Steps involved with selling your house or flat
The UK government’s website on selling your home says to expect the process to take at least two to three months because of the various steps involved, and that this can take even more time if the sale is part of a chain.
Among the various actions that homeowners will have to take when selling is to obtain an Energy Performance Certificate for their house or flat if they don’t already have an up-to-date one. EPCs are legally mandated documents that provide a summary of your property’s energy efficiency, and are something that buyers will want to see before making a formal offer on your home.
There are a number of other tasks that you may have to complete as part of the process for selling your property, ranging from organising a removal company to switching your electricity, water any other utility bills to your next property. Several of these tasks can take a long time, so you will need to account for that as you try to plan the schedule for selling your home
For properties that certain problems, such as structural damage, legal issues or other negative factors, you might also need to decide whether you are willing and able to invest time, effort and money in resolving that flaw before attempting to find a buyer. Fixing such issues ahead of selling would eliminate a scenario in which a buyer loses interest in your house or flat because they worry about either the stress of dealing with the issue, the cost of fixing it, or both.
But many homeowners might not have the funds and energy available for repairing a problem with their property before selling. If so, you still have options to find a buyer as detailed later in this guide. One solution is getting in touch with a quick home buyer like LDN Properties because they will give you a fair offer regardless of any issues with the property, and just as importantly you would get to enjoy a very speedy selling timeline that should only take a few weeks.
Regardless of which method you choose for selling, you can expect a short delay at least between receiving an offer and signing, or exchanging, the contracts that complete the sale.
Issues outside your control that can delay the sale of a flat or house
Homeowners should also be aware that it’s not just the tasks that they will have to do which can extend how much time it takes to sell their house or flat. You could also find that issues that are not within your control might extend the overall timeline for selling a property.
One of the major factors that can cause a lengthy delay to the selling schedule can occur when someone wants to buy your home but is having problems in obtaining the necessary mortgage in order to afford the purchase. If someone wants to buy your home but can’t afford to do so without getting approved for a mortgage, then the sale will not be able to proceed.
A possible solution in this case is to verify with a prospective buyer that they already have the financial resources in place to be able to buy your home right away, as Propertyable says.
But if that is not a viable step, you could then consider other ways to sell your home that might help you still get a speedy sale – and even avoid having to pay any commission.
For example, you may want to talk to a quick home buying company such as LDN Properties. These companies make swift and competitive offers to purchase almost any freehold or leasehold home, no matter its age, condition, location, shape, size or type. They usually only take a few weeks to complete the process of buying a home, and this includes the important last steps of exchanging contracts and paying you the proceeds. Legitimate quick buyers also will never charge an owner any commission when purchasing their house or flat, which helps you to not only to accelerate the sale of your home but in addition reduce your total selling costs.
Average speed for different methods of selling your home
There are four main options for selling your house or flat: selling through an estate agent, selling at auction, and selling to a fast property buying company, or selling without any help. And as you’ll see below, all of these methods vary in terms of how they take to reach the vital final stages of exchanging contracts on the property and you receiving the sale proceeds.
Selling through an estate agent
If you’re selling your home through an estate agent, there are many different steps involved in the process. First, the estate agent will develop a listing for your property and start to host viewings where potential buyers can come and see it. Then you’ll have to wait until one of those buyers has enough interest to make an offer. Once you accept an offer you might have to wait until the buyer has formally received approval for the mortgage they intend to use to buy your house. And then you’ll have to go through conveyancing, which is the essential legal paperwork part of the process that should be handled by a professional. Finally, you’ll exchange contracts and the sale will be complete – all of these steps add up to several months typically.
Selling at auction
Alternatively, if you sell through an auctioneer then you can expect to sell your home on a much quicker schedule. That’s because the auctioneer will set a specific day for inviting bids on your property, and once the auctioneer accepts the highest bid that is considered a legally binding purchase. Most estimates say that even though an auction gives you a guaranteed day for selling your home, you can still expect to wait about a month after the auction day before the sale is finally complete. And remember you’ll also have to pay the auctioneer fees for handling the sale, so you’ll need to subtract those fees from the total amount of profit you can expect to make selling this way.
