House Selling
Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2014 12:24 pm
I am currently looking at estate agents ("Realtors" the other side of the pond) to figure out who I want to use to sell my house.
With the first estate agent I have suddenly bumped into an unexpected issue, there are more than one way to sell a house. The new way (around here) is not the "traditional" way.... let me explain, and please do add your experiences where appropriate.
The traditional way (as I understand it, I am a novice this is the first house that I will have sold), is that you (the seller) chooses an estate agent and you pay a fee, typically either a fixed amount or a percentage of the sale value of the property.
The new way (around here, I understand its popular in Scotland) and its called "Sealed Tender's" or "Sealed Bids", some detailed info here (found by a Google search).
http://www.in-deed.net/conveyancing/con ... m-property
The short version is that you let a load of people look at the property, they then have a few weeks to chose whether or not to sign a document listing a "bid" that they would like to make on the property. The "sealed" part of this and why its often referred to as a "tender" is because all of the bids/tenders are all opened at the same time and the one who bids the most "wins" the property.
There are a couple of caveats, if no-one makes a bid/tender that I regard as high-enough, it can be put out to another tender (at no extra cost to me), I can also chose to sell the property to anyone who has made a bid/tender and not just the person who is offering the largest sum.
---
Now I have that out of the way, there are a number of positives and negatives with this option vs the "traditional" method.
Positives:
Its dirt cheap for me to sell the house, excluding solicitors fees the entire costs are £310 (or £210 will confirm later) which is very, very cheap.
The buyers pay most of the fees (2% of the property value) so are already committed buyers.
Negatives:
There wont be a "price war" to push up the sale price because that just not how this system works.
The buyers will already be paying 2% on top of the value of the property so this may decrease their bids vs if it was the traditional method.
---
I am going to visit a few more estate agents and get them to give me valuations and look at their costs but I would like any input anyone has to offer, especially if someone has used both of these methods to buy/sell a property.
A couple more notes. Houses around here are selling at full asking price or above within a couple of weeks, there is no-onward chain or need for a rapid sale so what I want is to make the most amount of money from the property after the selling costs have been removed - solicitors fees will be separate, also obviously a smooth transition would be appreciated and =whether I trust the people/company that I will be dealing with, advertising etc will of course be taken in measured consideration.
Andy
With the first estate agent I have suddenly bumped into an unexpected issue, there are more than one way to sell a house. The new way (around here) is not the "traditional" way.... let me explain, and please do add your experiences where appropriate.
The traditional way (as I understand it, I am a novice this is the first house that I will have sold), is that you (the seller) chooses an estate agent and you pay a fee, typically either a fixed amount or a percentage of the sale value of the property.
The new way (around here, I understand its popular in Scotland) and its called "Sealed Tender's" or "Sealed Bids", some detailed info here (found by a Google search).
http://www.in-deed.net/conveyancing/con ... m-property
The short version is that you let a load of people look at the property, they then have a few weeks to chose whether or not to sign a document listing a "bid" that they would like to make on the property. The "sealed" part of this and why its often referred to as a "tender" is because all of the bids/tenders are all opened at the same time and the one who bids the most "wins" the property.
There are a couple of caveats, if no-one makes a bid/tender that I regard as high-enough, it can be put out to another tender (at no extra cost to me), I can also chose to sell the property to anyone who has made a bid/tender and not just the person who is offering the largest sum.
---
Now I have that out of the way, there are a number of positives and negatives with this option vs the "traditional" method.
Positives:
Its dirt cheap for me to sell the house, excluding solicitors fees the entire costs are £310 (or £210 will confirm later) which is very, very cheap.
The buyers pay most of the fees (2% of the property value) so are already committed buyers.
Negatives:
There wont be a "price war" to push up the sale price because that just not how this system works.
The buyers will already be paying 2% on top of the value of the property so this may decrease their bids vs if it was the traditional method.
---
I am going to visit a few more estate agents and get them to give me valuations and look at their costs but I would like any input anyone has to offer, especially if someone has used both of these methods to buy/sell a property.
A couple more notes. Houses around here are selling at full asking price or above within a couple of weeks, there is no-onward chain or need for a rapid sale so what I want is to make the most amount of money from the property after the selling costs have been removed - solicitors fees will be separate, also obviously a smooth transition would be appreciated and =whether I trust the people/company that I will be dealing with, advertising etc will of course be taken in measured consideration.
Andy