Top tips to save money when moving house

What are the costs involved with moving home?

There are many costs that you’ll have to pay whenever you decide to move to a new house or flat, not just the expense of paying a removal company to take your furniture and other belongings to your next property. It’s crucial that you know about all of these potential costs before you start the moving process in order to save yourself both money and time.

In addition to removal costs, you also need to budget for your future mortgage repayments if you have taken out a loan to help cover the cost of buying your new home. These will be due every month and depending on the value of your house and the mortgage agreement the repayments could be quite costly. It’s important that you stay up to date with repaying your mortgage to avoid the potential risk of the lending firm trying to repossess your home.

If you sell your current home through an estate agent or sell through auction, you will also have to pay fees for taking care of the sale. You should include payment of these fees in your budget for moving home, because they’ll be due at the completion of the sale. However, if you have used an auctioneer then you might be able to pass the moving costs on to the buyer.

You should also get new insurance policies for your future home, and the initial first payment for these policies, as well as the regular monthly payments, is another cost to consider.

Many people get a solicitor involved to help them with the extensive and time-consuming legal paperwork involved in moving to a new property. This is another fee that you’ll have to pay once the sale is complete and you are ready to relocate to your next home.

The independent consumer advocacy organisation Which? has a helpful checklist for moving home that details many of the expenses and other issues you need to review, including insurance, bills, and removal costs.

Some top tips for saving money when moving to a new house or flat

The list above highlights the many different types of expenses that you can incur when moving home, although most of them are foreseeable and you should be able to plan for them.

In addition, to help reduce the costs of your monthly mortgage repayments you could compare offers from various lending firms. Be sure to closely read the terms of any potential mortgage agreement to find the lowest possible interest rate, because this will save you money in the long run. Only sign up for a mortgage that you can afford to pay back every month.

You can also avoid the fees associated with estate agents or auctioneers by instead selling your current house or flat to a quick property buying company. They give homeowners a fast cash sale for properties of many different shapes and sizes, and the reputable companies never charge sellers any fees. That can save you money compared to paying sales fees to an auctioneer or an estate agent.

Another way to save money is by shopping around for the removal company that you ultimately select to help move your belongings from your old home to your new house. Take some time to browse local removal companies’ websites and compare prices, and be on the lookout for any special discounts that a particular company might be offering. Don’t be shy about haggling with companies to get a lower price, because that’s another way to save money.

Saving money by selling a problem property as is

Whilst the tips above offer crucial advice on ways to potentially save money throughout the selling process, including based on which approach you use to find a buyer, another key issue to consider is the cost involved with potential repairs to a home before selling it.

You might be the owner of what many buyers consider to be a problem property, meaning it has some type of large flaw, as Lawhive explains. This might be structural damage such as subsidence or the presence of asbestos, or it could be financial complications like council tax arrears, or even legal fights such as an ongoing dispute with neighbours.

Regardless of the exact type of problem with your home, you will need to think about whether you want to try and fix the issue before attempting to find a buyer for the property.

Many buyers may see the negative issues that exist with your flat or house and either completely lose interest in making an offer on it, or they will significantly reduce their office price by at least the amount of money that they anticipate it would cost them to resolve the problem as the home’s next owner. If you spend time, money and effort on fixing the flaw before seeking a buyer, you eliminate the risk of this particular scenario from happening.

But depending on the size and scope of the problem at your home, you might be looking at many months or work and hundreds or even thousands of pounds to fix it. That’s not a viable outcome for owners wanting to sell a home fast or without adding to their costs.

That’s why selling your property “as is” in its current condition can be another way to save money, as you won’t have to spend anything on efforts to address the problems.

You might concerned that there will be hardly any buyers interested in a so-called problem property, but that is not true as you still have options for getting a fast and fair offer. One such solution is selling to a quick buyer like LDN Properties, as these companies are known for making competitive and speedy offers on almost all leasehold and freehold homes no matter their age, condition, location, shape, size, or type, or even based on any flaws they have.

Selling this way would help you have save money in several ways – you wouldn’t need to invest anything in potentially costly repair work at your house or flat, and you will also get to avoid having to pay any commission on the sale. You can learn more about selling to a quick buyer, and the other options available for finding a buyer, in the rest of this guide.

Making the choice about how to find a buyer for your home

No matter how much money you manage to save in the various steps involved in the selling process, you will ultimately need to make a choice about how you want to find a buyer for your flat or house. The usual options are selling through an estate agent, selling at a property auction, selling to a quick home buyer or selling without any assistance.

There are clear drawbacks and benefits linked to all of these methods in terms of whether or not they charge commission, the typical schedule involved, and other factors. By way of example, it might take many months or even more than a year to sell your home via an estate agent or on your own, but it could take just a few short weeks to do so when using a quick home buyer.

It can be a wise move to make a note of your main priorities with selling, such as your goal sale price, whether you are open to paying commission if required, and how speedily you want to sell your home. Then compare these issues against the specific details of the four selling approaches below to help you identify which one most closely suits your scenario.

