The single biggest question house sellers in Cheadle need to ask themselves

Making the decision to sell your home and move is a big one. In fact, recent research showed that most people start thinking about and researching the idea 6 – 9 months before doing anything. 

Whatever the reason whether it’s downsizing, needing more space, wanting a better neighbourhood, employment or to be closer to excellent schools, it’s often life changing and a huge decision.

Once you’ve made the commitment to move you have another big question to address.

How do I sell my home for the best price possible within the shortest period? Which let’s be honest is what most house sellers considers the most important aspect of selling.

We recommend getting two or three estate agents to visit your property to give you a valuation and to find out what their service, marketing and fees are.

It’s at this point you need to consider perhaps the biggest question when it comes to selling your home.

What basis are you going to choose a selling agent? Fees or Price?

At this point it’s worth remembering the 19th century poet and writer, Oscar Wilde’s quote about someone who always went for the cheapest option, no matter what: “They know the price of everything, but the value of nothing.”

And this is worth considering when instructing an estate agent to sell your home, as value and price are often confused and quite different things.

On one hand an agent can come in and say they will only charge you, let’s say a flat fee of £950 for example.

While another agent says they would charge 1 per cent commission on the sale price they achieve.

So, let us look at a mathematical example and assume your property is valued at £300,000.

There are two things to ask yourself here– the first agent has offered a flat fee of £950 – that’s regardless of whether your home sells for the offered price or less. Where is the incentive for them to negotiate and fight your corner to make sure you get the full asking price and not £280 – £290,000? That’s literally nothing to them but to you it’s a heck of a lot more money in your bank.

Let’s say the offer on the table is £290,000 – less their fee of £950 would give you £289,050 – remember that figure! 

The agent working off a percentage, like we do at Maurice Kilbride has a huge incentive to get you the asking price, or as is often the case with ourselves, several bids, resulting in an offer above the original asking price

So, again let us be conservative and say we only achieve the full asking price of £300,000. At 1% that’s £3000 plus VAT of £600 – a total of £3600, which will leave you with a figure of £296,400 some £7350 more in your pocket!! 

In a nutshell a flat fee agent, hybrid, online, up front agent may seem a cheaper option at first – but when you investigate it, the agent working on a commission can get you a better selling price – putting potentially thousands of pounds extra into your pocket.

And this is before you factor in the equally important sales progression management, which is impossible to quantify in monetary terms but given that recent figures showed a certain online agent only completing on around 48% of its sales, finding a buyer is only half the battle, getting it through to completion first time is massively difficult and requires skill, experience, patience, diplomacy and time.

Contrary to some public and press opinion not all estate agents are the same and remember the cheapest agent is not the one offering the lowest fee, but the one who puts most money in your pocket.

At Maurice Kilbride we believe we add considerable value to clients selling experience, see the link here on our website https://mkiea.co.uk/sell-your-home/to some terrific client reviews as we regularly achieve the best possible prices for our clients and get them through to completion first time! which we would love to have a chat with you about if you are thinking of selling.

So, thanks for reading and please remember we are here to help you in any way we can.

Maurice 

Whether you are selling, buying, letting or renting, we are here to help.  Call Patrick, Joe or Maurice on 0161 428 3663, e-mail sales@mkiea.co.uk or why not pop into our office on Cheadle High Street for an informal chat and a coffee. Alternatively, you can book a valuation online at a time convenient to you https://mkiea.co.uk/valuation/