Selling your house.

[david and julie]

Has anyone tried to sell their house without an estate agent.

I am thinking of moving and have never been happy with the service given by them, considering they would want around 3 grand.

On my road there are 2 other houses for sale which are the same as mine. So whoever comes to see them, has to pass mine. If I put my own sign up I would in effect be using 2 other estate agents without paying them.

I do realise I wont get on rightmove etc, but I live in an area where houses are in demand and sell quite easily anyway.

It is not a money thing, if need be I would pass the saving on to help the sale.

What do you people think, worth trying or what?

 

[masona]

Has anyone tried to sell their house without an estate agent.

Yes, I've sold my mum's house 6 years ago.

What do the estate agent do ? Nothing and you do all the running around. You don't have to have qualification or have a licence , anyone can set estate agent business.

I think you can buy a information pack how to sell your property without using the estate agent. I think you also can advertise on the internet, not sure about ebays though !

My mum's saw the bungalow which was for sell via estate agent and asked the owner if we could look around and was interested. Cut a long story short they also has look at my mum's property which was too big for her and needed money spending on, so they swop the property on agreeding with the price and take their property off the market. They both made a big saving.

 

[AdamW]

If you can find a way around Stamp Duty too, you are sorted!

Most estate agents I have met (including my sister's ex) were very nice people, but a little on the dim side. Even my sister's ex told me they are all a little simple. It appears to be about the only job where you can make a shedload of money through not really knowing that much about it, or doing anything particularly difficult. Just show up, point at each room and leave. After a few viewings pocket your share of the 2% (I believe that estate agents get up to half of the fee in commission) and sit back for a few months.

Think about it, £500K house. 2% of that is £10K. If you get half, that is £5K. Do that once a month and you are on £60K a year! Easily done in more affluent areas.

 

[IanDB]

I was just about to launch off into doing your own conveyancing (which I haven't done but friends have) when I re-read the post. All the Estate Agent does is act as a broker and charge you a percentage for the privilege. They don't add any further value than that. You don't need one at all. However if you want to sell your house privately you'll find that it is quite pricey to place adverts in newspapers. (They've cottoned on to how much money the estate agents make and want a piece of the action too.)

Use any convenient means possible to advertise. Good luck!

 

[planenut]

Hi all, we sold our son's flat through a web-site. Houseweb.co.uk, I think that was it. His flat was on the 12th floor and due to mortgage companies not liking to lend for that height and the estate agents not really doing the biz we decided to try. We "posted" a cracking sunset photo from his lounge on the site, and most viewers had been impressed by that - we thought it better than your standard agents shot which includes the bins and a car. We really felt we had done better than any agent could have done. Good luck.

 

[david and julie]

planenut....glad to hear it worked for you, its only an idea at this stage. We are that sick of the agents that I got rid of them this week.Will look for web site, cheers for your advice and encouragement.

Dave

 

[Slogger]

i feel as though you have hit a sore point here we all get ripped by these characters and i believe they are behind a lot of the price rises in the uk housing market as 1 or 2 % of 200 k is better than 180 k etc has anyone ever thought about starting one of these up as a set fee of say 200 to 300 pounds + expenses i can imagine it taking off bigtime that is if u can survive the dirty tactics that would be employed against u

ps i am buying my own council house now and i am sorta lost at this can i get a solicitor to give me a set fee for his work and what is the best mortgage for me 20 yr mortgage and i want to be able to pay bits off when i am flush thanks

 

[AdamW]

what is the best mortgage for me 20 yr mortgage and i want to be able to pay bits off when i am flush thanks

That's not a question that can be answered! What is a good mortgage for one person and house is not good for a different person or a different house. I am with Abbey National, was best for me at the time but colleagues of mine telling me "Why did you go with them? They're expensive, go with <insert bank here> like me!" So you look into it, and their's costs more or has some hidden danger.

You need to speak to a mortgage adviser. These people are like the car insurance brokers, they search their database and come up with the best solution for you.

 

[david and julie]

The problem is who trusts financial advisors any more, would they sell you company A mortgage if they got paid more by company B? Since the pensions/endowment scandals etc, the financial institutions have a long way to go to win back the public confidence. A few of my friends are with egg, which they say are OK.

