Beyond the baked bread, fresh coffee and gentle Mozart drifting in the background, there is a myriad of emotional, practical and sensitive issues that need to be tackled if you are to sell your house successfully. And here are just some of them:

Take advice from your estate agent

The best Agents are there to help, acting in the best interests of their clients rather than concentrating on their balance sheets, and you should accept the advice that they give you. Any business is as good as its reputation and referrals would soon dry up if an Agent kept getting it wrong, so trust what you are told and be prepared to act upon it.

Iron out property problems early on

You should know your property well enough to know where any problems lie, so share these with your Agent before you begin marketing, after all, everybody suffers if a last minute glitch emerges causing the collapse of a deal.  Areas to mention include restrictive covenants, rights of way, structural issues, boundary disputes and building regulations. Early knowledge and the chance to put things right will save heartache later on.

Step back emotionally

This is often easier said than done, especially if your home has years of happy memories, or you take great pride in what you have created there. Wherever your emotions lie, you have to detach yourself and treat the sale as that of a commodity. One man’s meat is another man’s gravy and a buyer may look at your property from a completely different perspective. I’ve often heard clients say that they want to sell their house to a family they like. Sadly, we don’t have that luxury anymore, so as long as the buyer can complete a purchase at an acceptable level, then that is the person to sell to.

Let the Agent do the Viewings

Agents are very good at showing people around houses because they are salespeople . Not in the sense of the hard sell, but more in knowing which buttons to press and when. Viewers also need to relax and take their time and it is very difficult to do so if the owner is there and the feeling is one of intrusion, so take the dog for a walk or pop to the shops. Try also to always insist that the negotiator dealing with your house is the one to show it, rather than viewing staff. They know it best and can talk turkey if it comes down to on-the-spot negotiations.

Accept market conditions

The property boom is over and we are in a fragile market. If you want to sell your house and move on you have to accept the economic conditions and position the marketing of your property accordingly. Buyers are buying and will continue to buy, but they are reluctant to pay what they consider to be over the odds. Take your Agent’s advice, find the right buyer at the right price for the prevailing conditions and move on. You will be able to negotiate just as hard on a purchase, and if you rent and wait for the right house to come up, you could be quids in.

Following the gradual erosion of confidence in the latter part of 2010, 2011 turned out to be a tricky year for residential sales. Transaction levels were badly knocked and a buyers’ market swiftly evolved making negotiations challenging. While there were some very good buyers around, they were cautious and for the most part there were plenty of properties for them to choose from.  A disparity between Vendors’ and Buyers’ expectations became evident with  offers generally 5% – 10% below guide prices, causing a slow and reluctant correction in pricing for some properties.  While those Vendors with an urgency to sell did so, many others disregarded any interest at reduced levels. Of course, some highly geared homeowners are caught between a rock and a hard place with the threat of negative equity hanging over them, while others may simply be content to sit back and wait for better news.

The pool of ready and able buyers has greatly diminished since pre-crunch days. It has been reduced to true cash buyers and those who can afford a hefty deposit while satisfying tight lending criteria. Many buyers are downsizing financially and moving house to realise capital and improve lifestyle, but they still have to sell their own properties and chains are liable to collapse. Steering an agreed sale to exchange of contracts is therefore often an achievement.

Buyers who are able to act now are increasingly risk adverse. They are also taking plenty of time to make decisions because they think that there may be a better property around the corner; this can be a dangerous stance, however. Houses in the best locations are selling very well because that is what everyone is looking for. We have plenty of families waiting for uncompromised, semi-rural period houses, for instance, but they are rare and when they do become available there is always a scrum; the message to buyers, therefore, is widen your horizons and accept that there is no such thing as the perfect house.

So what of the next twelve months? The wider economic picture is affecting confidence and it is confidence that drives markets. There is little certainty as to where interest rates may be this time next year (although it is quite possible they may not have changed), unemployment is rising, measures to cut the national deficit is biting, lending is tight and Europe will be unresolved for a good while yet. The underlying problems are far from over, so it is unlikely that 2012 will fare any better. We can see a similar market this year, perhaps still with slight downward pressure on prices.

There remains an active market, however, so the key to selling is the same as for 2011 – sensible pricing, attention to good marketing and an open mind.

Winter is just around the corner and in a few weeks’ time the trees will be bare, bringing to an end the traditional Autumn property market. There has been a spate of transactions over the last month or two, but those Vendors who have not sold need to decide where to go from here. The winter months are not the most attractive to show off any house at its best and, while there continues to be a market with some strong and committed buyers, many houses will still suffer.

So here are some options to weigh and measure:

If you have to sell, then there is little choice but to keep your house on the market. The finer points of strategy are for discussion between you and your Agent and effective tactics need to be thrashed out that will give your property the best possible chance of selling over the Winter months. Think about having it re-evaluated, look at the marketing presentation, try to iron out glitches that have emerged from any feedback. There are often things that can be done to refresh the house and show it in a completely different light so now is the time to think laterally.

