What are the stages of selling my house?

Common steps involved when you’re selling your house or flat

Interested in selling your home? You should review the below steps that are typically involved, which guide you through what you can expect from deciding to sell through to moving out:

Assess your financial situation

One reason that people move can be for financial reasons, because they either need the cash proceeds from a home sale or they believe the time is right to make a profit on their home, or perhaps some other money-related reason. Before selling you need to review your finances and have a plan for what happens when you sell. Will you rent for a while after selling and buy a new home at later date? Is selling your home contingent on buying a new property? These are questions that will be specific to your circumstances and which you need to ask before you make the decision to sell your property.

Valuing your property

After you decide that you want to sell your house or flat, one of the first important steps is figuring out the sale price at which you should list it. This is a crucial decision because setting a price that’s too high will deter many buyers, and setting a price that’s too low means you’re missing out on valuable profit you could otherwise make from selling. Regardless of whether you decide to sell on your own or enlist the help of an estate agent, you’ll need an idea of the value of your property before you start to look around for buyers.

Assessing the need for any repair work

One important early decision that you will have to make is whether you want to spend time, money and effort on fixing any flaws that your house or flat has before trying to sell it.

An unresolved problem with your property could be anything range from relatively small-scale issues like an isolated leak in the building’s roof through to much broader issues like having contaminated land. And many faults with homes can be deal breakers for buyers, making them lose interest.

Or a buyer might still be willing to purchase your property, but they will significantly reduce their offer price by at least the amount of money that they expect it would take them to fix the issue as the next owner. This in turn would reduce your prospects of getting a profit from the sale.

Repairing problems with your home before trying to sell will eliminate this scenario from occurring, although may owners won’t have the funds, time or interest in pursuing this work. If this applies to your situation then you still have options for selling, including contacting a quick buyer like LDN Properties. These companies make fast and fair offers to buy almost any type of home, regardless of whether they have any structural damage or any other problems.

Getting your home ready for buyers

Beyond the important question of whether your home needs any repair work, there are other steps involved with getting a property ready for sale that revolve around improving its look. Overall, you want your home to look spacious, clean and well-maintained because this usually make potential buyers view it as more favourable compared to a dirty, cluttered home.

With the interior of the property, these tasks can include removing personal items from rooms to make them appear larger and more valuable, cleaning everywhere, and tidying up after your pets if you have any, and keeping them locked away during any viewings that you have, where people that are interested in your property get the chance to see the inside and outside.

For the exterior of your home, simple steps you can consider include mowing and weeding any garden or other green space that you might have, repairing any broken glass at your home, replacing any missing roof tiles and more. These low-effort steps can help with giving buyers a great first impression of your home, which may help with persuading them to make an offer.

Have your legal paperwork and other documents in order

It’s important when selling that you have all the necessary legal and other papers that are involved in a house sale. This includes major documents like the title deeds, but can also include some documents that homeowners might overlook even though they are important. An example is an energy performance certificate (EPC), which is a legally mandated document that describes the energy efficiency of your house. If you don’t have one of these, or you have an outdated version, it’ll be necessary to obtain a new EPC. You can check the EPC register to see if you already have a valid EPC certificate. Buyers will probably ask to see this certificate, so that’s why it’s vital to have it.

Working with an estate agent or auctioneer to list and sell your property

If you want to reduce the amount of work you have to put in to selling your home, you might want to contact an estate agent or an auctioneer. An estate agent will handle listing and marketing your property and holding viewings, and you’ll typically only have to get involved once there’s a serious purchase offer on your place. However, some properties listed with estate agents stay on the market for many weeks. An auctioneer will similarly market your home and take care of selling it at auction, which has the benefit of giving you a specific guaranteed date for when your home will sell.

Selling direct to a property buying company for a quick cash amount

As an alternative to selling through auction or with an estate agent, you could contact a company that buys houses and flats of many different shapes and various sizes for a cash sum – typically with no fees attached. This can significantly accelerate the selling process and leave you with more cash in hand once the sale is complete. It’s a good choice if you’re on a tight budget and time-frame for selling your home.

Hire a conveyancing solicitor to handle the complicated legal process

Selling a home necessarily involves a lot of convoluted paperwork that would require a massive amount of you time, and possibly money, to process. It’s recommended that when you have an offer and are ready to sell you hire a conveyancing solicitor who knows how to do all the research and drafting of paperwork necessary for the sale process. It will save you significant stress in the long run when selling your home.

Exchanging contracts and transferring ownership of your home

The final stage in the home selling process is typically what’s known as the exchange of contracts. This is when you, or your hired solicitor or other licensed professional, have sorted out and signed all the relevant legal forms that commit the buyer to purchasing your home. After this has happened and the funds for the purchase have been deposited in your account, you’ve successfully sold your house and it’s time to move out and on to whatever your next location might be.

What you need to know about your options for selling your home

As you’ll see from the information above, you have a few different strategies available for selling your property, and the option you choose can affect important considerations such as whether you’ll have to pay commission on the sale of your home, how long it will take, and more.

Typically, you should be able to decide among selling with an estate agent, selling to a quick home buyer such as LDN Properties, selling at an auction or selling without any help. Below you will get specific details about how all four methods work, so that you can learn about their pros and cons.

To assist in making your decision, you could write your main aims with selling your house or flat, such as how long you can wait to find a buyer, whether you are willing to pay any fees on the sale, and your ideal selling price. Then compare these elements against the four choices below, and this should help with narrowing it down to the one that best matches your needs.

