Selling through an Estate Agent
Do you feel like you are wasting time and money trying to sell house fast through an estate agent?
If you answered ‘yes’ to this question and you are thinking ‘I really need to sell my house fast for cash’, would you like to know what your alternatives are and why you might want to consider not using an estate agent? Yes?
Ok, to allow you to achieve a fast house sale let me explain why a quick house sale is very, very unlikely to happen through an estate agent. Before I go further let me add that there are many people who will undoubtedly find estate agents very useful and are more than happy with the service they can provide. Some estate agents provide an excellent service. However, these people are not looking to sell a house fast and so can afford luxuries such as time and expense.
Using an estate agent can be a frustrating process if you need to quickly sell house. This process begins with you contacting the agent and arranging a meeting. You then wait a week for the agent to arrange to take photos of your property. The agent draws up the particulars of the property once the photos and measurements have been taken. You may even want to talk to other estate agents and compare them all on service, friendliness and fees. Bear in mind the whole time you will be thinking I really need to sell my house fast, and let me point out this stage takes a minimum of 1 week.
You then have to wait until the estate agent is back in the office so they can finally get round to putting your property in the local newspaper and maybe even on an internet site if you are lucky. This will happen within 3 weeks, and still you are thinking – I want to sell house fast!
You then have to prepare your home for viewing in the hope that someone comes round. Your home must be cleaned from top to bottom and any refurbishments required must be taken care of which could cost you anywhere from £50 to many thousands of pounds. 5 weeks have now passed and nobody has set foot through your front door yet. Sell house fast, sell house fast, sell house fast... I hear you say.
The average number of viewings for a property to sell is between ten and fifteen. Let’s be optimistic and say it takes only ten viewings to find a buyer. That means the property must stay in pristine condition for another two to three weeks, maybe more, yes definitely more!
Finally, after nearly seven weeks somebody is interested and they want to buy the property! He or she needs to arrange a mortgage which will take anywhere from five to seven weeks. His solicitor contacts your solicitor and the searches and relevant legal work are undertaken in the meantime.
At this critical moment in the sale he or she could so easily pull out. Why? Because buyers very often do!
What if she is unhappy with her solicitor’s findings? What if the mortgage falls through? What if she is offered another property she likes? What if she cannot sell her old home? There are many external factors affecting the buyer over which you have absolutely no control. Do you think you will be happy you chose an estate agent to sell your home when all you really wanted was to quickly sell house now, and possibly 3 months have been now passed, probably more.
Assuming the buyer is happy with the legal side of things and the mortgage offer is given, the sale goes through three months after the first contact with the estate agent. That is three months worth of mortgage payments.
But wait, this is an optimistic scenario. What if the agent didn’t find a buyer? What if you were forced to drop the price to achieve a quick house sale? What would you do if you were “gazumped”? What if your buyer was “gazumped” (the term ‘gazumped’ is common in England and Wales, but does not apply in Scotland)? The huge amount of time estate agents take to sell properties could leave you exposed to many factors which could seriously affect the progress of your sale. Then at the very end of the process you will get charged around about a 2% fee for services rendered – that’s a whopping 2% of the selling price!
If you are thinking ‘I need to sell my house fast’ then this process can be very stressful. As time drifts by all you will be thinking about is trying to sell a house fast, or ‘what will it take to quickly sell house’. Remember this is an optimistic scenario. I am sure you have heard of many friends or family who have taken 6 - 12 months to sell their home.
Fortunately there is a solution. If you answered ‘Yes’ to the question at the start, i.e. you want to quickly sell house, or sell house fast, we at Stewart Property Buyers can buy your property for cash and within a timescale that suits you, normally completing within 1 month. We do not charge any fees, our service is easy, efficient and hassle-free. You will not have to endure a 3 - 12 month wait. Why? Because we specialise in buying property quickly for cash. We know when someone wants to sell houses fast, or quickly sell house, or house quick sell, that they need the cash yesterday. We just get it.
To summarise, while some people who do not need to sell houses fast can happily use an estate agent, others, such as those who are thinking ‘I need to sell my house fast for cash now’ cannot.
I hope you found this useful.
Stewart Property Buyers Team