Avoid Estate Agents - An Alternative Way of Selling Your Home | Real Estate

By AndrewMarkSchroeder
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When you first come to selling your home, your gut instinct would be to do it through an estate agent but you can have similar, if not better results if you sell the property yourself. Estate agents can be seen as an quick and easy way to sell your home but with just a little bit of hard work and spending a bit of money you can sell your house easily and it's not as stressful as you would think.

When selling any house, industry experts will advise you to make your home as appealing as possible by making your home look like its been lifted from the pages of an interior design magazine and spotlessly clean, but in reality very few people are like that and now realise that their home does need some sort of marketing. This can mean some decorating, tidying up the garden and clearing away ornaments. Any family pictures should be kept to a minimum, you want to give the potential buyer the impression of themselves living there, too many pictures and you are telling them that it's your space. If you are still living in the house you are selling, keep your house clean and tidy at all times. Nothing puts potential buyers off more then dirty dishes in the sink and beds unmade. Try to get into a routine where you vacuum the carpets every other day and make sure any furnishings are dust free. Enhance the properties selling points, if it has a fireplace then make sure the chimney has been cleaned if it has been used. Buy some flowers and put a couple of arrangements on the mantle.

After you have done the work to the house, you are now ready to put your house on the market. Go get an appraisal and always be realistic with your price, if you aim too low to attract more buyers or maybe a quick sale you will end up losing money as the buyer will always try to lower the price. Also don't set the price too high or no one will bother to look and you will just waste time.

But where to advertise your house? The best place to start is on the internet. Many websites now offer to market your home for a one-off fee of around 150. Some may even send round a photographer and put a 'for sale' board outside your home. It is a growing trend and now one in five properties is advertised privately. Also advertise the property in the local or Sunday newspaper to attract more potential buyers.

As people start getting interested in the property and you start to show people round, remember three important points which can help the buyer make there mind up and may lead to a sale.

1. When showing viewers around rooms, let them walk in before you do, this makes the room appear less crowded to them and allows them to view the entire room.

2. It is always good practise to have accurate information on hand such as dimensions, average annual bill costs and boiler history.

3. Always be interested and enthusiastic but not too much to appear desperate, this could make the buyer think that you are hiding something and could be put off. Or they may offer a much lower asking price.

Even though you aren't working with an estate agent, try to look in an estate agents office windows to see what houses similar to yours asking price are and how long they are for sale for before they are sold.

So don't despair if you are having problems selling your home, as there may well be an alternative solution than using an estate agent.

About the Author

Andrew Mark Schroeder is a freelance writer covering the sell to rent back your home sector within the property sector

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