Selling to a fast property buyer
Yet another choice is to find a trustworthy fast property buyer who can make you a speedy and hassle-free cash offer to buy your house or flat. These companies excel at buying homes quickly because it’s what they specialise in doing. If they want to buy your house, the company will make a swift offer and, if you accept it, they will get to work taking care of all the necessary final legal paperwork and cash transfer to pay for your home on an accelerated schedule. As a rough estimate you could expect to finalise the sale of your house in just a couple of weeks if you use a fast property buyer.
Selling without any help
Often the most stressful of the selling options, doing so without any help puts the onus on you to handle all of the stages involved with finding a buyer – everything from creating and advertising a listing through to scheduling viewings and hearing offers from potential buyers. It’s a huge amount of time-consuming work, and you should not be shocked if it takes more than a full year before you get a serious offer. That makes it among the slowest ways to sell a property.
Everything else to know about your choices when selling a property
Beyond the timing involved with your four typical options for selling a home, there are a number of other important factors to learn about what you might experience with each selection, whether it’s selling with an estate agent, at an auction, to a quick buyer or selling on your own. Having a full understanding of all these factors will help you with deciding which approach to use.
When trying to decide how to seek a buyer, consider writing down your main goals with selling, including your ideal sale price, whether or not you can accept paying commission on the sale, and how fast you want to find a buyer. Then compare these elements against the specific details of the four selling options and this should help with finding the best match for your aims.
Selling with an estate agent
When you sell a home through an estate agent, they take on the responsibility of all the key steps with finding a buyer. First they will create a listing that describes your property and features photographs of the interior and exterior, which they’ll advertise in their office, online and in local newspapers. Then they will arrange viewings for anyone interested in your home to tour it. Finally, they’ll hear offers from buyers and try to get one to exchange of contracts.
Besides the long timeline involved, another drawback of selling this way is that you will be required to pay the estate agent commission if they manage to sell your home. This fee covers their work done in finding a buyer and it will be subtracted immediately from the eventual sale proceeds, which will increase your costs – so it’s not ideal if you’re looking to reduce expenses.
Typically, an estate agent will charge this fee in a range from 1.15 percent to 1.40 percent of your house or flat’s final sale price. But always check with individual estate agents about how much they will require that you pay, as it may be above or below this range.
Selling at an auction
As described earlier in this guide, this is another selling option that is far from the quickest. And there are other parts of this approach that you should discover before settling on using it.
You won’t need to put in much work with this choice because the auctioneer will take care of the main tasks for finding a buyer. This starts with creating and advertising your home’s listing to generate interest from potential bidders ahead of the auction, followed by hosting the auction itself, then overseeing the last steps to complete a sale after a successful auction.
For putting in all of this effort, the typical auctioneer will charge a seller commission at about 2.5 percent of their property’s final sale price. This fee is taken out of the auction proceeds instantly, so this will increase your expenses. If you want to reduce your total costs with selling your home then consider selling on your own, or to a zero-commission quick buyer like LDN Properties.
When auctioning, you will be asked to choose a reserve price – this is the lowest price at which you can accept selling your house or flat. You should try to calculate a reserve price that is likely to generate a profit for you from the sale, even after paying the auctioneer their commission. If you don’t, there’s the danger that you might end up only just breaking even at the auction by selling your home close to the price that you paid for it, or you could risk selling it at a loss.
Also note that a bid at the reserve price is considered a legally binding agreement to sell your property to the bidder. If you then attempt to cancel the sale once the auction has completed, the person that placed the bid could sue you in order to force the sale to happen.
Selling to a quick buyer
In addition to often being the speediest way to sell a home, a quick buyer like LDN Properties can be an excellent choice for a number of other benefits that you will get to enjoy, as they are a streamlined, zero-hassle and no-way stress option for selling almost any type of property.
