Question...I am already using an Estate Agent, can I still attempt sell my house privately?

The answer is 'maybe'...It depends on what contract you signed with your agent.

If you are already with an estate agent you will have one of the following types of contract between the estate agent and yourself:

1. 'Sole selling / letting'
Sole selling / letting means your estate agent is the only one with the right to sell or let your house. Even if you find a buyer or tenant yourself, you'll still have to pay the agent!

2. 'Sole agency'
'Sole agency' also means the estate agent is the only one with the right to sell or let your house but if you find a buyer or tenant yourself, you will not have to pay the agent.

3. 'Multi agency'
'Multi agency' means that you can choose several estate agents to market your house but you will only have to pay commission to the one who sells or lets it

4. 'Ready, willing and able purchaser'
'Ready, willing and able purchaser' is a contract. If the estate agent finds you a buyer and you later withdraw from the sale, you'll still have to pay them.

As we are not an estate agent and your contract is either 2,3 or 4 then you can still use our services and sell or let your properties privately.

Note: Check your contract is not for Sole Selling rights.
Under Sole Selling Rights, your agent can claim commission even if you sell the property. Hopefully your contract is for Sole Agency.

We have all seen TV programmes like House Doctor, Property Ladder or House Auction, that give us all the tips and advice we need to know in order to sell our property. From watching programmes like House Doctor, I've picked up an amazing amount of ideas about selling a house and reaching the maximum asking price. The same can be said of Property Ladder, which focused on developing a house to its maximum potential for selling. However, after watching all of these programmes I can't help but think they are missing out on something fundamental to selling a house. From my point of view there are two different factors which decide a house sale. Firstly its the overall house appearance, garden, decoration, furnishings etc - making the house look attractive and appealing to buy. This are all catered for by the aforementioned TV programmes. Secondly, the house needs to be sold. This is the stage where having the right estate agent and selling price plays a huge influence and, unless you've done your homework, it almost all out of your control. Choosing the right Estate Agent is vital, as they should have done all the hard work for you and be the best ones for the type of property that you have.

Estate agents are seen by most as the only way to sell a house. Without trying to slate Estate Agents (as this is not my intention for this blog post), there can be false expectations associated with selling your house. The main one being the overall asking price. If you don't do your research into the housing market in your area, you could be left with a false sense of optimism about the value of your house. If an Estate Agent is putting the house on the market for a figure they hope to get this could lead you feeling frustrated if your house does not sell. By having such false ideals about the value of your house, a drop in the asking price might seem totally out of the question, affecting your and the Estate Agent's profits. Having both a realistic and carefully researched asking price will mean that you should see the property sell at a much more agreeable price. 

So apart from using an Estate Agent, what are the other ways of selling your home? Now that the hard work has been done on the appearance of your house, how can you go about putting it on the market? One of the more popular choices for a sale is to put it up for auction. Whilst you are then in control of the sale process and are saving on the time to sell the house, there are still the commission fees for auctioneer's and if the house is suitable for auction in the first place. Another option is to sell your house privately. Not as difficult as it may seem. Let me explain.

There is no question that the internet is rapidly expanding into new areas of business and our lives. Technology is changing the way we search for information and also acquire what we need. With everything you could possibly want being sold on eBay is it any wonder that items for sale are increasing in both size and price tag. If more people are searching for property on the web, then it seems only natural to progress to selling your home privately on the internet. So there are a number of websites where you can quite easily sell your home, eBay has been known to sell small properties in the US and even the founder of www.gumtree.com put up his £1 million bachelor pad for sale on the Gumtree website a few years ago. This can be just as successful for selling as using an Estate Agent all possible at a fraction of the advertising costs. 

Combine this cost cutting with the current economic conditions and this does look like a recipe for success. By selling your house privately, you can not only take control of the selling price but also how it is marketed. By advertising on the internet you can capture people who are directly looking for housing for sale and worldwide. There are a few highly specialised websites that are dedicated to selling your house that will be able to handle all the procedures for where your home will be advertised. With this part taken care of, all you need to do is research your asking price, make your home look appealing and then take care of the HIPs and Solicitor's fees. Your house can then be sold with you in control and get the asking price you want. People looking for saving money from commission fees and getting the price they want should consider a more high-tech way of selling your house.

If you are interested in how to sell your house online, why not visit www.UKHousing.com and find out how to sell you house privately for free and without an estate agent.  

In an attempt to solve the long term recession forecast, the Bank of England has cut official interest rates by half a percent to 1.5 percent...the lowest level in its 315-year history. So what will come of this?

Its hard to ignore the effects of the global credit crisis at the moment, house prices are falling, consumer spending has decreased and major retaillers have collapsed under the pressure. It seems that no-one is immune from this, as we saw the demise of Woolworths recently after nearly 100 of trading. The future might appear bleak but as with the previous recession of the early 1990s, we might see a light at the end of the tunnel. 