If you have to move, but don’t need the equity from a sale just yet, you should consider letting your house. This is a whole new ball game and you need advice on preparing the house for letting, not to mention legislation, tax, insurance etc. It needn’t be too complicated and the letting can be fully managed to save you the headache, but you may have to put in some initial effort yourself to secure a good tenant in the long run. You can let the property for six months or longer and then make a decision to sell again when the time is right.

You may be the executor of an estate and debating whether you should be waiting for a stronger market to sell a probate property. In this case the best option may be to attempt a simultaneous sale or let and go with whichever comes first. If you manage to sell the property then you will have fulfilled your responsibilities, and if not, a letting will keep the house occupied over the chillier months and you can attempt a sale once the daffodils are out.

If you are in no hurry to sell, however, there is little point in keeping your property on the market because it could start to look very stale. The obvious advice is to withdraw it until the Spring and enjoy it yourself. In the meantime keep a close eye on which comparable houses have been selling, so that you can make realistic and informed decisions when the time comes around for marketing again.

We generally take it for granted that a house will have a garden, but they come in all shapes and sizes and are often totally disfunctional.

There may have been historical land swaps and deals between neighbours causing gardens to become misshapen and occasionally detached from the house. Modern houses, too, are often built on very pinched plots because the developer sees more value in the square footage of the building, rather than its land. This might result in your outside space becoming anything but a selling point.

The value of land is generally dependent on its use and whether it ‘marries’ with a property. By and large, the smaller the piece of land, the more valuable it will be pro rata. Farmland has its own market (which has reached record highs recently) and amenity land is always sought after. Pony paddocks can realize exceptional prices, but the most valuable land is generally that which is attached to our houses.

Value in property is closely related to balance; not only of accommodation, but also of the house to plot ratio. A good sized house in a generous garden will always be a winner, while a large house in a small plot will struggle because the market that it’s trying to attract is greatly diminished. A small house in a large plot, however, will be more attractive to the market because it has space around it and might have scope to extend.

Negotiating with neighbours to increase the size of your plot is often helped along with a bottle of wine and a gentle chat. You should always seek professional advice, however, because landing on a mutually acceptable figure is rarely easy; it essentially boils down to the marriage value to your property and the detraction in value to your neighbour’s, but there can be grey areas.

We are currently advising two of our Clients to explore the potential of acquiring neighbouring land because it would have a huge impact on the sale of their houses. Both of them have would have the scope not only to substantially increase the size of their existing plot, but also to attract those who wish to keep ponies and horses right next to their properties. If they are successful in either buying the land or making it available by separate negotiation, they will be able to open up the market to a whole new tranche of buyers.

So think carefully about what you currently have and what you might gain following a bottle of wine and a gentle chat…it could make a big difference to the value of your property and its saleability.

Quite often, the houses that we buy are in need of tlc and require a sensitive injection of cash. We are all accidental developers to an extent, because maximising value should be at the back of everybody’s mind when tackling a project. The task may be as simple as replacing a dated Kitchen and Bathroom together with an overall  spruce up, or it may involve an improvement in the layout and fabric of the property.

Spending too much money in the wrong direction is a trap that can be easily sprung, so how do you know where and how to improve a house?

Unromantic though it may seem, you should always remember that one day you will sell, and your house is as much a property for you to live in, as it is a commodity, that in the future might have to attract a wide market.  In a sense, therefore, you are improving your house as much for yourself, as for its next owner.

Decor of your property

The key is to avoid extremes and think about what might appeal to a wider audience. Of course you will want to furnish a property to your own taste, but it is risky to be too radical; ultra-modern, for instance, is not everybody’s cup of tea.  An occasional cry from viewers of ‘done’ houses is that they object to having to pay for someone else’s excessive taste.

Improvements to your property

Think about rooms and features that tick boxes for people. The most important room in the house these days is the family Kitchen. If this can be a large and light space of reasonable quality, it could sell the house by itself. Anything that you can do to open it up and create light, therefore, would reap benefits. There are some very good and reasonably priced kitchens around and, of course, excellent local craftsmen for the bespoke look.

Having more than one Bathroom is important for most people and if you can squeeze in a small ensuite without taking up too much space, it would be worth it. It’s amazing what you can fit into a couple of square meters.  Think about effective lighting, opening up fireplaces, improving flooring, exposing beams and walls. Character can be injected into most houses with the minimum of difficulty and expense.

Extensions to your property

You often don’t have to extend to increase value. We handled a house in Dorset where the owner had simply divided a large bedroom into two to create a four bedroom house. That, together with a new septic tank and some landscaping realised a far higher price than he paid only six months earlier. If you are going to extend, think about balance and cost. A house with a good overall balance of ground and first floor accommodation will maximise value. If you over-extend on a small plot, however, the ratio of house to outside space will be impractical. It’s often a good idea to obtain planning consent and then you have the option of simply selling on with that in place.

Of course there is far more to say than will fit in this concise blog, so if you are in doubt about adding value without compromising your own lifestyle, seek the advice of an agent and an architect…it could reap benefits in the long run.

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