Gransnet forums

House and home

Selling house quickly

(7 Posts)
j00ls312 Mon 13-Jul-20 12:42:57

Hi Has anyone had experience of selling a property via a house buying company? We need to move house really quickly. Our house isn’t in good decorative order due to money constraints and I can’t see anyone buying it other than the house buyer route. Would be grateful for any advice.

Franbern Mon 13-Jul-20 12:56:41

I did make enquiries from one of these companies, when I was trying to sell my house two years ago. It was all done over the phone and quite interesting. I had put the house on the market in July 2018, just at the start of an intensely hot spell. Had very few viewings, reduced the price of the house I had thought the EA had valued it much too high), still nothing happened, so I reduced it again. Then I phoned this company.

What they did was to look it up on Rightmove and then offered me about 80% of what it was being offered for on there. I did ask what would have happened had I contacted them when it was on at the very much higher price - would they still have offered 80% o fthat price, which would have been nearly what it was on for at the lower price. Never got any reply to that.

So, perhaps you need to get as high a valuation as you can on your house, by a local EA, get it on Rightmove, and then contact these companies. They say it can all be done with a week or two, but from I actually hear, even with them, it can take several weeks to complete.

If you do go down this route, it would be interesting if you could let us know how you get on with them.

Illte Mon 13-Jul-20 13:36:46

Go to auction. Set a reserve price. It will be completed quickly and the price cannot be negotiated down afterwards. House buying firms are in it to make as much profit as possible and might reduce their offer as exchange approaches.

The house auction market is likely to be quite active as people want a quick completion to take advantage of the temporary stamp duty reduction.

dontmindstayinghome Mon 13-Jul-20 13:52:20

Be wary, I have heard from a few sources that some of these companies agree a very reasonable price then when you are at the point of exchange they reduce the offer significantly.

As with any company, do your research, check out independent reviews and choose accordingly.

Good luck.

StaceywWalker Fri 30-Sep-22 10:06:15

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

Shinamae Fri 30-Sep-22 10:13:38

My friend sold a three bedroom X council house in North Devon to one of these companies they paid her £130,000 and sold it for £170,000..

Granny23 Fri 30-Sep-22 10:36:59

I have had a conversation with the landlord who owns and rents out the flat next door and 2 others in the cul-de-sac. He told me that he had bid for my flat and dropped out when I updated my offer by 10 grand, making it above his limit where it would be profitable for him. He asked me if I would contact him if I ever wanted to sell quickly, said he would offer the asking price immediately and thereby save time and the expense of Estate agents and any need to upgrade the flat in order to sell.

So contacting established local landlords (they are not all sharks) to see what they offer, would be another route to a quick sale.