Guide to Selling your Property

1Getting your home valued

To get started you will need to get your property valued. Simple Estate Agents provide a free no obligation property valuation and are one of the most trusted Estate Agents in the area. We have great local knowledge and know how to analyse local market trends to give you the most accurate figure

2Preparing your home for the market

You should always aim to present your property to buyers in the best possible way to buyers. Ensure you fix anything that will put off buyers and if the paintwork looks tired, a fresh coat of paint can help improve the appearance. Other small jobs such as tidying the garden, removing clutter in the house and replacing silicon in the bathroom. At this time, it is also best to see if your property has an up to date EPC. This can be checked online on www.epcregister.com. If you do not have one then we can get one done for you and it lasts 10 years.

3Choosing your agent and solicitor

The is one of the most important stages. You need to ensure the Estate Agent has great local knowledge and the ability to pro-actively market your market to the largest audience. We at Simple Estate Agents have access to a large range of buyers and marketing tools to ensure the best possible price is reached. With solicitors we work very closely with Premier Property Lawyers who have similar core values such as our own.

4Prepare For Viewings

When it comes to viewings you will need to keep the clutter away and the cleanliness for your property to high standard just in case if there is last minute viewing. Keeping windows open leaves the property smelling fresh, turning all lights and lamps for evening viewings and having the smell of fresh coffee helps create the homely environment buyers are looking for. During viewing try to pull on the positives when talking to buyers. Great examples of this is great neighbours, great entertaining space or the garden is fantastic place for BBQ.

5Receiving Offers

When selling through an Estate Agent buyers or interested parties will submit their offers through them. If you receiving more than one offer then your agent will keep you in the loop. When it comes to offers the highest bid is not always the best one. You should consider the financial position of the buyer, whether they have a chain or what their time scales are.

6Accepting the offer

After the accepting the offer your estate agents will send out a document called a memorandum of sale. This will list the terms of the sale and will have everyone details on them. This document gets sent out to both solicitors, you and then buyer. The buyer will also instruct the lender to value the property so their mortgage offer can be finalised.

7Exchanging contracts and Completion

Once all the legal and financial due diligence is done then the next stage is exchanging contracts. This will be done by your solicitor on your behalf.At this point the sale become legally binding and you can be fairly certain the sale if the house will go through. A deposit of normally 10% is paid over on exchange to your solicitors which you will be able to keep if the buyer pulls out of the sale.

At exchange of contacts the completion date is set also, this is normally a weekdays as solicitors need to be open to receive the funds.

You will need to start arranging removals to ensure the property is empty on the completion date.

On the completion day there is no set time of when completion takes place but most solicitors try to get it done by midday allowing time for keys to be handed over before the end of the day.