There is no doubt that the bank of England is under pressure as this latest cut moved them closer to the limits of monetary policy with a 0% interest rate. Now there is increasing pressure to avoid deflation and solve the effects of a weakening sterling whilst at the same time do everything it can to slow the impact of the recession. A big effect of this has been concentrated on house prices in the UK. Property no longer is the stable market that it was as the Housing makret has suffered its worst year on record falling by up to 16%. A similar pattern has been seen in the Service Sector, which makes up 75% of the UKs economy, where the fall was at a record pace in 2008 according to a survey by the Bank of England (BOE). 

On a more uplifting not, the BOE have given a warning about lending to houses and business is set to fall at the beginning of this year and consequently leading to more businesses going under and another fall in house prices. Whilst we are trying to protect our ecnonmy and increase people's confidence in the economy and securing jobs, can we really see when this will stabalise?

Yet we must look to the positive effects of the interest rate cuts and how this can jump start the depressed economy. With the co-operation of banks and other lenders to pass on the cuts we could see a positive effect. This will take a bit of time but the effects can be just what we need. The more support that is on offer from Banks and the Government alike, we must see any proposed changes as a step in the right direction. At least the Government and Bank of England are actually being proactive and creating solutions...however debatable they are!

Are you suffering from the effects of the failing property market? If you are looking for help and advice on selling your home then UKHousing.com can provide you with an answer. UKHousing.com provides people with the means to sell their house privately and without estate fee. We have a extensive portfolio of houses for sale UK all by the owner. Visit www.UKHousing.com and see how you can save money on your House Sale. 

If we were all to take note of the constant doom and gloom in the current financial situation of the UK, I’m sure that no-one would even leave the house for fear of losing money or at best – to save money! However, with the inevitable cycle of boom and decline there are some good things to be aware of…or are there?

Reading a current online article about UK house prices crash, I was reflecting on the housing boom period that was fuelled by such programmes as Property Ladder or Location, Location, Location. Since we have all been told about the housing market being as safe as ‘houses’ and that the market could not crash, it comes as no surprise that we don’t see these programmes at the moment. 

But this is not all doom and gloom. Reading another article on the BBC it was reassuring to see that property sales rose in October for the second month in a row according to the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA). This means that sellers were being more realistic with their asking prices stimulating the market to buy.

As people have realised that they need to cut prices in order to sell it now becomes evident that the sellers no longer hold all the aces. People are looking for better prices and this requires the selling price to fall – below what they wouldn’t have considered a year ago. As saving money in on everyone’s mind there are other ways of getting around the reduction in house prices.

Taking control of your finances and reducing the costs is a winning way. With the mounting Estate Agent fees together with HIPs and stamp duty, the reduction in the selling price makes things really tight. However, there is one way to reduce these costs – sell your house privately.

By listing your own house without an estate agent you can manage the costs of advertising as well as the overall selling price. Imagine removing all the heartache of finding the right estate agent and deciding on the right selling price? Selling your own home can be a stressful experience and using the service UKHousing.com provide can make this simple and save you thousands. With 70% of house hunters going online to look for a property what better way to make the most of the current market and sell your house privately?

Why not think about how much you can save if you sell your own house and balance out the reduced selling price? Its simple and UKHousing.com can help.

I don't think estate agents should take the blame for the rise in house prices. They were simply doing their job, which is (was) to get as much commission as possible for themselves and realise the highest value for the property.

I do however blame the banking system and indirectly the government for allowing this house price explosion to occur in the first place, because when even first time buyers in the North of England, earning a wage which is above the national average are struggling to get onto the housing ladder, alarm bells should have been ringing loud and clear in number 10!

At this point steps needed to be taken to address the irresponsible lending which was going on and the bank of England given a new mandate.

Instead, all we got from the government and house builders, were ever more imaginative schemes to allow people to get onto the housing ladder, like shared ownership.

Call me a cynic, but I looked into buying a shared ownership apartment some months ago and was left with the feeling that the whole scheme was a trick to allow me to buy a fraction of an overpriced property and pay rent of the remaining portion.

My point was whether I am paying 600 pounds Mortgage and 400 pounds rent , 1000 pounds is still leaving my back account every month!

If the banks would not lend me a mortgage with repayment of 1000 pounds per month, why would they lend me 600, knowing that I still had a further 400 pounds in rent to pay? They shouldn’t right?.. But this was how shared ownership works. Smoke and mirrors!

As a result of the cheapness of money and the ever more imaginative ways of getting people onto the housing ladder , the UK went property mad, with countless property shows illustrating how even the most inept Neanderthal can make money from property.

Now the party is over and we all have the hangover and collectively as a society we need to adapt.

My thoughts go out to all who, like myself, are caught with negative equity. I console myself by saying that negative equity is not going to be an issue for me until I need to sell, which is not going to be for a while.

Other people are not so lucky as this credit crunch and subsequent fall in property values are leading us ever further into a major economic downturn.

So who do I blame..?

Everyone.

We all got greedy and brought into the myth of money for nothing. We should remember that a house is a home, not a Magic piggy bank.

Sometime in the next few years, house prices will start to rise again, but with fewer estate agents (thanks to this downturn, and ukhousing.com) and financial institutions.

Peter James writes for UKHousing.com, where you can save thousands from Private House Sales without an estate agent.