Bought a house before but now thinking of selling - best way to go about it?

[punyXpress]

Hey Paul
Any houses sold recently near you or with agents' boards up.
You can look at prices sold for, or asking prices ( & how long on market ) for the others.

You can always ask an agent or two to come around and do a valuation for both selling and letting. We had 3 in and none of them charged us for it, even though we found our own tenants.

I have sent you a pm with the details of the Mortgage specialist we use on our properties, he is very good and will help you with all the options and give you free impartial advice.

[Bibio]

Paul you never know what's round the corner in life so even though right now it seems crap it might and most probably will get better. don't think about now think about the future, you might struggle now and possibly for the next 20 years but after which you will be better off.

equity is always going to do good unless the interest rates go threw the roof (this might just happen soon BTW).

little story time
one of my mates got a considerable windfall about 25 years ago and all the rest of the mates were egging him on to go out and buy this bike and that toy etc.etc. i said no don't be stupid and go put a nice deposit down on a flat that you can rent out. 20 years later he has a flat in edinburgh that he bought for £27,000 and is now worth £120,000+ yes it was a struggle but he admits that it was the best thing he ever done.
story over...

now with today's problems with getting a mortgage and the price of housing more and more people are renting as they are unable to get a mortgage. one of the problems you might face is the same as everyone else though and that's having the equity to put down on another property. but if you can get another mortgage then i would suggest you don't sell.

i had the same argument with my dad who sold a prime flat in the heart of edinburgh in the 90's for £65,000 and its now worth around £300,000. his excuse was 'i don't want people in my property wrecking it' my answer was 'who cares it's a commodity and you wont be staying there'. he sold the flat and before he died admitted he was wrong.

[Paul the 6th]

Cheers bibio,

my life's a right muddle at the minute but I've got my chin up and my chest out.

I think the main situation I want to avoid is B-2-L'ing this place in York, then renting somewhere else because I can't get a mortgage 'cos of no deposit. In that case I'd still be chucking money down the drain but I've the extra strain of having to worry about being a landlord; what if the boiler breaks, what if the tenants trash the place and I have to pay out a fortune to get it all fixed up again etc.; all fine if I'm in my 50's and doing it for investment sake, but I'm in my mid 20's and basically want to switch across to another property, leave this one behind, only have one mortgage and no extra responsibility..

I wonder if it's do-able...

[Bibio]

this might seem a bit harsh but i really don't mean to be.

when are you going to take responsibility, when it's to late and you look back on your life saying 'i wish i had done that'.

now i'm going to let you in on a little secret, if it all goes titz up then who cares at least you will have given it a chance. now another secret, rich people are rich because they take chances in life that the ordinary wont, now this puts them in a position to stop other people doing what they done by making sure that there are so many obstacles in your way to put you off and keep you down and also saying things like 'its not worth it' 'you will regret it' etc.etc. don't listen to this bull.

Originally Posted by Paul the 6th

What's the most cost effective and efficient way to sell your house?

Someone suggested gumtree today and my first reaction was but then they said loads of people are doing it to save on estate agents fees?

Is there really a need for estate agents to be involved now that we can use the internet to market our wares?

I know I'd need a solicitor to do the paperwork and various inspections (valuation, survey, energy efficiency report of some sort??), is there anything else?

Decided I've had enough of York after 4 years of stubborn persistence. It's great for a weekend away with historic buildings and lots of pubs to choose from, but that doesn't nessecarily mean it's a great place to live. Not sure what my next steps are yet but I'm sure I'll figure it out at some point.

Oh and what's the job market like for graphic designers at the minute? Thinking of jacking in self employment because the hassle of it all just doesn't carry the benefits & rewards it used to. Time to shake things up a bit.

How comes you have fallen out with York Paul? I lived away for 4 years, but came back. I love it here! But then I do work at Nestle.

Hands down the easiest way to sell and buy at the minute is to move into a new build where the developer offers part exchange (most do now).
As with ours the developer offers a full value payment on a part exchange value, we took the adivce of some online info and got the valuations ourself first then wasted no time in heading over to a sales office on a site we liked and asking what they had available.
They ask you: How olds you house, Location and if its mortgaged or not. Thats it - job jobbed.
They review the estate agents notes and then make you an offer, ours was valued at 140k by 2 agents and 136k by another, Harron offered us 137k.
We signed a few bits of paper and paid a £500 deposit then TA-DA its all done.

We move out of our house once they've finished building our new one the responsibility of selling our current house lies with them.

A developer makes around 40%proffit per plot they sell however once they've finished building a house they then have to start paying upkeep on it in order to maintian its chances of selling, they call these stock houses. Often they get made in to show homes and the furniture is offered as part of the sale but what ever they do they do it to get rid of the stock houses ASAP. A house wearing their name which isnt sold looks terrible for the developer and it costs them a fortune to maintain. They've got the cost of landscapers and additonal carpet/flooring costs etc. But If you buy one of those houses by part ex-ing your own then they dont have to spend a fortune maintaining it because as soon as its ready you'll move in and up until that point you've also been maintaining your own so thats tip top too. Then your old place just lays empty (assuming someone hasnt already bought it). So provided nothing mental goes wrong with it while empty then they need not worry about it and so it costs them nothing.

Abi and I are rediculasly pleased with how the process has worked, we've had zero stress with selling our house and we're guaranteed a brand new one to be waiting for us shortly I couldnt recommend it enough.

[dizzyblonde]

Listen to the dwarf sized Jock......he speaks sense, I secretly think he is Yoda

He said a wise word or two, when I was mulling over jumping ship and bezzin off abroad....one of which was

best time to do things is in a recession as the only way is up

Now I'll tell you a little story. My parents had an ex council house that was worth 6k back in the very early 80s. They wanted summat better for us kids, than a scummy area of Fax. So they bought a big house for 55k, and have lived there since. Its now worth 200k. Everyone said they were mad, but they followed their dream and their gut. Its been hard, but then everything in life is hard, and you have to work at it.

So if you want to move.....make it happen!!

We desperately need to move, and Pegs working his bollox off to make it happen. I have the equity in my house though, I've owned it for 12 years. While Pegs at work, between kids and them sleeping I am laying flags in the garden, or finishing long overdue tiling, bits and bobs to do my bit. We is a team, and we damn well will move this year.....even if I have to rent this one out for 6 months(and I don't want to do that either!)

[Dave20046]

I'd prefer to buy without having to deal with estate agents. Pop it on gumtree and test the water free of charge

[dizzyblonde]

I hate dealing with estate agents. Last time I put the house up for sale, it was them that made for a horrid ordeal!

What I don't like is spending money, but I can't see how gumtree or ebay can work?
I am presuming in doing it that way, you then need to sort out your own conveyancing, which is a ball ache.

Spending money.....to buy a house, you have to pay lots of money, to sell a house you have to pay lots of money, to do both at the same time, you have to spend even more money.

Hmm on second thoughts I suppose Gumtree ain't a bad ideea.