Should I stay or should I go? (How to sell a house)

Member Name: abbadabbado

Product:	How to sell a house
Date:	13/12/07 (95 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: can be rewarding, you may be moving onto bigger and better things

Disadvantages: a lot of stress involved.

I would never have dreamed of actually getting to the stage of selling my house when until last year I didn't even own one. Being in rented accommodation for most of my adult life, the trivial aspects on how to sell your house would never have occurred to me.
In the last year however I have since moved in with my boyfriend to his own property which we then decided to sell as it was too small, and I have also watched a lot of friends sell their houses in the last twelve months for one reason or another.

Myself and my boyfriend were and probably still are novices when it comes to selling a house, but with his outgoing personality and nagging ambition to get what he wants, coupled with my nit picking and demanding to know what is happening at every stage, I think we did very well during our process and I'll tell you my story of how we ended up with our lovely family home we have now.

The house to be sold was a one bedroomed chalet bungalow (being that it has stairs and one room upstairs). It was an end terrace in a quiet cul de sac, not far from the centre of town. Back in 2006 when we were looking to put it on the market, we immediately went with friends recommendation of an estate agent because "she knew the guy". That was wrong decision number one. Whilst we had a friendly chat with the guy taking photos of our newly tidied, clutter free home, we hadn't properly looked around for the best competitive quote when it comes to estate agents fees. Considering these will take a fair chunk from your final fee it's well worth getting the best deal you can. We ended up paying 1.7% which is high, but when we realised this it was too late to back out.

As the market was fairly steady in the summer of 2006, our property was marketed for the value we wanted, and all systems go. What do the estate agents do with your pics after taking them though? To be fair to them they were quick at getting the For Sale board up (advertising for them), and gave us a copy of the sale sheet (which made the house look incredibly better then it does in real life).
After that we saw it in the free paper once and then it kind of disappeared from view. This is where my partner came into his own. He was on to the estate agents nearly every day and I truly believe to this day after listening to other peoples experiences, you really do need to do this to stay in the loop.

There are many things to consider when you want to sell your home. The main thing your house has to do is to be attractive to potential buyers, otherwise they wont want to live there will they?
Now our estate agent advised us not to get new carpets as new home owners like to get their own. I can see his point but ours were thread bare especially on the stairs. However we decided not to spend out money where we didn't necessarily need to.

The décor is another point. It really should be clean and tidy. Our house was freshly painted except the stairs. We spend so long stripping wallpaper, that we were still painting it Magnolia when the first prospective buyers came round. We had also run out of paint the night before so all the cutting in on the stairs and landing hadn't been done. Now this would have stood out like a sore thumb I'm sure, but on the day we moved out we still hadn't finished painting it!

If you have a garden attached to the property it's always worth weeding it, and having the lawn mowed to a decent level. Overgrown gardens will possibly scare the buyers off as it appears to be a lot of work to maintain the garden when in fact it's not really.

There is one huge factor that you have to consider when selling your home and that is the tidiness of your home. Your house MUST be tidy and clutter free otherwise people are going to look at your clutter and imagine theirs being stuck in the same places etc. This would put any prospective buyer off.
Each time we had a phone call from the estate agents letting us know there was a viewing, the hoover went round, along with the duster and the washing up was put away. The little things that you may not think about when you leave for work in the morning, and not worry about when you come home, still thinking your house is tidy, will matter to people who are going to potentially spend a lot of money buying the space you're now occupying. I believe you can walk into a house and see where the owners have their furniture, storage etc., and imagine where your items of furniture might go. If it doesn't fit then the house wont be for you.

Smell is another big No No or even Yes Yes depending on what it is. Every house has a certain smell whether their owners like to admit it or not. Whether it's dampness, animal smells, nice smells, there is one believe me, and you yourself as owners usually can't smell it yourself.
We have walked into houses with dogs and instantly knew we wouldn't want to keep the carpet etc. if we moved there. Perhaps think about laminating the downstairs if you are an animal house and wanting to sell.

All the programs suggest baking, and coffee granules don't they when it comes to selling your house. However this isn't normally possible as you may not be there when prospective buyers come round. We settled for a couple of plug in air fresheners and this seemed to do the trick, along with making sure we let a lot of fresh air into the house each morning. (Luckily for us it was summer time when we had the viewings).

Stay or go? Do you go out or stay in given the choice when prospective buyers come round. Personally I prefer to be out of the way as I don't want to see them turning their noses up at the colour of my bathroom suite, or colour of walls, sizes of rooms etc.
I also prefer to view a house when the owners are out. It makes me feel more comfortable about opening the odd cupboard door (and yes you need to), as with them there I feel more on edge and don't want to touch their property. Whilst it's their property now however it could just be yours in a few months time and your really do need to see how deep the fitted wardrobes, airing cupboard is etc.

All in all we didn't spend too much money on our house and miraculously sold it twice within the first week of it being on the market. When we sold the market was better than it is now, which might have been a factor, but the above points should just help you along the way.

Just because you've sold by doing all that hard work above, you can't rest yet as the battle with solicitors and offers, exchange, completion etc. will all come next so don't sit back and pack just yet.
Good luck if you're moving. It's been 12 months since we moved and I don't want to be doing it any time soon. We still haven't properly finished unpacking, and as for decorating the house how we want it, and sorting the garden out, well we have a lot of work to do.

Summary: how to prepare your house for sale