Tag: Estate Agents

Guest Post: 7 Reasons You Should Sell Your House Online

Is it time to move on, move up and move out? Do you need to sell your property in a stress free and easy to manage process that will leave you with more moolah for home improvements? Then you need to sell your house online. Here’s why:

1. You Don’t Need To Leave The Sofa. Yes that’s right, you can sell your home without even leaving the sofa. That’s providing you have a laptop or a tablet and the internet at home. The beauty of using an internet estate agent is that they prefer to do business online, so from initial sign up to general communication you can use email, an online account on their website and even Skype for your calls.

2. You Don’t Have To Deal With Salesmen And Receptionists In Branch. If you live a quiet life you may well enjoy popping in to town on a rainy day to catch up with your estate agent on the progress of your house sale, waiting around in their shiny office and having to make small talk with the receptionist while the sales men gets off the phone. However, if like most of us you find salesmen trying on your patience, you will be please to know that online agents work differently by giving you a personal account manager at the end of the phone and on email.

3. You Can Save A Lot Of Money. By cutting out the high street sales man you will be saving hundreds, probably thousands of pounds in estate agent fees that would normally be wasted on fancy shop fronts, neon lighting and receptionists. Online agents tend to cap their fees or work on a fixed rate for all so there’s no need to worry when you achieve a good sale price that all of your profit will go on commission.

4. More Potential Buyers Will See Your Property For Sale. Internet estate agents have some special marketing boosters up their sleeves when it comes to selling your property. Because they are online, they are able to effectively capture massive lists of email address and to send out details of your property to those who may be interested as soon as it goes online. Add to that the ability to feature properties to have them sit at the top of the main pages of websites like RightMove, and you’ll be fighting off the viewing requests with a stick.

5. You’ll See Real Life Feedback. Having a customer account on the online estate agents website lets you see all sorts of reports and information that you may not get from a high street agent. You’ll be able to see statistics on how many people have clicked on your property details, how many people have asked for further information and whether there has been any useful feedback to take on board from previous viewings

6. You Can Work Out Of Hours. Because the online agents don’t have a branch, they don’t expect everyone to be able to work within their hours. No storming through rush hour traffic in your lunch break to steal a chat with these guys – you can email them at your leisure and log in to your account whenever you take fancy.

7. You Get All The Things You Would With A Non-Online Agent. Even though the cost of selling your house online is much cheaper, this doesn’t mean the service you will receive is not as good. You’ll have everything you need from a floor plan to a for sale sign and even someone to come and show people around and close the deal for you while you’re still sat on that sofa.

June 8, 2012
Guest Post: 7 Reasons Landlords Should Select The Right Tenants
There are a vast number of strange people in this world. Despite our best efforts to understand the litany of weirdness that surrounds them, we are often left baffled by their mysterious ways. If you’re a Landlord looking to let a property, then the last thing you want is The Crazy Guy living under your roof.

Unfortunately, the ‘good tenant’ is a rare and elusive creature, who is greatly outnumbered by the ‘odd-squad’. Thankfully for you, we have listed the seven reasons for landlords to select the right tenant, and more importantly, just how to spot them.

"Hello, I'm your new tenant. Don't worry, I only turn dead animals into bagpipes."

1. Hello, Is It Me You’re Looking For? As Lionel Ritchie once famously sang “hello, is it me you’re looking for?” The short answer is no! One of the best things you can do is meet with the potential tenant in advance. Nine times out of ten you will know if something is amiss. Tell-tale signs are any of the following:
- The everlasting handshake: If your arm is still being violently thrusted up and down after 10 minutes, then loosen your grip and head cautiously to the nearest exit.
- Soap dodgers: Tenants should treat this as they would a job interview. If they turn up in filthy clothes and covered in muck, then this is a clear insight in to their own living habits.
- Everyone needs good neighbours: One of the quickest ways to get evicted is getting complaints from your neighbours. Ask your tenant what their likes and hobbies are. Playing an acoustic guitar at 5pm may be soothing. Belting out heavy metal from your electric guitar at 3am is something quite different.
2. Show Me The Money. You want a tenant that will be financially responsible. This means someone that will pay their rent on time. Ask to see copies of their recent pay slips and even speak with their employer. Avoid anyone that asks to pay in small change or colourful buttons!

3. Run A Credit Check. Even if their wallet is bursting at the seams, they could still be in more debt than Greece. Find a professional company to run a credit check, they will be able to tell you if they have a history of paying bills on time. It will also check their monthly income and if they have any outstanding debt.

