Guide to perparing a house for sale

By preparing your property correctly can mean the difference between selling your property or having it on the market for a long period of time.
Therefore before you have any potential buyers to view your property make sure you have covered the following:

1. Complete any small DIY jobs such as painting.
2. Clear away any clutter. If possible store it off-site.
3. Air the property by opening windows and purchasing a few air fresheners. Also remember that some buyers may be allergic to pets so make sure that all signs of animal smells and hair are removed.
4. If any of the rooms have very bright colours or carpets, you may want to neutralise them. This does not mean go out and buy expensive carpet.
5. Get carpets professionally cleaned.
6. If your bathroom or kitchen looks tired then by applying some of the following practises will make a difference.

1. Re-paint the ceiling and walls.
2. Clean, re-grout any tiled areas that are going black.It may even pay to have a new white bathroom or kitchen suite put in.

1. Cut lawns.
2. Make sure front door is immaculate as first impressions count.
3. De-personalise by removing personal items such as family photos until the property is sold.
4. Choose the correct lighting for each space which can improve the mood of the room.
5. Organise rooms so that there purpose can be seen.

During this process always remember that you have now decided to sell your property and not to get personal about any changes, as the changes that you implement are to attract the widest possible buyers in your area.

Gathering information on Your Property

To sell your property, the asking price is critical in attracting potential buyers. Too low and you could loose thousands of pounds, too high and nobody comes to view.

Property Value

Contrary to popular belief Estate Agents do not set property prices. All they do is estimate a reasonable asking price of a property based on their knowledgeof the property market. At the end of the day buyers determine the price of a property based on what they are willing to pay.

Follow the steps below and you will be able to easily price and set your asking price like the professional estate agents. When setting your property price do not be tempted to inflate your price as this will simply drive buyers away and your home will take longer to sell.

Review local property papers.

This is most home sellers first port of call when pricing their property. This will give you a rough estimate

Estate Agents window

Look in your local Estate Agents window will help you to further refine the price of your property.

Review the property sites.

This is the quickest and easiest. Search for similar properties for sale within your post code on the big property websites. List them out and subjectively position your property against them. This is your competition and buyers will be comparing your home with these similar properties. If you feel your property is worth more, ensure you can justify why in the description.

Using a professional

You could hire the services of a professional property valuer. These are the people used by the Mortgage companies to ensure the property you wish to buy is the correct value for your mortgage. To find a professional property valuer visit.

The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors

Property value and valuations from Directgov

Find local property prices and details

What price properties have really sold for

The asking price of a property is not the actual price a property will sell for. Even though you have researched the price of property in your area, what you have really found out is the current asking price of similar properties to yours,not the actual price properties have sold for.

What you need to find out is what price have properties really sold for and is the market getting stronger or weaker. Estate Agents know these facts and so can you.

First ask neighbours who have recently moved in to your street. This will give you an indication.

Other factors effecting property selling price

There are other factors that can effect your property selling price. The first is time of year. Spring is the time when demand is highest followed by September after the summer holidays. Christmas and August are low demand times when buyers are more busy enjoying themselves. Home improvements and presentation make a massive impact and a clean and tidy home will always be worth more than a dirty smelly home.

Photographs

If no picture of your property is present, then the first question a potential buyer asks for is 'Do you have a picture of the property?' and may ask themself why? is there something wrong.

Therefore you can add a picture several ways to your advert on uploadaproperty.

1. If in digital format upload during the creation of your advert or at anytime after the account been created.

2. Send digital format by email referencing your property to admin@uploadaproperty.dyndns.org

3. The easyest way wuold be to some how get hold of a good quality camera phone or use your local library to scan your photo and save them to a disk.

The main photos that buyers are looking for are the following.

1. Front of house
2. Bathrooms
3. Kitchen
4. Master Bedroom
5. Garden and any other special features of your property.

Property Description

A good advert will have a summary of the property details at the top which will include the key points. Then below this will be a paragraph for each room that will specify the dimensions of the room and a brief description.

Marketing

Before you can market your property you will need to order Home Information Pack (HIP). This applies to all residential properties for sale new to market in England and Wales. (information on HIPs here)

To sell your property privately you can market your property in the following places:

1. Local newspapers
2. Internet
3. For sale boards
4. National papers

By using UploadAproperty services you can market your property on the internet and to your local market . Over 70% of people looking to buy a property now use the internet, as saves them a lot of time by not having to go to all the local estate agents in the area of interest, and having to look through the property papers, as any good property internet site will have a search engine so that they can limit the results that are returned.

When you set-up the advert withUploadAproperty you decide which contact details are published within the advert for potential buyers to contact you and the email system is secure, that is the potential buyer will not see your email address until you wish for them to email you directly.

Even if you are with an estate or letting agent you can still advertise your property privately AT THE SAME TIME in 99% of cases. By advertising with UploadAproperty and on our partner sites, you can be rest assured that with our marketing you have maximised your exposure. This will ensure you get the best price.

Viewings

Have a diary set-up so that you can manage your viewings. For each potential buyer make sure that you have taken their name and number just in case you have to re-arrange the appointment, and also in case they are late and have just got lost.

Before a viewing

1. Have a print out of your property details as they may want to take this away.
2. A blank piece of paper so that you can take any notes while you are showing the buyers around.
3. Know how much the council tax is.
4. Know how much a quarterly gas and electric bill is.
5. Know how much your water and sewage rates are.
6. All the doors are shut so that you can present the room to them. If all the doors are open it is too much for someone to take in all at once.
7. You have planned a route through the property.
8. Your have prepared your property.
9. Any pets are out of the way as some people are allergic or uncomfortable with animals.
10. If a flat know how much the maintenance and if applicable ground rent are.

Showing the people around

1. Always lead the buyers through the property. Therefore when you open a door to the room you enter first, pointing out all the positive points of the room.

2. If a room is to small to fit everybody in then allow the buyers to enter the room while you stand outside pointing out all the positive points.

3. During the course of viewing gather some information about the buyer for example.

1. Are they a first time buyer
2. Are they in a chain and how many in the chain.
3. Do they have to get a mortgage and if so have they got an amount authorised.

By gathering information about the buyer, may determine who you sell to if you have several offers.

After a Viewing

After 2 days if the potential buyer has not contacted you then contact them to see if they are interested, and if not just to get some constructive feedback.

Accepting An Offer

If you are happy with the offer you are now ready to get a solicitor/ conveyancer involved.

1. Make a list of items that are included in the sale price such as washing machine.

1. Name
2. Address
3. Telephone Number

1. Solicitors name
2. Solicitors address
3. Solicitors telephone number
4. Pass these details on to your solicitor.

The next step will be for the buyer or the buyer's mortgage company to arrange for a survey to be done on your property. Once this happens then you know that the buyer is serious as they have to start paying out money.

See the buyers guide for the process that they have to go through so you can see how far along they are.

£(£)259,950	£(£)160,000	£(£)99,950	£(£)234,500	£(£)110,000
£(£)155,000	£(£)215,000	£(£)110,000	£(£)212,500	£(£)395,000