you need to do to sell your home and save a lot of money in the process:
http://sellhouseonline.co.uk/how-to/step-by-step-guide-to-sell-your-house-yourself/