Should You Sell Your House Privately?

With reference to the Telegraph interview with Sarah Beeny this weekend, I am writing to put the record straight regarding private house sales and I will point out not as an estate agent!

I have worked in the central London market for many years now, and nothing infuriates me more than the regular press articles about how home owners have found "great success" etc etc in selling their own homes.
OK so everybody hates estate agents (this is not new) the odd thing is that the reason why this hatred exists is because the hatred is created when they are looking to buy a house... well remember the Estate Agent works for THE SELLER! They are not there to give buyers a "deal" or look after them, or hold the buyers hand. The job of an estate agent is to get the best possible price for a house, and ensure the deal goes through.

Now let me just clarify something very quickly before I go on; in this country we have some of the lowest real estate fees in the developed world. In most European countries both the buyer and the seller will pay a fee to the "Agent" typically 2-3% each, so in total up to 6% give or take. In England and more accurately in central London only the seller pays a fee (unless the buyer by choice is using a buyers agent or home finder) and this fee is a maximum of 3% on a multiple listing (where more than one agent has the instruction). In most cases agents in the UK charge between 1-2% tops. Quite where Sarah Beeny managed to find the example of a homeowner paying a £10,000 fee on a £250,000 sale I do not know! But my point is that actually when considered on a global level the fees charged by estate agents in the UK are very low.

Back to the point... so the fee is cheap in comparison, but is the service worth it? Well obviously this varies from agent to agent, from sale to sale. But in general for the 2% fee (for the sake of argument) you get, a valuation, a brochure, a floor plan, a web listing, a mail out, a magazine / paper listing and a negotiator who will accompany potential buyers around your house (when you are at work) and negotiate on your behalf, not to mention answer the tirade of inane questions that many buyers tend to ask, and that is before the deal is agreed. Afterwards, they will organise the surveyor, produce comparable sales particulars, liaise between you and the buyer, between the buyer and your solicitor, between your solicitor and the buyers solicitor, between the buyer and their solicitor and all the other 3rd parties in between (i.e. plumbers, builders, damp specialists etc etc). So the fee, at least in my opinion is looking pretty good value for money!

But according to Sarah Beeny by 2015 50% of "normal people" will be selling their homes online (of course I might just add that at least 95% of "normal people" are already selling their homes online, just through an agent), thus saving the 2% that the agent might be charging. So that must mean that by 2015 the recession will have got so bad that 50% of people will be jobless and can all carry out viewings during the day as well as answer calls and emails from buyers. They will also be able to value their most prized possession without emotion and rose tinted spectacles, not to mention all the other added bits and pieces.

Now I hear all those potential self sellers out there shouting... oh what do you know, I can do that etc etc... well now I must make my most critical & crucial comment, and I will put it in bold just to make the point.

THE SINGLE WORST PERSON TO SELL A HOUSE IS THE OWNER.

I say this not because I am trying to protect estate agents or buyers agents or anything like that, I say it because I have seen the consequences over a hundred times. Sellers do not shut up... they are desperate, all they do is talk about the view, about the neighbours and how lovely they are, how quiet it is, about how the wood was imported or reclaimed from the highlands of Mongolia, how the house is fully wired with CAT5 cabling and what type of paint they used in the study, the sitting room and the dining room, they go on... and on... and on... and it smacks of desperation. 99.999% of the time it kills any deal stone dead, 100% of the time it is embarrassing for all that have to witness it.

So I suppose in summary
Don't sell your own house if you want to:
Get the right price, have a marketing strategy, ensure the buyer is not a time waster, avoid chasing the deal after the price is agreed, want to go to work and sell your house at the same time and want to sell your house.

Do sell your own house if you want to:
Choose your own fantasy price, rely on unreliable websites, pay out for additional advertising, be hassled by buyers, don't want to go to work, deal with the incompetent, sound like a desperate fool and don't really want to sell your house.