It's clearly not a seller's market right now, but what if you just have to sell up? 4Homes Editor Lucy Searle ponders this property predicament.
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Speaking to Kirstie Allsopp the other day, she told me that she had bought an investment property recently. She made the point that now was a good time to buy, that there were bargains out there and that people should put in cheeky offers and see what happens. However, she also made the point that people were only selling due to death, divorce or debt - although I know people who are simply selling for all the usual reasons, too, however ill-advisedly.
My advice? If you don’t have to sell – and I mean you really don’t have to - I wouldn’t at the moment. There’s a real scarcity of buyers – and almost none out there who would be prepared to pay anything near asking price.
But what do you do if, for one reason or another, you absolutely have to sell? Dropping your price is, of course, always going to attract buyers, but I know from the hundreds of emails we’ve received recently at 4homes that many of you are in this situation, and this is either not an option or hasn’t worked. What then?
We all know that the absolute must is to get your house looking its very best – from presenting the front garden right through to the kids’ rooms. De-clutter, put some of your possessions in storage if you have to, get curtains, carpets and sofa covers cleaned, wash down walls and even the paintwork inside and out. Got original features? Make the most of them – new-builds suffer most in flat markets. Character properties, on the other hand, usually fare better, so play up to your home’s best features.
Sell your home – this doesn’t just mean presenting it well – you’ve really got to talk it up, so if there’s a good school nearby, mention it more than once; if the garden is great for kids, play on that, too.
Are you getting the best out of your estate agent? Talk to yours regularly and get feedback – this is crucial. What are viewers telling him or her about the house? What does he or she think could be done to improve the house’s saleability? Why hasn’t he/she been sending enough people around to view the house? Why aren’t your home’s details in his window? Could the pictures of your house on the agent’s website be improved?
Be ready to move – this works both ways and you will be more attractive to buyers if you’re able or willing to move out when it suits them, even if it means you have to rent temporarily. Finally, if you get an offer, even a cheeky one, see it as the start of a negotiation, rather than an insult.
A final piece of advice? Don’t bank on the market dropping enough so that, were you to rent after selling your home, you could swoop into a lower market in a year’s time and buy a new house at a bargain price. UK house prices may, on average, have dropped by 6.1 per cent over the past year, and the Halifax may have recently forecast that house prices are set to fall by nine per cent this year, but there’s no telling what the UK property market will do next.
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