Help
Selling or renting out your property can be a daunting task. That's why many of us turn to estate agents.
It should be remembered that agents usually only deal with the marketing of your property. You should always use a qualified legal adviser to effect the actual sale (or rental agreement).
That said, marketing itself can be daunting. There are three main areas to consider:
1. Valuation
2. Preparing the sales details
3. Dealing with prospective purchasers
We deal with each of these in turn below:
Valuation
First it should be said that many agents don't get this right or deliberately go to the higher end of the probable price range in order to secure your business, and then get you to lower the price when it fails to sell quickly.
An advantage of syhff is you can change your price as often as you want.
Look at other properties for sale or rent of a similar size in your area and be honest with yourself about value. Most people can get some idea with a little research. Always put yourself “in the shoes of” a prospective buyer when comparing your property with others.
If you don't need to sell quickly, start at the higher end of expectations and then reduce in stages if you don't get sufficient interest.
If you want to sell quickly go to the lower end but ask for “offers over” this amount.
Preparing the sales details
We've tried to make this part easy. syhff has great form with lots of drop-down select criteria and tick boxes. The only real narrative you need to write is a one or two sentence description to go in the main property details. However, you can add text for each room if there are some features or fittings you want to describe.
Before starting to complete your details, we recommend you get all your room sizes and photographs taken plus a floor plan (and EPC if in Europe). There are many local photographers who will give you really professional pictures and do floor plans as well.
If you take your own photographs:
- take them all in landscape rather than portrait mode
- use a wide-angle setting to get the maximum in a picture
- ensure rooms are as clutter free as possible and well lit
- limit the number to a maximum of two per room (n.b. You can only upload 25 images including floorplans and EPC certificates)
- take external photos when there is minimum cloud cover (blues skies if possible)
There is plenty of help on the form itself. Please provide as many details as possible to ensure your property does not get excluded from searches when a prospective buyer applies filters to their search, (For example if you don't provide room sizes and the searcher puts in a room size range, your property won't show. Similarly, if you don't pin it onto the map, it won't show if the searcher filters properties within a certain range.)
Dealing with prospective purchasers
syhff has an inbuilt messaging system for dealing with prospective purchasers, with some template messages to help phrasing your message.
In order to keep yourself safe, we recommend strongly that you always have a trusted friend or two with you when people come to view your property. Don't give away personal details … it is the property they should be interested in. (This same rule applies even if you use an estate agent.)
Don't worry about trying to “sell” the property. People always make their decisions based upon the property itself and not any form of “sales patter” that an agent may claim to have. The good agents will always tell you this.
Don't be afraid to use the messaging system to chase people up after a viewing to see whether or not they are still interested.
If you get an offer and decide the price is right, then get some professional legal advise to progress the sale.
Good luck!
And don't forget to let others know if syhff helped you sell or rent out!