4. Welcome To The Zoo. Whether you hug puppies, or feed mice to hungry anacondas, liking ‘pets’ and having them reside in your home are two different things. Be clear what your rules are if allowing pets. One hyperactive dog can leave you with thousands of pounds worth of damage to your property.

5. Brush Up On Your History. The best person to ask about their living habits will be their previous landlord. Ask to speak with them to find out if you are inheriting a problem tenant. Be careful though as they may be some what forthcoming with the truth in an attempt to off load them on you. Remember, if it’s too good to be true, then it probably is.

6. Lifestyles. Do they move or switch jobs often? If the answer is yes then they are unlikely to be a long term tenant. If their last long-term employment was their school paper round, then they may struggle to regularly pay the rent.

7. Two To A Room. Be extremely clear as to how many occupants you allow per room. Even Noah made the animals enter ‘two by two’. You don’t want to find your cosy one bedroom flat has twenty people living inside. Clearly state in your contract how many people are legally allowed to live in your property.

By following these simple rules you can rest easy that your tenants are living in tranquillity, while the nutty and quirky are left safely locked outside.

Author Bio: Andrew Potter writes for My Online Estate Agent where you find useful guides such as how to advertise on Rightmove and other useful property tips.
March 7, 2012
Guest Post: 7 Reasons Not To Move House

Returning to the 7 Reasons sofa for his second stint as a guest poster is student and Muse fanatic Rob. A. Foot. When he’s not loading the back of removal vans he can be found playing his saxophone/piano/harp/french horn/penny whistle (all at the same time) on his blog, There Is Music In The Breakdown.

1. Tidying. A horrible piece of collateral that comes with moving. First of all, you have to tidy up the clutter that has gathered around the house since the day you moved in. No matter how tidy you think you’ve kept the house, there’s always more. Looked behind the sideboard? The plant pot? Under the sofa? There’ll be more behind the desk, all those little things that have been knocked off over the years. Good luck picking up all of that rubbish.

2. Estate Agents. Widely regarded as the slippery eel career, a nasty necessity of the moving business. First of all you have to show a number of them around your house, just so you can see how much money they think that they can get out of the poor sod who has to buy your house. Then you hand over a key to them. The equivalent of handing the key to heaven to Lucifer, but with slighty less ramifications to all humanity.

3. Having people look round your house*. So, you’ve tidied your house, chosen the most ambitious estate agent, now you just have to do one little thing. Find someone who actually wants to buy it. Hmm. That means having people look round. Which means polishing every visible surface until you can see the inevitable fly in the air, hovering around the house and not wanting to leave. Then you leave the house in the hope that the estate agent doesn’t scare off any potential buyers, and that the fly hasn’t started breeding.

4. The post-visit call from the estate agent. So, did the people like it? Or did they think that the garden wasn’t big enough for the horses that they planned to get? Well, they’re certainly not going to tell you their concerns to your face, they aren’t going to be that impolite. So, you wait for the call from the estate agent to hear what the damage is, and how little they want to move into your house. So you then repeat steps 3 and 4 until, mercifully, someone decides that they want to buy the house. Then you get more problems for your trouble.

5. Finding a house. So, you’ve finally managed to sell your house. But, it has taken so long, you’ve lost the original ambition and optimism that arrive with putting the house on the market, when you scouted around for suitable houses. All the houses that looked to be perfect were sold months ago, so you now have to find something that will always pale to that ideal house which you had found. It now becomes a slog as you look round house after house, all with their flaws. Until you give up and go for the least bad house.

6. Moving Day. I consider myself a veteran of moving days. Having experienced 7 of these in the 17 years of my life, I’m getting bored of them, to say the least. First, you have to make sure that you have packed everything away in the correct boxes and that they’re sealed up and marked correctly. Then, check that you haven’t left something important and expensive, but small, say, a camera or gold plated iPod, lying in a corner somewhere, waiting to be left behind and found by the next family to live in what was your house. Then you have the fun moment of arriving at the new house and checking through every box to make sure that the removal men haven’t broken anything valuable, say, some expensive china crockery given to your parents as a wedding gift 20 years ago. Then you get to unpack. Fun.

*7. The surprise visit. The worst nightmare of any prospective homeseller. The people who “happened to be in the area” with the estate agent decide, on a whim, to have a look round your house. You’re lucky if you get a phone call half an hour before they arrive. So, you have a mad panic to make the house presentable, which, inevitably, doesn’t help much. So you edge around the house while they look round, trying to avoid confrontation, where they may ask what sort of fire is in the hearth, when it is clearly an open fire. This is where a buyer bunker would come in handy. You’d stick it in the bottom of the garden, underground. You could kit it out with all that you need, a digital radio so you can listen to Test Match Special and a packet of Hobnobs.

July 3, 2010