Selling Property Without an Agent

Selling your property privately, without involving an estate agent, may entail more work on your behalf, and you might find it hard to reach as many prospective buyers as an estate agent would. On the other hand, if you're successful, you'll save the commission you would have to pay an estate agent. If you have already signed with an estate agent, however, don't agree a private sale unless you're absolutely certain that you aren't breaching your terms of your contract, or you could still be charged a fee (see our article on Types of Selling Agreements).

First Steps

• Find out how much estate agents are asking for similar properties in your area.
• Pay for an independent valuation from a surveyor.
• Decide the asking price.
• Draw up a short description of the property, using the conventional abbreviations used in the local property paper. Ask a friend to check it, in case you've forgotten anything.

Advertising Your Home Locally

• Pay for a small ad in the local paper, giving a telephone number but not your address.
• Drop details into local letterboxes. It's cheeky, but people do it - your home may be just what someone locally is looking for, whether it has a special feature, bigger garden, or is simply larger or smaller than their own.
• Ask to display an advertisement on staff noticeboards in large offices, universities, or hospitals.

Advertising Further Afield

• Sign up with a company on the Internet. One way Internet companies can afford to advertise your home without charging you or the eventual buyer is by passing your details to other companies who are interested in people who are moving and might want their products/services. You aren't committed to buying any of these. Read the small print carefully.
• Set up your own website dedicated to selling the property. This may be worth doing if the value or location of your property makes it of special interest. Don't give the exact address, and emphasise if it's in a tourist area or employment hotspots, especially if employees come to the area from a long-distance or from abroad.
• If you're in a popular area but don't want to go on the Web, an advertisement in a national Sunday newspaper or magazine may produce a buyer.

Showing People Round

• Create a demand. Estate agents often arrange the several potential buyers to view and more or less the same time, to make the property that popular. Hold an 'open house' viewing on a single afternoon so that prospective buyers find the place buzzing and realise they need to make a good offer quickly.
• Always have another person with you when you show round potential buyers.

Making a Sale

• Ask for all offers to be put in writing to your solicitor or conveyancer, even if you're being offered the asking price. This gives you time to consider the implications of the offer, for instance, does the prospective buyer have funds already available?
• Insist that any subsequent negotiations on price or contents are done via your legal representative.