UK Home Selling Guide

You want to move to another home or you’ve found your dream home. To afford your new home you need to sell your existing home.

Moving house can be stressful, time-consuming and expensive. Therefore set the agenda yourself and save time and money. This will reduce your stress.

Using our site to sell your property, as well as following our handy guides you will soon be selling and for the price you want!

Moreover you will save a fortune by not paying estate agent fees! Enough to buy a car or fantastic holiday!!!

Remember the positive reasons for moving! When a buyer asks you give should a positive reason. Do not say “the neighbours are awful”, say you “want to be closer to….”or “we have outgrown the house as the children are much older”. Remember the reasons why you bought the property in the first place.

Knowing why you are selling will give you a more presentable and positive picture. It will also keep you mind focused on the final objective, which is to move.

Who are your target buyers? Young families, retired persons? Normally it will be the type of people you were once. Does you home meet the needs of a particular group of buyers or is your home decorated in a neo classic post modernist style with only limited appeal to a certain type of buyers.

Simple – Only what someone else is prepared to pay for it. Value is an arbitrary concept used to estimate. Prices only represent the agreed value between buyer and seller.

There is no magic formula to arrive at a house value. Ask any economist! It used to be related to the replacement of the building. However land value may account for 75% of the price and only 25% for the building. It also used to be relative to 3 times average income historically. Now that figure is averaging about 6 times average income due to easy credit and property speculation.

The final method is using a market sales comparison method. This is how Estate Agents work. Now you have the same access to property sales information in your area as Estate agents. Now it is possible to use the Land Registry to check details of recent property sales in your area. See www.landregisteronline.gov.uk/lro/landing.htm

Get an estimate of your house value here Type your location and an approximate asking price will be displayed. There are also many private companies who offer a similar service such as www.ourproperty.co.uk/ However the do not show details about the property such as numbers of bedrooms and therefore are of limited value.

Of more useful value are the calculators that show the affects of inflation on your house value. These can be found on www.nationwide.co.uk/hpi/calculator.asp or www.hbosplc.com/economy/HousePriceCalculator.asp

You can still use several Estate Agents to give you an idea of price and their commission fees. THE SELLING PRICE IS YOUR DECISION not the agents. However most people decide to choose the agent who gives them, the highest valuation for their property. These unrealistic sellers then regret their decision when the property remains unsold. When the agents cannot sell your property, they will suggest you drop you price. So you are still responsible for setting the price.

The estate agent has not actually changed their marketing but you are now potentially losing money, as well as time. Now you may wish to change agencies but you may be locked into staying with them for a certain time period, which you can only cancel in writing. (See our FAQ here if you already have any agreement with an agent to see your property)LINK

Speaking with neighbours can also give you an idea of recent prices in your local area that an agent may not know. You can also feel if the area is becoming more fashionable or not by looking at whether businesses are opening or closing in the area, and by the number of builders skips – an increase is a good sign of rising values.

If your property is in an immaculate condition you can normally add a percentage to the price.

If your property is in poor condition you should reduce it by a certain percentage.

The prices that a buyer is prepared to pay will also reflect general optimism or pessimism about the economy as well as changing interest rates. By monitoring the clicks on your property and the number of enquiries you can decide whether you property represents fair value in accordance with you time scale for selling.

In the example above with the neo classic post modernist style property, the seller could charge a much higher premium to reflect taste but would also have to wait much longer to sell. Here the price would reflect your target audience range.

We suggest you start higher and then slowly reduce your price according to demand.

If you are leaving or considering leaving items such as appliances, curtains & carpets how much are the worth? Are the worth something to you in your new home or are they an incentive to the buyer? Is there real value there or are these items really due for the skip?

No. People still use agents because it something that was done historically. They managed the property of the landed nobility, before an era of motorcars, rail transport systems and mass mobility. Hence their name: - Estates agents. However home ownership is commonplace now and arrival of the Internet has reduced the benefit and even the effectiveness of an agent when prices are no longer locally influenced.

Use Celcee and you only pay for the services you require. Estate agents normally charge 2% of your property value as sales commission. This of course does not include VAT of 17.5%.

See how much we can save you using our fee calculator.

On a property valued at £200000 this would be £4700 less our fees of £65 inc vat for listing. This would save you £4635 – more than enough for a holiday or a new car. However we are offering our service for FREE.

Why not purchase a camera with a wide-angle lens for less than £500 and do you own promotion here? You will spend a little, to save a lot!!

Using Celcee your property can be online in less than 10 minutes.

If you used the old fashioned way of contacting three local agents and arranging for them to view and value your property you would have lost at least a fortnight when you could have sold you property!

Sell now with us Celcee in just a few clicks.

This is easy to do using facts and photos. If you use descriptions you may fall fowl of the law. Our form allows you to avoid this by sticking to facts. You just need to click instead or writing your property description. You may want to measure each room because buyers like to see this information. You may also wish to measure distances to the local amenities using your car. However never overstate room sizes or understate distances.

Pictures should be done with a digital camera and labelled. Pictures should not be cropped or edited in any way.

Do not include descriptions or photos for rooms that are below standard or have faults. This also applies to the situation of the property.

Describe the best aspects of your property, whilst ensuring that it is not misleading.

Attractive features can be used as selling points but not to the exclusion of bad features if the overall result can be a misleading description. You are not required to disclose a leaky roof for example but your description as a whole must not give the impression that the property does not have this defect. State that you property needs repairs.

Do not use terms such as immaculate condition or recently decorated if it does not refer to the whole of the property. Only use such expressions when relevant to a room.

