Hi

I posted a couple of days ago about selling my flat and wanting feedback on which estate agents to advertise with. I didnt get any response, so am hoping a new thread might work.

I have absolutely no idea where to start with this, do i invite every estate agent in Sheffield round for a valuation? Does that cost money? Are any of them crap? :help:

I am a first time seller so a bit in the dark. Any help really would be appreciated!

Best wishes
Stebbil

Get 3 or 4 estate agents to come around and value your house. They usually do this for free and will leave you with lots of information about their services and what they offer. Dont choose the one with the highest valuation though this is just to suck you in.

Cheers

I have been told to steer clear of the bigger companies such as Halifax, William H Brown etc as they are in it for the money and I am just a number. The smaller independant agencies will treat you better. Do you agree with this and are there any estate agents people can recommend?

never sold a property but gettting tready to sell ours to buy another at the mo so cany offer much on the selling but id say get a few agents in they dont usually charge for a valuation as has been said they will leave you with a lot of info and the highest price doesnt always mean they will offer you the best service also you need to take into consideration things like their fees ect ect look at all the info they leave you with and then decide which will be best for you. good luck with it hun :)

As has been said get 3 or 4 estate agents round, the valuations are free. Don't just go with the one that tells you your house is worth the most - haybrooks and reed rains seem the worset for this.

See which one's seem to speak the most sence and check out how much houses have sold for around you on the lang registry website.

Do some mystery shopping. Contact the agencies and view properties they have for sale. Does the price seem right to you? Do they answer the phone promptly and politely? do they arrange viewing promptly? Do they phone you afterwards to ask what you thought of the property? ect.

Good luck.

PS: putting your house on the market at this time of year is probibly a bad idea. House prices always fall slightly in the winter, dark damp days make houses look their worst and less people are looking to buy in the run up to christmas. If people see the same house time after time in the property guide they begin to wonder why it hasn't been sold and think they can barter you down.

No choice i am afraid - the missus has just got a new job and we have to move away

Thanks for all your info guys!!!!!!!!

If you want to sell your home for the best possible price and as quickly as possible you need to ensure that the presentation of you home is good.
For more information on preparing your home for sale visit www.designtosell.co.uk

With regard to Estate Agents get 3/4 valuations and don't always go with the highest one.
Do your homework and have a look at who is selling properties in your area. Also check out similar properties for sale in your area as this is who you will be competing against when you sell.

Finally Good Luck with the sale!

Hi Stebbil. I understand the stress you must be going through. My uncle faced a similar situation some time back and he too had to sell off his house. Without a single doubt, I can say that these estate agents can drive you nuts, particularly when you are in desperate need to sell your home fast.

My suggestion would be tap property buying companies. They can really get you out of the crisis and fast. Selling through estate agent would cause you further delays.

In contrast, property buying companies can get you closer to a deal much faster, because they themselves are the buyers and they pay cash! They usually can purchase your property within 28 days. So you would have the cash in your pocket.

You would be spared the expenses of legal fees, estate agent fees or any hidden charges too. And what’s more, you receive all your money in cash. My uncle sold his home through an organization of cash investors who buy property nationwide in UK. You can check out their services at sellhousefastcash.co.uk

Every second is precious. Get in touch with such companies as soon as you can.

Hi Stebbil. I understand the stress you must be going through. My uncle faced a similar situation some time back and he too had to sell off his house. Without a single doubt, I can say that these estate agents can drive you nuts, particularly when you are in desperate need to sell your home fast.

My suggestion would be tap property buying companies. They can really get you out of the crisis and fast. Selling through estate agent would cause you further delays.

In contrast, property buying companies can get you closer to a deal much faster, because they themselves are the buyers and they pay cash! They usually can purchase your property within 28 days. So you would have the cash in your pocket.