One of these advantages is that honest quick buyers will never charge an owner any commission for selling their house or flat. That means you are assured of receiving the full sale proceeds, which can be perfect for people who want to keep their costs low when selling.
Quick buyers are also a suitable approach for so-called problem properties that might have one or more negative issues that discourage other buyers from making an offer. This can include legal disputes, overdue council tax bills or other charges, structural damage like dry rot or subsidence, or anything else that could make it harder to attract buyers to making an offer.
The reason why quick buyers are a good solution in such scenarios is that they make fair and fast offers on all leasehold and freehold homes regardless of these problems. Therefore you wouldn’t even have to worry about fixing any negative factors with your property before selling, because you will be guaranteed to still get a competitive and rapid offer from a quick buyer.
Selling on your own
Selling a home without any assistance from an estate agent or an auctioneer can be a very stressful approach because it will be your responsibility to handle all the steps needed to find a buyer. You will have to produce and advertise a listing, organise viewings, hear offers and try to get one to a sale.
Because of the huge time commitment required, this is not an approach to selling that you can try to only do in your spare time. This is why the people that tend to pursue this selling strategy are those who have managed to sell a home on their own in the past, or who have a suitably experienced friend or family member ready to assist the sale without charging them anything.
The only prominent benefit of selling on your own is that you can escape having to pay any commission to an estate agent or an auctioneer when the property sells, which reduces your total expenses. But many sellers find that any saving they make as a result is eliminated by the money that they have to spend on marketing their home’s listing and various other tasks.
For those owners who want to avoid paying fees whilst still getting a rapid sale, it’s advised to get in contact with a no-commission quick buyer like LDN Properties. You will achieve the same result of sidestepping having to pay fees on the sale, and you will also get to enjoy the advantage of a much faster sale that should be completed within just a few short weeks.
Some common queries about the time it takes to sell your home
As a quick property buying company, we have extensive knowledge of home sales and can offer these answers to some of the common queries we hear about how long selling can take:
It’s important to understand that the property market can fluctuate and you might be able to sell a house within weeks, or you might not find a buyer for months or even a year or more. However, as a general guideline the shortest possible time it can take from listing a home for sale through to formally exchanging contracts is at least a few months.
Because of the many steps involved with the process, starting with the initial listing of your home for sale and attracting potential buyers to view the property in person. After you’ve secured a buyer this way there is still a lot of legal and other paperwork to process, which means the process can stretch out for several months.
As the guide above explains, you might be waiting many months to find a buyer if you sell through an estate agent. Quicker alternatives for selling are doing so at auction, or selling to a quick property buying company like LDN Properties. Although both will get you a fast sale, if you decide to sell at auction you will have to pay the auctioneer fees for organising the sale.
For many properties, you will usually be able to select from selling using the services of an estate agent, trying your luck with a property auction, selling to an honest quick home buyer like LDN Properties or selling on your own. You will discover that these options vary for many important factors, not just on their timing but also with their expenses and other issues.
Because selling through an auction also involves a lot of waiting, which includes many weeks or even months between the day on which you decide to sell this way and the day on which the auction is held. If your home sells, the winning bidder/buyer then usually has at least a month to complete the steps needed to finalise the sale, such as signing the required legal papers.
You will only have to pay commission if you decide to sell your house or flat through either an auctioneer or an estate agent. If they succeed in finding a buyer for the property, you will then be charged commission as a percentage of the sale price, and this will be taken out of the sale proceeds. Selling to a no-fee quick buyer or on your own are two ways to not pay commission.
No, because if you get an offer on your property through an estate agent or if you’re selling on your own, the person making the offer could later cancel it. This would cause the sale to collapse and require you to begin again with seeking a buyer, delaying a sale even further. And you can’t penalise the person who did this unless you have already exchanged contracts.
