Tips For Selling Your House Fast And At The Best Possible Price

Selling a house is an experience that many homeowners consider a necessary evil if they wish to upsize or downsize. Whether the stress comes from trying to find a decent agent, staying optimistic about viewings, or simply waiting for a buyer to make an offer – the house selling process is not one for the faint of heart. And when there is a limited time frame within which a sale must be made, anxiety levels can often shoot through the roof. Unfortunately, the ability to sell a house fast is a necessity for many vendors who are moving house for a new job, or to be closer to loved ones – so how do you go about it?

There are often times throughout the year where the property market appears to be in the midst of a massive slowdown. As a result, many vendors around the country find themselves reducing their house prices in order to remain competitive – but are they panicking unnecessarily?

In short, the answer is yes. Similar to stock markets, the world of property is heavily underpinned by consumer confidence, and it doesn’t take much for the market to gain enough inertia for activity for increase rapidly¹. One of the key points to take on board if you need to sell a house fast in a slow market is to increase the visibility of your home to potential buyers – this means ensuring that you do not enter an agreement for any single agent to be the sole contract holder for the sale².

Another great tip to drum-up a bit of interest in your home is to take advantage of mediums such as social media – after all, you never know whether a friend, or a friend of a friend may be on the lookout for a new home. Plus, if you sell the home yourself, you can always pocket the commission that you would normally pay to an agent.

Tips on how to sell your house quickly

Sometimes, however, you need to sell your house fast, and no matter what you try the market appears to be dead. In these circumstances, you can try using house buying companies who will buy any home, regardless of market conditions or location to ensure that you can move on with your life³. However, it’s important to do everything you can before resorting to a cash purchase.

Make Your Listing Appealing

When viewing a property through an online portal such as Rightmove or Zoopla, the greatest turn-off is low quality or a poor selection of photos – mainly because it raises more questions about the house than it answers, after all, what are they trying to hide? Over 20% of all respondents also found the lack of a floor plan to be a key point that dissuaded them from investigating further⁴.

If they do investigate further and arrange a viewing, there are further factors that can deter a potential buyer. For those who own a car, parking is a clear necessity but a vast majority of homes do not have readily available parking, or simply share a driveway with a neighbour – often an issue that can’t be helped. From an aesthetic point of view, old-fashioned facades can also heavily affect opinion – decorations such as pebble-dash walls no long entice buyers the way they did 30 years ago⁵.

Even if there isn’t a slow market, selling a house quickly can still be a very stressful experience. Luckily, there are a few things you can do to increase the likelihood of a quick sale:

• Find an agent who has experience in both your area, and also your style of home. When it comes to selling a house, experience matters⁶.
• Make yourself available as often as possible for any potential viewings. While this is easier said than done, the more time you make for those looking at purchasing, the fasting a sale can be achieved.
• Offer your agent an incentive in regard to commission levels. Be clear that if a sale can be achieved in a specified time frame, the greater they will earn⁶.
• If you have the time, try making a list of all local amenities and their respective distances from your home. Many sellers will judge certain areas harshly without ever visiting, so give them a great reason to consider yours.
• Get in touch with your conveyancer early. Quite often, the greatest delays do not come from a lack of potential buyers, but from the movement of paperwork between the relevant parties.
• If you have a choice, avoid buyers who are stuck in a chain and go for those who are able to move in straight away. And if they’re cash buyers, even better.

Know When To Reduce Your Price

You could have the perfect home, the perfect location, and the perfect time of year – but sometimes, luck just isn’t on your side. Knowing when to lower the price of your home is an important part of the house-selling process – and if approached with a strategic mindset, can really help encourage buyers.

Therefore, before you place your home on the market, make a decision at which point you would consider lowering the price, and also by how much⁷:

• While we all aim to achieve our original asking price, it’s important to temper expectations with reality, and don’t forget, it’s better to lower the price earlier before the home has been on the market so long that buyers begin to question its saleability.
• Gain additional planning permission
• Does your home offer a number of opportunities for extending? If done correctly, adding an extension to a home is usually a sure-fire way to guarantee a greater return on your investment.
• Sadly, many of us do not necessarily have the financial reserves for extending our homes – but the people who are considering buying your home, however, may have deeper pockets. Take advantage of this by gaining planning permission for any possible extensions and make sure that you notify any interested parties to make buying your home seem an even more attractive proposition.

Choose the best time to sell your home

A house that has been placed for sale in summer, may fail to sell in the short-term due to a quiet market place – and the longer a house is on sale, the more suspicious buyers will be regarding its appeal. It is therefore quite possible that the house will have, at some point, been reduced in price before it was finally purchased.

So, when is the best time of year to sell a house? Traditionally, summer should be avoided for the reasons stated above. However, winter should also be avoided. During the winter-time, the days are short and dark – making it hard for potential buyers to appreciate the effort you’ve made to make your home look inviting. For parents, the weeks leading up to the Christmas holidays are often an extremely busy time. And due to the festivities and gift purchases, their bank accounts are more likely to be running dry than in spring or autumn⁸.

The best months to sell your house in the UK are always the same each year. If you wish to sell fast in the first half of the year, aim to put your house on sale at the end of March just in time for spring. At this time of year, the kids are in school, the days are starting to get longer and more importantly, there will be more buyers actively looking to purchase.

If, however, you were unable to get the house ready for spring, try holding off until mid-September. By this time, all the kids will have returned to school, there’s still enough warmth to encourage buyers to get out and look for a new home, and there’s enough time for them to complete on a sale and get settled before the countdown to Christmas starts⁸.

Prepare your house for a quick sale

Take great care to make your home look presentable in photos. It may seem obvious, but a large number of houses don’t sell simply because the owners haven’t bothered to make it look appealing to a potential buyer.

Go minimal – buyers are always more enthusiastic about a property if they can see themselves living there. This means removing a large amount of your personality from the décor, and replacing it with a clear, canvas upon which they can project theirs – so try neutral colours on your walls and floors.

Consider re-varnishing and treating any external wooden areas such as sills, doors, and cladding to prevent your home from looking ‘old’.

Keep it perpetually clean – it may be tough, but you don’t want to have to turn-away viewings because you had a week where you let a load of clutter build up.

Are you interested in selling your house for cash? Why not ask National Homebuyers for advice, as we buy any house. Call 08000 443 911 or request a call back to find out how much you could get for your property before it’s too late.