On a seperate issue I hope any of you guy's with endowment mortgages have checked the which site , to see if you have been mis-sold. It costs nothing and you may get something back. See http://www.endowmentaction.co.uk/ if in doubt.

 

[AdamW]

The problem is who trusts financial advisors any more, would they sell you company A mortgage if they got paid more by company B?

Which is why you should check over things yourself! Only a fool would trust someone else where business and finance are concerned.

They can't force you to take a particular mortgage, so look over the figures and check their recommendation is sound. They can give useful info, such as I originally planned a 20 year mortgage.

The advisor pointed out that I could take a 25 year mortgage and make extra payments if I wanted. As it happens, the extra money left over after paying the mortgage each month was useful during that first year. OK, so in the longrun it wasn't so shrewd, but who keeps a mortgage for more than two or three years now?

 

[david and julie]

Slogger..... my solicitor quoted me £350 plus disbursements, these are the fees he pays to others for searches, land registry fees etc. I have used him for all my legal issues for the last 15 years so he is OK with me.

As Adam says read the small print on the mortgage deal, indeed on everything. Any deals which offer cash back usually tie you in for certain periods, if you try to change early they will want any such payments back.

Also shop around for life cover, the mortgage provider will try to sell you this but they are always dearer. Same with house cover etc.

There is more competition than ever these days in all these areas, don't discount the internet banks either.

 

[pipme]

With regard to the 'Endowment Mortgage', many years ago one was in receipt of tax relief at one's highest rate on both the Interest and Insurance components, making this a very favourable repayment method for the top rate tax payer.

Paying off a greater sum, per month ? It pays to do the sums on that, either reducing one's payments or reducing the term of the loan (by perhaps saving the extras for for a year or so then paying off a lump sum)... The rate of inflation, plays a big part here, the lower the rate the more beneficial to shorten the time period.
Of course, lowering the repayments lowers one's housing outgoings releasing dosh for other projects ...

P

 

[kendor]

The problem is who trusts financial advisors any more, would they sell you company A mortgage if they got paid more by company B? Since the pensions/endowment scandals etc, the financial institutions have a long way to go to win back the public confidence. A few of my friends are with egg, which they say are OK.

On a seperate issue I hope any of you guy's with endowment mortgages have checked the which site , to see if you have been mis-sold. It costs nothing and you may get something back. See http://www.endowmentaction.co.uk/ if in doubt.

You can also ring the FSA who will send you a free booklet as to whether you have the right to complain (which is the first step) through to actually getting all your payments back plus compensation/interest
Beware though not everyone can be successful and if your reason for complaint is simply because your plan hasn't performed well then you will not be successful in pursuing your claim.

 

[pipme]

Re: Endowment mortgage.
There was, as I recall, two types ....
The 'full' endowment mortgage was supposed to, at least pay off the mortgage at end of term.

The dangerous one, or 'Low cost' endowment promised only to pay back part of the loan, relying on lavish (prevalent in the days of yore) investment returns to make up the rest.
Out of interest (!) was the provider able to ask for a higher repayment in both cases above for reasons other than an interest hike

I stuck with the old repayment - change the repayments at each interest change - mortgage.
This was a bit of a scam IMO, until the Building societies began reducing capital, due to monthly repayment and not yearly !! It was possible in those bygone days to owe more after a year of interest hikes, having correctly paid one's monthly repayments.

P

 

[IanDB]

On a seperate issue I hope any of you guy's with endowment mortgages have checked the which site , to see if you have been mis-sold.

I was classically mis-sold an endowment mortgage - single, promise of loads of money at the end of it. This was back in the early 80's. Fortunately it's still doing OK and will pay off the mortagage in a few year's time (bliss ). However, there must still be some concern about the advice offered these days. My son recently bought his first flat and managed to get a 95% interest only mortgage. He was advised to make adequate saving provision but there were no checks. After a short time he realised that he wasn't going to save anything properly so he converted it to a repayment mortgage as at least he knew that the capital would be paid off over the term. Sensible lad (didn't get it from his father!). I don't know if this is yet another time bomb waiting to go off in the housing market in 20 years time.