Good Ezines

There are houses for sale that go quickly and houses for sale that stay on the market for months. What’s the difference?

There are always houses for sale but to get a house at a good price you need to act quickly – they are also always bargain hunters out there. They could be investors, down-sizers with cash deposits. And to sell your house you need to get the price right.

Beware of estate agents marking up the price of your property so that they win the instruction. If you put your property on at the highest price quote you could be stuck on the market for a long time. The average time to sell a house is just over 8 weeks and in that time all the buyers who are waiting to find property will have noticed your house and viewed it if they wanted. After that time, you will be waiting for new buyers to come onto the market and that could mean just a trickle at a time.

If your price is too high be prepared to sit it out whilst either you are lucky enough to find a buyer who is willing to pay above the odds, or be prepared to sit it out AND bring your price down after a couple of months. However, this won’t look attractive to buyers. Immediately they will ask, “What’s wrong with the house? Why hasn’t it sold yet?”.

Do your own research. Look in your surrounding area for houses for sale and see what they are priced at. Look at price graphs and how much your property’s value has gone up or down since you bought it. View a few other houses at a similar price to see if you are being realistic.

After a few months if you still have not sold then have your house revalued by other agents. You might need to bring the price down again or you might need to change agents – even if you’re happy with the agents you’re with, a new agent will bring a fresh selling approach and to the outside house buyer it will look as if the first agent did a bad job rather than there being something wrong with your house.

Houses for sale became a national interest in the property boom with TV property programmes showing you how you can make thousands of profit – and sometimes you can, usually with a lot of work and stress. But not always. Sometimes you can buy a house that is a probate sale where a low offer is accepted, you live in it, make it look cosy and welcoming and sell it on at a tidy profit with very little input.

But as with everything that you sell, what matters are what amount people are prepared to pay for it. If you think that your house is worth £300k but others would actually only spend £250k then you won’t sell it easily. You’ve got to be realistic.

If you need to sell quickly then you need to be keen on the price – it’s the most crucial aspect of house selling.

Debbie Morgan writes for Wheres My Property, the site that finds houses for sale and Renovate Alerts, the site that finds property to renovate.