Selling a property

L

Lulux77

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Hope to be putting my house on the market in about 2 months time & as it is my first time to sell a house I'm looking for information/tips.
Is it worth shopping around for an estate agent or do they all charge the same? Are their fees negotiable? How do they charge..is it a percentage of the sale price or a flat fee? What should I expect for the fee? Apart from the auctioneer and solicitor what other costs might I incur?
Any information would be great.
 
I'd recommend an estate agent, but I would recommend that you shop around - see what agents are in the area already, contact them, get a list of what services they provide as part of the process (web site updates, signage, viewer management, etc.) and obviously get a fixed price for the process (don't go with a percentage unless it's seriously to your advantage). Ask the agents what sales they have completed in the past 6 months/year.

You need to factor in the cost of a BER evaluation, perhaps a survey if the building has changed from it's original format in any substantial way.

Depending on the condition of the house, it might be advisable to organise a deep clean/refreshing paint work both internally and externally/fixes to any obvious minor problems/garden clearup if appropriate/removal of clutter.

Obviously, you will need a solicitor. Again, ask for a fixed price for the process. Try for a solicitor with experience of property transactions.

Good luck with the sale!
 
You need to get someone good to do it for you. Talk to your family friends, neighbors to see who they would recommend to sell this for you.
Some estate agents will just put a sign up outside your house and/or put it online and hope to sell the property. Others will actively market it i.e. come and view it, contact potential buyers, give you feedback on the property and the viewings, refresh the photos, consult with you on the asking price etc.
You need to get someone good - this is probably your biggest asset so don't just pick a random agent out of the phone book.
 
We just sold our house a few weeks ago so I know what your going to be facing.

Get an estate agent!! Look around the area and see which names are on the houses. Check Daft & MyHome and look at recent sales in your area. We tried a few agents before picking one. They wern't the cheapest but they got our house sold in less than a week. But we were lucky - others in our area are still for sale. Our guy did a lot of ground work before we went up for sale - he rang intrested clients that he had on his books and at the end of every viewing he rang us with a detailed report. He was spot on - after the 1st viewing he felt that this guy would be back with an offer and after a few days he was right. We actually sold to this guy in the end - but that was after 14 viewings in less than a week.
As for a solicitor, we asked our agent beforehand did he deal with any in particular. He recommended one, we went to speak to him, discussed price and are dealing with him now. It's good that both the agent and solicitor know each other and they know how each other does business.
Price for the estate agent was a fixed % of the selling price. He wanted 2% but we settled on 1.75%. No matter which agent you get and no matter what their fee, make sure they work for it. It's your house that they are selling and you are more than just another stat on their books - make sure they know that.
Best of luck with the sale.
 
Invite agents to come over and look at your house and then have a list of questions to ask them eg:
- what do they think a realistic price is?
- who will be the target market?
- what can you do to make it more presentable?
- what are the plans for marketing it?
- what are the features that they are going to promote in the description/photos etc?

Remember you are hiring them and I would treat the initial meeting them as I would hiring an employee i.e. give them a thorough interview. You need to find someone who is good and who you can work along side with.
 
Bit suprised at the fees you paid Tired Paul. I was expecting fees of 1%. Is 1.75%- 2% the norm? Do they charge to call out and give a valuation regardless of whether you use them or not?
 
Personally, I would view the fact that an agent is able to place an ad for your home on myhome.ie as their main advantage. From my experiences, I feel that I'd do a better job of selling my house myself than 90% of them, and from the sounds of it, those who are doing their job properly are commanding huge fees.
 
As our guy said to us - back in the good ol days they were charging only 1% but considering the qty of sales they were going through this was quite profitbale.
Anyway our guy operated on a "no sale no fee basis" so it was in his one intrest to get our house sold. All in all we're happy, vendors happy with his new house.
 
Given what other houses on my road reached i would expect to get between 300k and 350k for the property. 1.5% or 2% of that is a heck of a lot of money for an auctioneer>. Any views?
 
Unless you have time to totally focus on the sale (ie, constant communications from prospective buyers, maintenance of marketing info on daft and myhomes etc., sufficient experience to weed out the tire-kickers, arranging and conducting viewings, maintaining the appropriate information on prospective buyers and following up with sales pitch, signage etc.) I would seriously recommend an appropriate estate agent. I would emphasise, depending on the potential value of the house, that you seriously negotiate a fixed price.
 

Obviously, the more expensive a house become, the less attractive it is for seller to use % as fee, but inversely, if it's a cheaper house, then obviosuly more advantageous to seller.

I wonder what you would think is a fair price in Euro for an estate agents service for a standard 3 or 4 bed semi house?
 
Maybe you could agree a set fee with an auctioneer rather than a % of the selling price. But would the auctioneer work as hard if they knew that no matter how much they your house sold for they are only going to make x amount. Good for the seller if the house only gets a low selling price. However if the auctioneer knows that the more he sells a house for makes him more commission then stands to reason that he would work harder to sell it.
Other alternative is sell private - that is if you have the time to organise viewings, do all the advertising, act as negotiator, be ready to deal with time wasters and nosy parkers and so on. I think a % if agreeable by all parties works out much better.
 
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Anyone can place an ad on myhome.ie. You don't have to be an estate agent to place one!
 
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