We Buy Any House
If you’ve landed on this page, chances are you’ve searched google looking for a company that can buy your property. No doubt you’ve visited a number of sites with big bold ‘we buy any house’ statements all over their website, correct?
Well, we are not going to bore you with the same promises that they all make; quoting 7 day property sales turnarounds, or up to 100% market value paid for your home.
What we are going to tell you is the truth: How you can actually sell any house quickly yourself with or without our help.
Using us to buy your house
The reason we can buy any house in any location is because we work with a network of buyers looking for property to buy in England, Wales & Scotland (sorry we can’t help you in Northern Ireland – yet).
Our technology allows us to compare all the ‘we buy any house’ companies in the UK, and get homeowners the best price for their home. We are actually more of a technology company than a property company, having built one of the most accurate valuation tools on the market. It uses an algorithm to pull 22 million records together, resulting in an online property valuation used by much of the property industry to estimate accurate valuations.
We invite all the national property buyers to be a part of our comparison search so we are confident it’s very accurate and up-to-date.
If you want to compare all the ‘we buy any house’ companies in the UK with just a few clicks then just enter your postcode. We will ask you only 5 simple questions and it’ll only take about 60 seconds to answer. Then you’ll get an instant online valuation and several potential cash offers on your home to review. How much is your house worth?
How can I sell my house?
Last year there were over 1.2m property transactions throughout the UK, which is a 5-year record! Plus there are over 500,000 properties for sale in the UK, and that number is growing by 100,000 a month!
So with all those properties on the market, let’s take a look at some of the best ways you can sell any house quickly.
Estate agents
Love or hate them they currently represent over 90% of the market in terms of selling options homeowners choose. Typically, they charge a commission of between 1.5-2.5% of the purchase price, and will market your property via the main online property portals such as Rightmove and Zoopla, along with local contacts of the agency, and local news outlets such as newspapers.
Online estate agents
They have grown 100% year on year and now have 5% of the UK property market in terms of sales. Whilst they have only 5%, it is an option growing extremely quickly and some estimate 50% of homeowners looking to sell their property will be using online estate agents by 2020. If you’re looking to sell a property, then this might be a great option – but it doesn’t always suit people looking to sell quickly – or who have a non-standard situation.
Online estate agents are a little bit like a sausage factory in the sense that, while they can churn out high volumes of sales for lower fees than high street agents, you do loose that personal touch and can often be left with a bill, even if they don’t sell your house. The largest online estate agent is currently Purple Bricks who own a whopping 50% of the market, making it the 4th largest UK estate agent!
The big problem with some of these online agents is that they may have hidden fees – even if they fail to deliver. Some charge an up-front fee which is non-refundable, or as we recently found, some including Tipilo state a ‘pay later’ fee of £795, but fail to clearly highlight that ‘pay later’ doesn’t mean ‘pay when they sell your house’. It means you pay within 6 months regardless if they can sell or not. So be wary and be sure to read the small print carefully.
We buy any house companies
Just searching the phrase ‘we buy any house’ will give you 1000’s of search results – you might have even found us that way. Currently around 30,000, or 2%, of all properties are sold to property buying companies who normally offer you one or all 3 ways to sell your home:
- A cash offer of around 80% of the market value for a 30-day completion.
- An offer of around 90% market value via an assisted sale, which means they won’t buy your house directly but will market it themselves at their own expense to get the best price possible. You get a fixed amount regardless of their success.
- If the above two options don’t work they flip you over to an online estate agency model, similar to the one outlined above as most larger property buyers own their own estate agency to assist in selling via option 1 and 2.
Unlike traditional or online estate agents you will not normally pay any commission or fees to sell your house via this option. But all companies want to make money and property buying companies are certainly no exception. Normally they will aim to make their money by adding some value to the property (such as a new kitchen or bathroom) and then re-sell the property back onto the open market. Whilst this is great for sellers who just want to sell their house without doing any refurbishment works, you are leaving money on the table using this option. However, overall we think selling to a ‘we buy any property’ company is a great alternative for houses or flats, which might not fit the estate agent cookie cutter models.
Private house sale website and property auctions
Finally, we can’t compile a list of ways to sell a property without talking about private property sale websites or property auctions. Taking the remaining 1% of the market, these companies still help 13,000 homeowners a year sell their home.
Property auctions are great for properties in need of refurbishment, or properties which might be in a unpopular area. The property buyers tend to be builders or buy-to-let investors, looking to grab a property bargain. Typically, you can achieve around 75-85% of the market value and the property auction will normally charge you around £250 upfront, and then 1.5% of the sale price on completion. The great thing about this sales route is, subject to having enough interest, you’re guaranteed to sell your house on the day of auction.
Private property sale websites were a big thing back in the noughties, but for us it’s difficult to recommend them. Normally they charge an upfront fee of £50-£150 and list your property on their website and a few small portals. They’re not estate agents so they can’t get you on RightMove and Zoopla, and the likelihood of them selling your house fast, or at all, is fairly slim. Most of the older sites have converted over to online estate agency models or gone out of business.
In summary
You have many ways to sell your house, especially in the current world of new technology. 90% of you are probably going to still sell via a high street estate agent, but we really recommend you at least have a look at the alternatives.
We just don’t understand why the property industry is still not fully transparent in their pricing models, but we are working really hard to make that change. If you think about the way you buy products now, it will be hard to imagine taking out a mortgage or energy plan without comparing the market first on websites like moneysupermarket.com.
In fact, if you’re looking to buy a property that’s exactly what you do: compare and view different properties on various websites. That is why we think every property seller should also be using us to compare different selling options and cash buyers, before signing any contract or paying any money up-front.