Selling through an estate agent

A conventional way to sell your home is by enlisting the support of an estate agent. They will handle all of the main steps, starting with producing a listing that describes the property and also features photographs of the inside and outside. They’ll promote this in their office, online, and in local newspapers to get people interested, and then arrange viewings to give people the chance to see your home in person. Finally, they’ll hear offers and try to get one to a sale.

For putting in all of this hard work, an estate agent will ask you to pay commission if they find a buyer for your home. The typical fee is charged within a range from 1.15 percent to 1.40 percent of a property’s sale price, although the exact rate may be above or below these amounts. The fee is subtracted right away from the sale proceeds, which will increase your expenses.

Selling through an estate agent is not the best choice for those people that want to sell their home on a speedy schedule, as it could take several months or even more than a full year. For a swifter sale you could review other options, for example selling to a quick buyer, which will only take a few weeks to complete, and that includes the last step of exchanging contracts.

When selling with an estate agent, there’s also the concern that someone might make a legitimate offer to buy your home but then later decide against it and cancel the offer. This would cause the sale to collapse, and they can’t be penalised for it if contracts aren’t yet exchanged. You’d then need to begin again with seeking a buyer, delaying a sale even longer.

Selling at a property auction

Selling your home through an auction will include costs, because you will have to pay the auctioneer commission if it sells. This is usually charged at about 2.5 percent of the property’s sale price, and this fee will be taken out of the final auction proceeds right away.

Some auctioneers could be open to charging you less than 2.5 percent, or having the winning bidder pay a share of your costs, so it’s worth asking about whether either of these are possible. Just remember the auctioneer is not obligated to grant either of these requests.

It might also take a long time to sell using this strategy, as there is a lot of waiting involved, including many weeks or more between when you pick this option and when the auction occurs. If your house or flat does sell, the buyer then usually has about a month to sign all of the required legal papers and complete the other steps needed to finalise the sale.

The auctioneer charges commission in exchange for the effort they put in to selling your home, which starts when they produce a listing, which they will advertise to get people interested in the property, and then they’ll host the auction and finally supervise a successful sale.

When you sell this way, you’ll also have to select a reserve price, which is the lowest value at which you are willing to sell your home. Take time to calculate a reserve price that should still generate a profit from the sale even after you pay the auctioneer their fees, otherwise you might only breaking even on the sale compared to what you paid for your home, or selling it at a loss.

Selling to a quick home buyer

One of the best ways to save money when selling your house or flat is by getting in touch with a quick home buyer such as LDN Properties. These companies promise to never charge owners any commission when purchasing their homes, which helps with reducing your costs. That compares to having to pay costly fees when selling with an auctioneer or an estate agent.

Another important benefit of selling to a quick home buyer is that the entire timeline should only be a handful of weeks, and this includes the final steps of paying you the full proceeds and exchanging contracts. It’s typically a much more rapid way of selling a property than doing so on your own, with an estate agent, or at an auction, which may all take at least several months.

Quick buyers are also experts at making fair and fast offers to buy almost any leasehold or freehold property, no matter its age, condition, location, shape, size, or type, and even if they have a major problem like physical damage, legal disputes, financial issues or more.

If you would like additional assurances when selling to a quick buyer, you can ask individual companies to prove that they are a member of The Property Ombudsman (TPO). This independent organisation issues policies to guard owners against fraud within the quick buying industry, and all TPO members must agree to follow these regulations, which protects you and should give you additional peace of mind when selling via this method.

You can always check the TPO registration status of a quick buyer by visiting the organisation’s website, clicking on the “Find a Member” tab, and when prompted entering the name of a specific company. If they are truly registered with TPO, like LDN Properties, you will then be shown their membership details. If you do not get any search results, this means that the company is not a member of TPO and you should not sell to them as it might be a scam.

Selling without any assistance

When you sell a home on your own, you will take on responsibility for all of the actions needed to find a buyer. You’ll have to create a listing, advertise it, schedule viewings, hear offers, and try to get one to the final exchange of contracts. It’s a lot of work that will take up much of your time, and it also has the potential to create a significant amount of stress for you.

There’s also the risk that someone might make an honest offer to buy your flat or house but then later change their mind and rescind it. This would prompt the sale to fall apart, and you would then need to start over with seeking a buyer, adding much more time to your selling calendar. And you can’t penalise the person that cancelled the offer unless contracts were exchanged.

Potentially the only prominent advantage of selling without any help is that you would not need to pay commission to an auctioneer or an estate agent for securing a buyer, and this helps with reducing your expenses. But you could discover that this saving is wiped out by the funds that you will need to spend on marketing your home’s listing and other important selling tasks.

All of these complications explain why selling on your own is often only suggested for people that have managed to find a buyer for properties before, or that have a suitably experienced friend or family that is willing to help with the selling process at no charge.

One alternative approach would be selling to a genuine no-fee quick buyer like LDN Properties. This would let you achieve the same beneficial result of not having to pay any commission on the sale, but with the added bonus of selling much faster. That’s because quick buyers can complete the purchase of a home within just a few weeks after you first contact them.