How to Improve the Value of Your House to Sell Fast and Make a Big Profit

If you are looking to sell your house quickly, for a good price, a few minutes of browsing online will identify many companies and websites, all claiming they can purchase your property fast for cash.

However, less than a handful of them are genuine cash buyers, who are willing to pay a fair price for your house. With this guide, you will be able to recognise some of the common pitfalls of selling via this method, and discover the easiest ways to raise the sellable factor of your home, so that you can avoid being ripped off, sell within your desired timeframe and at the best possible price.

How Valuable Is Your Property?

As essential as it is to know the value of your property when selling, it is still overlooked by many people. Property prices have increased dramatically in the last decade in certain areas of the UK, and your property might be worth a lot more than you think. Homeowners who ignore factors such as rising prices, hidden value of their property (i.e. development potential) end up losing out in a sale. The fastest way to discover the value of your property is to examine the prices of similar properties on your street that have sold in the same location as your property, or by checking Zoopla and Rightmove.

When checking, focus on sold prices rather than asking prices. Usually, estate agents will inflate asking prices on displayed properties to win instructions, so they cannot be trusted to accurately reflect value. When you know the realistic value of your property, you can easily expose some of the fake quick sale companies, giving you offers that at face value seem far too good to be true. Certain property buyers make incredibly high initial offers just to get your attention. If their offer seems unrealistic compared to the sold prices of other properties in your location, it’s a red flag. They could turn around at the last minute to reduce their offer to an amount lower than what a reliable cash buyer would be offering.

Making a Fast Sale at a Good Price

It is quite easy to sell your house fast, as there are plenty of property buyers who would be happy to offer you a low price, to allow you the opportunity to sell quick. If you need a fast property sale, it’s necessary to take time and consider your options, before jumping on the first quick cash offer you find. The goal should be to sell your property fast, for the price you want or better, and there are different ways to achieve that.

Auctioning

Public auction offers a tried and tested method to sell a home fast, for a good price. Selling by auction ensures that the sale is open and transparent, and the final sale price is usually a reflection of the full value of the property. Auction is so efficient that some properties sell higher at auction compared to an estate agency sale. This method focuses on having the buyer pay as much as possible, without fixing a ceiling price on the item. When selling at an auction, you need to fix a reserve price, which is the minimum price you are willing to accept for the sale of your house. During the bidding process, the price will increase and in a lot of cases, the final sale price can be far beyond the seller’s own expectations.

Generally, auctioneers take on a property only if they can agree to a reserve price of about 85% of the market value. The percentage will depend on how sellable the property is. For instance, a property in a good area that simply requires modernisation, will be more attractive to potential buyers, so the auctioneer could be more open to a higher reserve price.

Quick House Sale Companies

Quick house sale companies offer to sell your house fast, by buying your house directly with cash at a discount rate or helping you to quickly find a third party buyer. While auctions offer a higher sales price compared to quick house sale companies, a managed and direct sale is sometimes more beneficial. With a quick house sale company, there is more flexibility, and where necessary, the seller can align the sale of their current house with the purchase of their next house.

A lot of the quick house sale companies are in fact property brokers – and even if they say they can, are actually unable to pay cash to complete a purchase. However, if you are in real need of the services of a quick house sale company, here are a few tips to guide you before and during an offer:

• Hire a personal solicitor. It is okay if the quick house sale company you are dealing with offers the services of their own solicitor. However, if the option of using your own solicitor is not on the table, then you should probably move on. So many complications can result from accepting an offer from the wrong type of company, leaving sellers worse off than when they started.
• Don’t sign anything. Be extremely wary of a company requiring you to sign an option agreement. Genuine cash buyers will generally proceed with a purchase in the same way an estate agent would be expected to.
• Request to see proof of cash funds. If the prospective third party buyer introduced to you by the quick house sale company is genuine – or if the company wants to make the purchase directly – they should be able to provide an evidence of cash funds e.g. a recent bank statement.
• Buy more time. No matter how quickly you want to sell off your house because of a tight timescale, it is worthwhile to make attempts to buy yourself some extra time. You’ll therefore be able to successfully avoid situations where you have to accept a low offer and sell to the first cash buyer.
• Keep your options open. Don’t allow yourself to get backed into a corner. If your options are limited, you could be tempted into taking a poor deal from the more dubious quick house sale companies. Just like in any type of negotiation, you should be able to walk away from the deal.

Look Out For Some of These Quick House Sale Scams

Unrealistic High Offers

Sometimes, the company, person or organisation claiming to want to buy your house fast, will make you an unbelievably big offer to rouse your initial interest. At the last minute however, they will reduce their offer when you have an even greater need to sell quickly, for an urgent reason like avoiding home repossession.

Dubious Cash Buyers

There are only a few real cash property buyers in the market, advertising on the internet or in the local paper. They cannot pay cash or offer you a professional service. Dubious cash buyers also act as enquiry sellers, simply there to pass your enquiry to someone else to handle. Such buyers can cause you delays and hassles, because they require finance, mortgage or another third party before you can sell your property.

Unregulated Sale and Rent Back

Sale and rent back refers to a form of property transaction involving the quick sale of a homeowner’s property to a landlord or property company and renting it back from the new owner. Transactions such as these are now fully regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). If you are hoping to continue living in the property after selling it, then ensure the company you are dealing with is regulated to do so and have the permission needed to operate.

Preparing Your House for a Quick Sale

Preparing a house for a sale is known as staging, and is an important step to ensure your property gets sold faster. Staging can add thousands of pounds to the value of your home as well. Follow these tips to get your house ready for a quick and profitable sale.

Make it look pretty by ensuring the windows are properly dressed with neat curtains or blinds. Use plants and flowers to add colour to the house and make it look inviting. Flowers will make it smell nice and increase the appeal to potential buyers.

Carry out necessary minor repairs and fix holes in walls and mend broken door knobs. Replace or remove torn, threadbare carpets, so that buyers looking to move in without making many changes have the option to do so. Clean the property, getting rid of limescale and any odours around the house. Pay attention to the garden too and cut the grass. Even if this doesn’t add much value to the property, it increases the likelihood of a quick sale.

Your kitchen is the most valuable room in a house and can make a difference to how quickly it sells, and at what price. Upgrade the kitchen by refacing the cabinetry, which is much cheaper than installing new cabinetry. Declutter the surfaces, clean the tiles and leave a bowl of fruit or a small plant on the worktop.

Selling your house is not always an easy task, and there’s more pressure when you are short on time to complete the sale and raise money. Make use of our guide, so that you can be armed with the right approach and preparation for quick success.