Do not stretch geographical areas. If you live in Ladbroke Grove, do not state that you live in Notting Hill. Other examples include saying the property is situated in the Lake District, when in fact you property is not within the National Park.

If you property in one county and the postcode falls within another, both counties should be stated with equal prominence.

State actual from places in actual miles and avoid times or expressions such as easy access or close to.

Cropped photos where the picture has been edited to review unsightly views are not permitted. Editing out or removing the neighbours’ garden when taking a photo of your own is not acceptable, nor is deleting parts of rooms from photos to avoid showing unsightly aspects of the room. In this instance do not take a photo of that room. Its omission will provide the fact that the room is not up to standard. Similarly if your garden backs onto open field and also adjoins a pig farm it is best not to refer to the outlook or include a photo.

Always label rooms and aspects. I.e. “view from dining room of garden” or “living room”.

Remember that new homes built by developers tend to be the biggest competition and the market drivers in the property market as you can see from the weekly media.

New home prices tend to command a 20% to 25 % premium to existing properties in your area. This is partly due to new buildings should have relatively less problems than older properties. However new homes tend to be built less substantially than house constructed in the last century and have in some cases, less soundproofing. The other reason for a price premium is that show homes are dressed up to reflect modern taste and décor.

For you the seller, adapting your house to reflect these modern tastes and installing the latest in kitchens and bathrooms designs will probably not be cost effective or worth your time.

If it were would you be selling you house? No you house reflects you and the new owners will probably change your property to what they want. Do not be seduced by these TV makeover programmes.

Buyers will always be looking to find reasons to ask for price reductions. By making your property presentable and clean you can avoid this. Just imagine if you were in there shoes, how would you property look? Maybe ask a friend to help.

Imagine that you are moving already. How many possessions, ornaments, clothes are just lying about, stuffed into cupboards, thrown into the garage. Remove them either to the local tip or charity shop will increase both you internal and external spaces. Rooms and wardrobes will appear larger. Moreover you are already preparing to move – which is positive.

• Create as much light as possible in your property – clean windows.
• Put mirrors in the hallways.
• Store shoes and coats away in the hall.
• Tidy away clothes and washing.
• Make the beds.
• Clean, dust, hoover and polish.
• Throw out old newspapers and magazines.
• Replace dying flowers and plants with new healthy plants.
• Tidy up the garden of children toys, cut the grass, trim the hedges.
• Clear the front drive.
• Carry out simple repairs such as leaking taps and replacing broken windows.

Consideration basic decoration in the following instances:

• After filling in holes in the wall or damaged walls.
• Replacing torn wallpaper.
• Refreshing yellowed ceilings from nicotine smoke.

It’s best to do this well, as a poor job will be noticed and will not add value. Do this at least a week before your first viewings. However, potential buyers will notice and be suspicious any substantial or last minute decoration jobs.

Try to ensure that the house smells fresh and airy. If you have dogs, leave them outside, likewise, for heavy smokers. Be aware that most buyers these days are very sensitive to them and you can only minimize this.

As a vendor, you need to ensure that you give the potential buyers as little reason as possible for them to find fault. You need to help them visualise how they can use the property to suit their own needs.

Never show the property to viewers on your own unless you have some kind of proof of their identity. Have a friend or relative to be with you when viewers arrive and always keep valuables out of sight

Be pleasant and polite to potential buyers. Ask them about themselves. This will give you clues about their needs as you take them around the property. Emphasis the main features which attracted you to the property. Listen and watch their reactions.

Offer them the chance to view again especially if they ask.

Answer any questions they may have. Do not lie in order to give a false impression. Untruths can be spotted easily and could lead to legal problems.

Do not accept the first offer unless its meets the price you wanted.

Offers normally made on first viewings are normally optimistic buyers who are offering below your price and are not serious buyers.

If an offer is below you asking price do not be rude, always ask for time to think and then decline the offer.

Serious buyers will normally view a property they like a second or even a third time and you will require patience. There is no need to drop your price as they are just ensuring that they are making the right decision.

Once you have received and accepted a suitable offer, the process is similar but reversed to when you buy a property. You will need to employ a solicitor or licensed conveyancer to ensure the legal transfer of ownership is completed as quickly and efficiently as possible.

The contract is prepared and details of all matters affecting the property in the deeds or on the Land Register are given to the buyer's solicitors. If the buyer is satisfied on all the relevant matters, contracts are exchanged, the transfer deed approved and the sale is completed.

Once you have exchanged contracts you and the buyer are committed to the sale. A completion date between both parties will be set and you could end up paying damages if you fail to move out by the agreed date.

Selling your own property is easy. However please read the following to have a safe and happy sale.

If your property has a complicated leasehold situation or disputed ownership do not attempt to sell the property yourself. Consult an estate agent. You can still use us for advertising the property.

Remember that if you make a false or misleading statement about your property you could be sued for misrepresentation. See the following websites:-

www.dti.gov.uk/ccp/topics1/guide/property_description.htm

www.lawpack.co.uk/property_misdescriptions_act.asp

False statements may be material. Quoted and actual room sizes may be one of no consequence if it relates to the dimensions of a garden given. Hence always measure rooms and avoid overstating room sizes.

A misleading statement is one from which a reasonable person would be likely to make a false inference, even though the statement is not itself false. A statement may be oral or written, or be in the form of a picture, model, or any other means of conveying information. An example might be a statement that a house had full central heating, when you know that the system does not work.

Unlike estate agents who can state that the condition of the system was unknown, you must state clearly that the system does not work.