Guide in Selling Real Property

There are decisions in the process of selling your property that could cost you or save you a lot of money. And here are some guidelines to help you make the right decisions.

1. Figure out finances. Notify at once your mortgage lender about the plan of selling your home. Find out your outstanding mortgage and whether there could be early redemption penalties. Get an idea of how much is your property’s worth, then you can determine the amount of money you’ll have left after the mortgage is paid off.

2. Make a decision on who’ll sell your home. You can have the option of selling your property yourself or have a traditional or online estate agent do it for you. Also, you’ll need to choose whether to hire multiple agents or a sole agent. To what choice you make, you must discuss and agree on a fee with the agent. However if you have the time and willingness to do hard work, you can always sell your home yourself and save money. But then again, this task is not for the inexperienced and fainthearted.

3. Decide on the selling price. First things first, do research and be familiarised with the local market. You can have estate agents to make valuations. Keep in mind that buyers will try to negotiate for a discount, so have 5% -10% additional to what you’re prepared to accept.

4. Prepare your home. “Stage” your home and not only will you have a fast sale but you might as well make it more valuable. Clean it up, get it a fresh paint, fix all snagging things, and make it smell good too.

5. Hire a conveyancer or solicitor. You need a conveyancer or a solicitor to handle all the legal work to transfer the property’s ownership. You can hire someone which was suggested by your estate agent or have a traditional local solicitor or go for online conveyancing which is a cheaper option.

6. Fill out forms. Keep in mind that various forms and questionnaires regarding property information and also about the sale need to be filled out.

7. Accept an offer. Your estate agent will pass on to you all offers. If the price is not right for you, you can always reject the offer and wait for better ones or you can also ask the estate agent to try negotiating to raise the price. When you’re finally happy with an offer, formal acceptance is needed. Have your estate agent pull the home off the market.

8. Negotiate the contract. You will have to decide with the owner the time duration of the contract’s exchange and completion and the fittings and fixtures that needs to be included.

9. Exchange contracts. Exchanging contracts with the buyers legally bounds you to sell your property and they are legally bounds as well to buy it from you. When after the exchange is done and you pull out for no reason, the buyer gets the deposit back and they may sue you.

10. Complete the sale. Accept the payment, hand over the keys, and change the property’s ownership and then the sale is complete. The transfer of money and the property deeds are done between both sides’ conveyancer or solicitor.