Selling with an estate agent

With an estate agent, you do not have to put much effort into selling your home, as they will take care of almost all of the tasks. This starts with creating a listing that describes the property and includes photographs of the interior and exterior, which they advertise in their office, online and in local newspapers. They will also organise viewings for potential buyers to tour the home and hear offers from serious buyers, aiming to get one to the exchange of contracts.

Depending on how it takes to your sell your home, you might have to agree to dozens or more viewings, which many owners can find to be a time-consuming and intruding experience. If you want to avoid multiple viewings, you could consider selling to a quick buyer like LDN Properties as this would only require one visit form a company representative before completing the sale.

Selling with an estate agent can also be a lengthy process and you should be prepared to wait many weeks or even months to sell this way, and possibly more than a full year. Note also that someone can make a true offer on your property but then later change their mind and cancel it, causing the sale to collapse. You would then need to start over with seeking a buyer, delaying a sale further. And you can’t punish the buyer for this if contracts are not yet exchanged.

Another drawback of selling via an estate agent is that you would have to pay them commission on the sale of your home. This will increase your total costs because the fee will be subtracted from the eventual sale proceeds. Typically, an estate agent charges this within a range of 1.15 percent to 1.40 percent of a property’s sale price, but it can be above or below these amounts.

Selling to a quick home buyer

Quick home buyers are companies such as LDN Properties that have the funds available to purchase your flat or house right away. They don’t need to wait for weeks or months to first get authorised for a mortgage to cover the cost of buying your home, which reduces the total timeline for selling this way to just a few weeks, and that includes exchanging contracts.

In addition to the accelerated schedule for selling, quick buyers are also a great choice for those buyers that want to reduce their expenses and not pay commission on the sale. Honest quick buyers will never charge an owner a fee when purchasing their home, which compares to fees you’d have to pay with an estate agent or auctioneer that are taken out of the sale proceeds.

As noted earlier in this guide, quick buyers are also an excellent choice for speedily selling a home that may be considered to be a “problem” property by other buyers because of issues like damage to the building, a legal dispute, or anything else. These companies are experts at making quick and fair offers for homes no matter their age, condition, location, shape, size or type, so you wouldn’t have to worry about fixing any flaws before trying to sell the property.

For you extra peace of mind, you can ask individual quick buyers to prove whether they are registered with an independent entity known as The Property Ombudsman (TPO). This organisation issues rules to guard owners against fraud in the quick buying industry, and all TPO members – like LDN Properties – must agree to abide by these regulations. Verifying that a quick buyer belongs to this organisation can give you reassurance when selling to them.

It’s fast, free and simple to check on a company’s TPO registration status by visiting the organisation’s website and clicking on “Find a Member” on the main page and then, when prompted, typing in the name of a quick buyer. If they are truly registered then you will see their membership details but if they are not really a TPO member then you’ll get no results.

Selling at an auction

Another way to sell a home is trying your luck with an auction, where people get the chance to place bids of increasing price on the property, and the highest value bid at the time the auction ends is announced as the winner and therefore the person buying your house or flat.

Just note that might get no bids on your home, which means it doesn’t sell, and then you’d have to begin again with looking for a buyer, adding more time to your selling schedule. Or you may get a single bid at the reserve price, which is the lowest value at which you can accept your property selling. Such a bid is considered a legally binding agreement to sell your home and the winning bidder can sue you to enforce the sale if you try to later walk away from it.

For this reason, you need to calculate a reserve price that should produce a profit from the sale even after you pay the auctioneer their commission. If you don’t take this step, you risk either selling at a loss or only breaking even by selling at a price close to what you paid for the home.

An auctioneer will often charge commission at 2.5 percent of a property’s sale price and this fee is subtracted right away from the sale proceeds, adding to your net expenses. You might be able to persuade some auctioneers to either lower their rate of commission or have the winning bidder pay a share of costs, so it’s worth asking about these steps as they can reduce your costs. But beware that other auctioneers may charge commission far above 2.5 percent.

This isn’t the speediest way to sell a home because there is a lot of waiting involved, including many weeks or even months between when you decide to sell using this method and when the auction takes place. And then if your home does sell, the winning bidder has about 28 days to complete their necessary tasks to finalise the purchase, such as signing all of the required legal documents, as the HomeOwners Alliance says.

Selling without any help

The fourth choice for selling your home is doing so without the assistance of an estate agent or an auctioneer. This means you will need to prepare a listing, advertise it, schedule viewings for potential buyers, hear offers and hopefully get one to the final stage of exchanging contracts.

All of these steps will require a lot of effort and time from you, and that’s why it can easily become a very stressful way to sell a property. It’s only usually suggested for those owners who have manage to sell a home before or that might have a suitably experienced family member or friend that might be willing to assist with the selling process without charging them anything.

Even with such experience, it might be many months or even more than a full year before you manage to sell using this method. For those owners looking to sell as quickly as possible, you should review some of the speedier selections, such as selling to a fast home buyer.

And remember that someone can make a legitimate offer to buy your property but then change their mind and rescind the offer. This would make the sale fall apart, and you can’t penalise the person for doing this is contracts are not yet exchanged. You would then need to start over with seeking a buyer, further extending your selling timeline.

If you are determined to not pay fees when selling but want a faster sale, consider instead selling to a zero-commission quick buyer like LDN Properties. You would achieve the same goal of not having to pay any fees on the sale but you will also get an additional benefit of completing the entire sale within a handful of weeks, and that covers the final exchange of contracts.