How to sell your house for the best price

Selling your house for the best price – 12 expert tips

At the end of the day, your home is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it. So to achieve the best price, you need to make your buyers willing to pay more. 

Chances are you are also a buyer right now, looking for your onward purchase when you’ve sold your current home. This makes it easier for you to get inside the head of potential buyers, because they’ll be looking for the same things that you are. 

Ask yourself if your home, as it currently looks, is somewhere you would want to buy, and if it isn’t, then you need to fix that, fast. Here are twelve expert tips on how to sell your house at the best price:

1. Setting the right price for your property – this is where so many property sales fail. Remember, your property is not worth what your estate agent says to win your business, it is worth what potential buyers are prepared to pay. So don’t just ask one agent for a valuation, ask at least two or three different estate agents what price they think will generate the most interest. If you over-price your property, it will not sell and you’ll only end up having to reduce the price anyway. Anyone watching the local market will see this and wonder why no one was interested in your home and why you had to reduce the price. It’s far better to be realistic about price and attract buyers, as this could lead to a bidding war that drives the price up, rather than discounting it down out of desperation.
2. Understanding the local property market – keep a look out in your local area to see which properties are for sale, how quickly they sell and what price they sell for. This will help you to understand the competition you’re up against if you want to be successful in selling your house for the best price. You need to track the local market on property portals like Rightmove and Zoopla, because this is what your buyers will do. Ask yourself if your property would make the shortlist compared to the other homes available in your area and your price range.
3. Choosing the right time – the property market struggles in the summer when people are on holiday, and again in the run up to Christmas when people are busy planning and partying. This can significantly reduce interest and in turn reduce property prices. The best time to sell is in the New Year, in the spring, and in the early autumn. There’s nothing like a long summer stuck in a small house to make parents want to look for somewhere bigger when the kids have gone back to school
4. Making a great first impression – people will make subconscious decisions about your home before they even get inside, and some may not even bother if their ‘drive-by’ puts them off, so make sure the outside of your house is neat and tidy. Simple things like weeding the flower beds, mowing the lawn, painting your front door and even replacing the door numbers with shiny new ones, can create a great first impression.
5. Tidying up and cutting the clutter – buyers want to view a home and see themselves living there, so the last thing they want to see is your clutter and mess. You need to clear away your junk to make your rooms feel as spacious as possible. If you can’t tidy things away, consider renting out storage for a few weeks while you have viewers. It will cost you, but it should be well worth it.
6. Decorating in a neutral style – we all have our own unique style, but your style may not always be your buyer’s style. Decorate your home with neutral colours that give potential buyers a blank canvas, and accessorise with rugs, throws and cushions to add some colour. A lick of white paint over that bright orange wall could make all the difference between selling your home and scaring buyers off!
7. Fixing the small stuff – we all have a list of odd jobs around the house that need doing, and now is the time to do them. Little issues can have a big effect on how people perceive your property, so put the effort in to present it at its best. A few hours and a few pounds spent fixing the small stuff could save you many weeks on the market and a lot of money on the final price you sell for.
8. Getting work done on your property prior to selling – choosing whether or not to do major work isn’t always straightforward. On the one hand, a new bathroom or kitchen could be the perfect way to impress buyers, on the other, people often want to choose their own kitchen and bathroom styles. Always make sure that what you spend adds value to your home. For example, Magnet Kitchens estimate that a new kitchen increases the value of your property by 5-6%, so make sure you don’t spend more than this. Similarly, Resi Design estimates that a new bathroom adds 4-5% to the value of your home.
9. Choosing the right estate agent – picking the right estate agent can make a big difference to the price you get for your home. Look out for which agent has the most ‘sold’ boards in your neighbourhood and for your property type, ask friends and family for their recommendations, and meet with your shortlist in person to make sure they’re a good fit. When it comes to estate agents, you generally get what you pay for, so don’t just go for the cheapest. The most expensive may well prove better value by achieving a faster sale at a higher price.
10. Insisting on the best presentation – don’t be afraid to get involved with your property listing. You know your home better than anyone, so it’s up to you to ensure that the major selling points are emphasised. Check descriptions, photos and listings carefully and insist on the best at every stage. If you aren’t impressed with the photos, your potential buyers won’t be either. Think what attracted you to the property in the first place, and what is attracting you to your next home, and make sure you cover those key touchpoints.
11. Staying on the case – even the most expensive, most professional estate agent will need to be kept on their toes. They are dealing with dozens of different properties, and just like at a busy bar, it is the noisiest, most insistent customers who tend to get served first. Make sure you keep up the momentum on your sale by arranging regular progress reports with your agent. If they know this is coming, they will want to have some activity to tell you about. 
12. Being flexible for viewers – potential buyers will have lots of different properties that they want to see, so you need to make sure you’re available when they want to view, or they’ll simply move on to the next home. Be as flexible as you can and make sure your home is empty if possible, by sending the kids to their friends and taking the dog for a walk. A brief welcome letter telling buyers about the neighbourhood and what it’s like to live there can be a charming extra to take away and makes your home stand out from the competition.