You would be spared the expenses of legal fees, estate agent fees or any hidden charges too. And what’s more, you receive all your money in cash. My uncle sold his home through an organization of cash investors who buy property nationwide in UK. You can check out their services at sellhousefastcash.co.uk

Every second is precious. Get in touch with such companies as soon as you can.

You wont get the full market value though. Most offer in the region of about 80% i believe. If you can hold out and wait for the buyer who offers 100%.

You wont get the full market value though. Most offer in the region of about 80% i believe. If you can hold out and wait for the buyer who offers 100%.

80% if you're lucky, more like 60% - steal well clear. It's a complete waste of money and only for the gulliable.

I agree, look into renting in your new location, and holding out for a good price here!

One of the first thing you might consider is getting a Home Information Pack. You need to have ordered your HIP before you can put your property on the market.

If you were thinking of leaving it to the estate agent you should bear in mind many agents now lock you into using them by making you sign something along the lines of "free HIP with us but if you leave you have to pay and/or the HIP won't be transferrable" If the agent pays for it, they own it, not you.

If you organise and pay for the HIP yourself it will be 100% portable between agents and so will allow you more flexibility if your chosen agent (assuming you go through an agent) becomes undesirable/problematic.

I'm not sure if you've now sold Stebbil and I very much hope you have in view of the ever gloomy news about Sheffield property! If you haven't though I can highly recommend www.thehomegame.net who are a Sheffield based estate agent. I used them recently to sell 2 properties in Sheffield and they were brilliant in every way. I got Saxton Mee in to value too (it's always wise to get at least 2 estate agents in to value, and both valued free of charge as is the norm). Eventually I went for the Homegame as the estate agent for both properties though as their valuer had really done their homework on prices in my area, they can film a 'virtual tour' of your property for the web and they do Propertyfinder, Rightmove and the rest of the big websites. Their fees were cheaper too, 0.5% versus 1% and 1.5% for most other agents, and they just seemed very proactive and on the ball.

I needed a fast sale as I was in a chain and I approached a couple of cash for homes companies but was totally appalled at the figures they came up with. How they work is that they take a 'fair market valuation' (usually at least 20% under yours) then offer you around 80% of that. So unless you need to sell within a week, they're really not even worth looking at - despite their claims to offer '95% of your property's value', the reality is that you will lose at least 30%. I think the average property, before Northern Rock hit the headlines, was taking about 10-12 weeks to sell, the average offer was 10% under asking price, and around 1 in 3 offers was falling through. I'm not an estate agent, I promise, but it cheered me up a bit to know the score before I started on the whole house buying and selling thing!

I must say I was apprehensive about The Homegame as an estate agent initially, as I was worried that they were too small to get the visibility I needed, but my fears were unfounded. Within weeks of Northern Rock and in the midst of all the headlines about property market crashes, they sold both of the properties, and then they chased and chivvied everyone (vendors, buyers, solicitors, mortgage brokers etc.) to make sure it didn't fall through. I couldn't have been more delighted - they really did pull out the stops and it worked for me. Maybe I'm biased thanks to my good experience with The Homegame but I don't feel a bigger Sheffield estate agent would have taken that much trouble. They also do lettings as well as sales and I have a friend who lets properties through them and says they do a great job there as well so they're highly recommended for both.

One other tip is that only online advertising, preferably with RightMove and Propertyfinder, rather than print ads and/or fancy brochures, really seems to work for selling property these days. As The Homegame keep costs down by doing minimal print advertising, I ran my own ads in the Sheffield Telegraph, Rotherham Advertiser, Yorkshire Post, Sunday Times classifieds, and online through the Little House Company. The result of all that was...wait for it...tiddley squat! The ads brought a reasonable number of responses but the viewers were more curious than serious and in the end one buyer found us through RightMove and the other through The Homegame's board outside (it helps that their boards are bright orange and bright green as you really can't miss 'em!). We had around 15 viewings on each property before we sold, but the serious viewers, who were either pondering an offer or seemed to fit the spec, practically all came via the estate agent.

Hope this helps and good luck with selling your property!