Top 3 things you should do to sell your house fast

Why is it hard to sell a house quickly?

Selling a house at a price that both the buyer and seller are happy with is often a challenging task. And if on top of this you add the requirement for the sale to happen fast, the complexity grows significantly and the likelihood of all boxes being ticked gets pretty low.

According to BBC News, over the last few years, the UK housing market has been described as “subdued” with sluggish property chains making it harder to sell your house fast. Even when a sale reaches the final agreement in principle, it can often fall through.

In the last five to ten years, property affordability has become an issue and for many people looking to buy a house, committing to such a purchase has become all but impossible. And it’s not at all surprising that Brexit and the current political instability have caused people to feel even more reluctant about spending large sums on significant purchases like a house. The impact of this is a palpable drop in demand with fewer buyers on the market who are also being extra cautious with their decision.

As well as this, as trivial as it sounds, we should never discount a buyer’s common sense and human nature. Along with the economic uncertainty, selling a house fast is challenging because it is high-involvement decision making, much like buying a car. These purchases are normally expensive and very important for a buyer in the longer term; hence they take their time to properly weigh up their options. With this in mind, it’s unsurprising that buying a house can cause anxiety, stress, or post-purchase regret. That’s why it is so important to choose a trusted, knowledgeable and truly caring estate agent, to assist in this important journey, bringing peace of mind to both seller and buyer.

With all these factors slowing down your sale what can you actually do to speed it up? Read our three tips to see if they could help you to sell your property faster.

Choose your agent smartly

Nowadays, we are spoilt for choice when it comes to property agencies - from traditional high street agents to online and hybrid versions, and big established names to family-run or boutique - they are all ready to assist you with selling your house. Their promise is always bright and bold: to buy fast, make it stress-free, and ultimately, offer you the best deal. Is the promise always a reality though? How do you choose the right agent for you?

• Firstly, you can reach out to family and friends who’ve sold a house to ask about their experience and if they know a good, reliable estate agent.
• Do your online research - collect as much information about your estate agent of choice, from reading their site or reading reviews. Check out these great resources Getagent, allAgents, as well as Trustpilot and Google Reviews to make sure the agent you opt for is the right one.
• Find out which agents have a strong presence in your neighbourhood and have been selling houses similar to yours. You can do this by walking around and seeing their ‘for sale’ boards in the area or by having a look on property portals such as Rightmove, type in your postcode and see which agencies are most prominent. This is not always the largest agency but can often be the small local agent with the best local knowledge.
• Instead of turning to big established agents or the small local agent, you are able to cut out the middle man and secure a sale within no time - by choosing an alternative method of selling. Property buying companies such as Vivo Property Buyers specialise in offering a quick sale service by buying your property directly from you for cash. The sale can be done within 7 working days at which point you receive full funds in your bank account.

Avoid getting tied up in a property chain

When selling a house, there are many things that can slow down the process, and even lead to a house sale falling through. No one wants to get stuck in a scary and stressful property chain as just one person changing their mind or slowing things down can cause the whole chain to collapse.

The good news is that you don’t need to be stuck in a property chain. There are many ways to avoid the misery and here are the main pieces of advice we would offer someone looking to sell their house fast:

• If you are looking at selling and buying a home, split them apart - finalise your current property sale first and commit to purchasing a property only once you have money available.
• Streamline communication and track the progress of the property chain with the help of technology. There are a few great tools such as View My Chain and Gazeal, to mention just a few, that you can use to push certain steps in the chain forward, locking deals and preventing the parties to pull out without consequences.
• Sell to a fast property buying company. Vivo is a chain-free property solution. As we are buying with our own funds, we can make you a free, no-obligation offer in just 24 hours and finalise the sale within a week. With Vivo, you will be selling directly to us, hence avoiding any delays that sellers normally encounter in the property chain.

Have realistic pricing expectations

Anyone who has sold their house knows the importance of pricing research to help form realistic pricing expectations. The main things to take into account when doing your house price analysis are to compare market prices for similar properties as well as understand the current conditions of the housing market. Obviously, when fewer properties are being sold and bought and you want to sell yours fast, you need to be more flexible with your pricing expectations. Either be prepared to drop your price if you need to sell as soon as possible, or choose a fast property buyer to help you sell at a reasonable price, avoiding property chains.

Here are some useful tips to help you work out a realistic selling price for your house:

• First and foremost, research property prices. There are many great resources out there, and Gov.uk House Price Search is definitely a great place to start, with statistical reports from the Land Registry, evaluations and ratings. Of course, Zoopla, with their extensive archive of properties on sale, will give you a good idea of how houses similar to yours, in your location, are priced. If you want to search property prices by postcode, Rightmove will enable you to do this. However, when getting automated valuations from the above-mentioned resources, take their quotes with a pinch of salt; they don’t take many factors into account, so, therefore, are usually inaccurate.
• Know the property market! You can find information on property trends from all over the UK, as well as variations in prices for different property types on the Land Registry. Their extremely useful website will equip you with the necessary knowledge when calculating a realistic price for your house.
• One more thing you can do to have realistic pricing expectations is to know the business model estate agent and fast house buying companies use. Estate agents will charge you a commission for their services, with bigger players tending to charge more than local agents. Make sure you know upfront your agent’s commission fees and include them in your house price calculations. And don’t forget about legal fees and other extra costs that will ultimately eat into your profit, as they will have to come out of your own pocket! Another thing to be mindful of is agents will often value a property higher to get the instruction - and once they’ve won it, after a few weeks they may tell you it is priced too high and they need to drop the asking price.

However, if you choose to sell to a property buying company, they would normally cover all external costs for you (at Vivo we always do!). For instance, if you sell your property to Vivo, we will make sure everything is covered and will make you an offer of roughly 85% of what is believed to be the current market value of your property. Whilst this is a bit below market value, you won’t have to worry about any surprise fees; from paying all your legal fees to the removal of unwanted items and cleaning, we take care of all the costs. Besides, we also buy the property as seen - no viewings or improvements needed - which will save you a lot of time and money.

Read our Guide to house selling fees to equip yourselves with more knowledge in this area.

What you should know about Vivo

Aside from being able to buy quickly, avoiding fees and not needing viewings, our clients always commend us on our personal and attentive approach to communication as well as our trustworthiness and professionalism. We often deal with clients who have previously been stuck in a chain which has delayed their sale, only for it to fall through; we have been able to offer them an alternative solution which has allowed them to sell quickly and without stress. Read what our clients’ say about us on Trustpilot.