What Are the Different Ways to Sell Your Property?
Thinking of selling your property? For years, the traditional ways of selling an apartment or home were auctions and real estate agents. Nowadays, there are several different selling methods that you might want to consider. In this post we will be looking at the different ways to sell your property and which one is best for you.
Over the years, companies have come up with various innovative ways to sell property – particularly for properties that, for whatever reason, are difficult to sell. Open market properties often have to sell the lifestyle, not just the bricks and mortar, when selling into the homeowner market. The reality is though, not all properties are everyone’s dream. Whereas with real estate agencies and some type of property auctions,
Competitions and Property Raffles
Competitions and property raffles are a relatively new way to sell your property. Basically, you list your property for sale at your desired price and sell raffle tickets until you reach the set amount. Typically, raffle tickets are priced between £1-£15, meaning that it is an attractive offer for potential buyers and should they win, they’ve purchased a house for the amount they’ve spent on tickets. Some property buyers have even managed to buy property having only spent £1 on a single raffle ticket. You, as the seller, still receive the full asking price for the property – so everyone is a winner!
With cost of living prices soaring, this is an excellent way for property owners to encourage interest and sell their properties. The downside is that not all property owners manage to sell enough tickets to equal the asking price. If this happens, you can either choose to accept whatever amount you managed to raise or you can reward the chosen winner the sum of money raised from raffle ticket sales. Although this is a great option to sell your home, it does require a lot of marketing efforts in order to sell enough raffle tickets to equal the asking price.
Traditional Real Estate Agents
Using a traditional real estate agency is one of the oldest and most traditional methods of selling a home. The benefit of using a traditional real estate agent is that they will do most of the work. All you need to do is make sure that your home looks clean and inviting for when potential buyers come to view the residence. The estate agents will handle the marketing, finding clients, promoting the features of your property and negotiating for the best deal. Once the property is sold, they will also help with the legal aspects of transferring the property to its new owner.
The disadvantage of hiring an estate agent is that it can take a long time to sell your home. If the property market is quiet and not many people are buying then selling your home could take some time. Another issue that some property sellers have when working with estate agents is being required to pay their commission rates upon completing the sale. While commission rates tend to be competitive, depending on the asking price of your home, the commission rate due could take a hefty chunk off the profit you make.
Social Media
You can do most things on social media these days, from connecting with old friends, finding work, posting a job listing, meeting a new date and selling your possessions. You can also sell your property on social media, for example on Facebook Marketplace or by creating your own Instagram account for your home. This is great for exposure and you don’t have to factor in selling fees when going through an agent. To ensure extra exposure, you could also run ads to really push your property sale and to get it in front of a wider audience.
While this is a lucrative way of marketing and selling your home, not to mention getting to keep all of the money you make from the sale, there are also some down sides too. For one, social media wasn’t designed purely to sell property. Yes, some people do it and have had success with selling one or more home this way but for many, it doesn’t end in a sale. If your dream buyer doesn’t use social media or doesn’t use social media to look for property then your efforts are in vain. You should also be careful about sharing where you live and showing off what’s inside your home publicly for security reasons.
eBay and Online Selling Websites
eBay and other online selling platforms are another option, especially if you want to go it alone and avoid estate agent selling fees. Using online selling websites is similar to selling on social media. You have the potential to reach a wide audience and seeing as you won’t have to pay any commission fees to estate agents, you could even subtract this commission amount off the asking price to make it a more attractive offer for potential buyers.
While this is a good option to keep selling costs down and that sense of urgency could prompt a potential buyer to place an offer sooner rather than later, not everybody considers online selling platforms and social media a reputable place to buy or sell property.
Property Auctions
Oliver Jaques estate agents say:
Traditional auctions have been the alternative method for years, however they aren’t for everyone as it relies upon enough people turning up to a specific location at a certain time to generate enough bids to achieve a decent price. Invariably this doesn’t happen and auction sales tend to be at lower values. Due to this lack of return, new systems have popped up such as online auctions, profit share development options and even local council schemes where they can regenerate whole streets by effectively giving houses away in the understanding the new owners renovate them. While these selling options can be successful in getting hard-to-sell properties sold, the results can often be hit or miss for the buyers.
The most effective method of selling that has stood the test of time is the traditional open market estate agent, if you’re prepared to take the gamble, then you could make significant gains from one of the other methods. Be warned though, without doing your homework, the risks could easily outweigh the rewards.
Recap of what it is:
Modern day auction is where the auction takes place on-line in real time and the buyer pays the commission on top of the sale price.
Prior to the cut-off date, the property is marketed by a local agent who prepares the brochure and takes the viewing in preparation for the day of the auction and the rapid sales completion it aims to deliver.
Why it’s not always the best option:
On the face of it, it sounds like the best of both worlds; the expertise of a local agent combined with a fixed cut off for the sale and no requirement to manually manage bids and negotiation. However, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Our belief is that you need continuity of team and service levels from start to finish. If the agent markets the property, sources applicants, takes viewings, and builds a relationship with the buyer, then handing the sale off at the critical point is only doing half the job. Often the buyers, who have dealt with the local agent up to this point, want to continue with that same level of service.
