Selling Your Property - Viewings

If you have an estate agent, you need to decide who is going to hold the viewings. If you are out a lot then it will be easier for your estate agent to arrange viewings and show people around. On the other hand, you would need to always be prepared for a viewing. If you are at home a lot of the time, then you may wish to show people around your property yourself. This has the added bonus of you being able to give any viewers a very personal view of your property - as long as you concentrate on the positive aspects. You should choose an option which both you and your agent are happy with. You may not feel comfortable or confident about having to ‘sell’ your home yourself. Alternatively, you may not be comfortable with the idea of strangers walking around your home while you are not in.

You will need to show your home at its best. This means that if there is the prospect of a viewing, everything needs to be clean and tidy. Some people go so far as to suggest that your dining table should be fully set as if for a dinner party and the house should smell of coffee or freshly baked bread - this may be taking it too far. The house should be able to sell itself without the need for baking your own bread! A nice, fresh, general smell would be preferable to the smell of pets and mustiness, though.

Answer all questions honestly. At the very least, you should make what could be a negative point against your home into a positive one. If you are showing people around yourself, spend some time asking yourself what potential viewers will be asking, and come up with a positive answer to it. For instance, if the garden is small, it can be very easily managed. Equally if a kitchen is small, everything can be easily reached and it could have plenty of cupboard space and worktop space (remembering to keep it as uncluttered as possible). If the people viewing prefer a table in the kitchen, you can point out how lovely you find it to be able to shut the door on the kitchen mess and relax to eat. Or if you have a kitchen/diner you can point out how sociable this is. Make sure that you know when the property was built and how old fixtures are. It may also be an idea to keep some of your latest bills to hand to show what the running costs are, and how much the council tax is.

Make sure that you do not just allow perfect strangers into your home. Even if you are selling privately, make sure that everybody has an appointment rather than just knocking on the door and expecting to be shown around. If you feel at all uncomfortable, then try to have somebody on hand who can come in, or somebody else with you. Don’t keep valuable jewellery or money on display.

Point out features that are not immediately obvious to buyers, such as security measures and items that will be included in the sale.

Most buyers will ask how long a property has been on the market and how many viewings you have had. You need to answer these honestly; however buyers will be looking for specific answers. If the property has been on the market for a while, they will want to know why it has not sold. Equally if you have had lots of viewings but no offers, they will want to know why - and so should you! The longer your home has been on the market, the more the viewers will think they can knock off the price to get a good deal. Ideally, your property will have just come on the market and you have lots of viewings lined up. This would create a feeling of urgency with buyers.

One of the most common questions you will be asked is why you are selling. One of the most common reasons for selling is for a bigger or smaller property - which should be answered very carefully. You do not want to give the impression that the property is too small for anyone, or too large to manage. If you are downsizing, then this is easily remedied by selling the property as a very comfortable, happy family home which you do not need anymore as your children have left. If you can find an alternative to saying that you need a bigger home, then you should do this. For instance moving closer to work, or looking for a property as a renovation project.

If you have done major building work then point out any guarantees that you have - these will usually be held with the deeds. By making this clear from the start, if anything crops up during a survey, you can immediately show the buyer the guarantees.

You can ask viewers questions too. You may want to know their buying position - whether they are selling a property too, whether they have a provisional mortgage offer and whether they are part of a chain. This will show how serious they are about buying and could indicate that a transaction would go through quickly. You may both have definite ideas about when you would ideally like to move - for instance if their sale is dependent on a particular date. Obviously you do not want to be turning offers down if they do not meet an exact timeframe, so try to be as flexible as you can.

Finally, if you have a dog then try to make sure that it is out of the way for viewings. Buyers need to be able to get into and around the property easily, without having to dodge the attentions of the family pet.

More Selling Your Property topics below:

• Estate Agents - what can you expect from an estate agent?
• Private Sales - avoiding expensive estate agents fees
• Viewings - what you should say, what you should answer and what you should ask.
• Offers - how can you tell when an offer is the highest you will get?
• Surveys - as a seller, what can you expect from the survey?
• Legal - what is involved with conveyancing for sellers?
• Financial - what can you expect to be paying for when you sell your property?
• Selling Pack's - how the government proposes to speed up the property buying process
• Moving - what you should organise in order to have as easy a move as possible.

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