5 Common mistakes that sellers often make

There are lots of ways to improve your chances of selling your house at the best price, and there are also lots of ways that you can sabotage that sale without even realising it. Here are some of the most common mistakes that people make when selling a house:

1. Rushing to market – once you’ve decided to move, you naturally want to get on with it and start your new life in your new home as quickly as possible. However, if you rush to go on the market, and miss out on any of the steps outlined above, you could end up actually taking longer to sell. Curb your enthusiasm and make sure you’ve done everything you need to do to get the best possible price for your home before you hit the market.
2. Choosing the wrong estate agent – it’s easy to be tempted to pick the agent that values your home the highest, charge the lowest fees, or who have the flashiest high street showroom, but you really do need to do your research. Most places will have a choice of estate agents and you need to carefully choose the right one for you.
3. Setting the wrong price – naturally, you want the highest possible price for your home, and there will always be estate agents who will tell you that you can get it. But you need to be realistic. Setting too high a price leads to awkward reductions and haggling, and will attract fewer potential buyers, so you could end up getting much less.
4. Not researching the market – just like rushing to market as soon as you decide to sell, hitting the market at the wrong time could seriously damage your chances of selling for the best price. If you launch in a lull, by the time the market picks up, your property will be old news and people will wonder what’s wrong with it. 
5. Not showing your home’s true potential – if you use your spare bedroom as a junk room, you can’t expect viewers to see it as anything else. The same is true of garages, utility rooms, snugs and home offices. If your property has potential for lots of different uses, make sure buyers can see that potential for themselves, without having to use their imagination.
6. Assuming everyone lives like you – we all have our own lifestyles, so don’t assume potential buyers will want to use your home exactly like you do. Keep it as a blank canvas wherever possible. You want buyers to be able to picture themselves in your home, living their life, their way. 
7. Rolling over on price – getting the best possible price for your home is all about negotiating, and if you show your hand too soon, you lose all your negotiating power. You may worry that your buyer will walk away if you don’t give them exactly what they ask for, but most buyers ask for more than they actually want. If they like your home, they’ll be prepared to meet you halfway. You don’t have to roll over.
8. Picking a risky buyer – naturally you’ll be excited to get your first offer, but you shouldn’t blindly rush to accept it. You need to be sure that you’re dealing with someone who is genuinely in a position to proceed, who has a mortgage in place and who is serious about buying your property. One in three home sales fall through, so you need to do all you can to stack the odds in your favour.
9. Trusting your agent with everything – let’s be honest, estate agents are not cheap, so it’s not unreasonable to assume that they will do their job. Unfortunately, the only way to be sure of this is to get fully involved and check everything at every stage. Don’t be afraid to become a pest; it’s far better than being forgotten in the sea of other sellers.
10. Being like all the other houses – choosing a house is all about comparing different potential properties, so make sure you have something that makes you stand out. If you blend in with all the other homes, you’ll never get noticed or make their shortlist. Think what made you choose your home out of all the others available and build on that, whether it’s the garden, the views, the neighbourhood or whatever else it was.
11.  Scrimping on set-up costs? – you haven’t bothered to fix your home for yourself, so why waste money fixing it up for someone else to enjoy, right? Wrong! Because if you don’t sort your home out then you risk putting buyers off straight away. If ever there was a time to work through that to-do list, it’s right now, before you go to market. 
12.  Not removing personal items and pictures – you may love having pictures of the kids or grandkids on every wall, but all this does is make it harder for buyers to see themselves living in your home. Put your personal items away and you’ll make it easy for potential buyers to imagine their pictures on your wall

Can you still get a good price when selling your house quickly for cash?

With any home sale, it’s a matter of priorities. If you want the best possible price, then you will have to be patient and wait for an open market sale. However, if speed is more important to you, then you do have other options. 

As a rule, the faster you want to sell your home, the less you’ll get for it. For example, you can slightly under-price it on the open market, so it compares well to other similar homes and generates interest, but there are no guarantees that this will result in a faster sale.

Alternatively, you could decide to sell your house at auction, giving up around 10% of the market value in exchange for a quick sale. This could mean a sale in as little as two months, instead of the five months or more of an open market sale, but again, there is no guarantee that you will find a buyer. Around one in three auction properties fail to sell.

For a guaranteed quick sale, in as little as 14 days, you can sell your house to a cash buyer. This will only achieve around 80% of the value, but there are no other costs, such as estate agency fees, repairs, redecorating and renovations, or even legal fees in many cases. That means that a quick sale can work out better value than it first appears.

To see what you could get for your home for a guaranteed quick and easy cash sale, click the cash offer calculator below.

Expert Insight from Kelvin Elliott