Home Selling Tips
Selling your home is a big step. With over 35 years in the property industry, Rawson can offer some practical home selling tips that will help you to ensure that the sale of your property runs smoothly.
Tips for Selling Your Home
Selling a property involves a lot of preparation and activity. The following are general tips for selling your home.
Home Selling Tips: Setting an asking price
Don't set a price without getting some advice. Follow these home selling tips for when you are trying to decide on what kind of price to ask. Asking the wrong price can be detrimental to your sale.
- There is no such thing as a fixed price for a property. The value of any property is determined by how much a buyer is willing to pay for it at the time it is being offered for sale. In the case of a house or an apartment, this is usually influenced by the prices being paid for other properties in the neighbourhood, and by the condition and features of your property.
- The simplest way to set your asking price is to ask an estate agency for a written "comparative market analysis". Our home selling tip is that this should be free of charge and it will not commit you to appointing the estate agency to sell your property for you.
- You can ask more than one estate agency for a comparative market analysis, but you should find that they all present you with similar figures. If any estate agency gives you a price that is markedly higher than the rest be suspicious: it may be a ploy to persuade you to give it a sole mandate.
- You can also call in a professional valuer to value your property, but he or she will charge you a fee. Our home selling tip is that unless you have some special reason for needing a professional valuation, an estate agency's market analysis will be quite sufficient.
Home Selling Tips: Time frame
When it comes to when you will get paid, our tip for selling your home is that it can take weeks, or even a few months, to sell your property, and a few months more to transfer ownership to the buyer. You will probably only be paid after transfer.
Home Selling Tips: Commission
Naturally, you will pay the estate agency a commission for selling your property for you. It can be either a flat fee, or else a percentage of the selling price. The percentage-based commission is probably the most commonplace.
There is no fixed commission rate in South Africa. Every commission must be negotiated between the seller and the estate agency. Reason's tip for selling your home is that the recommended rate is 71/2% (plus value-added tax), but this can be negotiated.
Commission is normally paid only after ownership of the property has officially been transferred into the buyer's name.
Home Selling Tips: Preparing your property for sale
Our best advice for selling your property is that you should make your property look as smart and attractive as you can before you offer it for sale. We suggest the following:
garden and yard - cut the grass, weed the garden, remove any rubble
outside of the building - paint, wash, clean up
kitchen - make the stove, refrigerator, sink and floors spotless and gleaming
bathroom - make it neat, spotless and fresh
plumbing - repair dripping taps (faucets)
lights - make sure all the lights work, clean the shades
hardware - oil door hinges, tighten doorknobs, replace missing keys
cupboards (closets) - pack them neatly to avoid the impression that they may be too small
spaciousness - remove unnecessary items from rooms to make them as spacious as possible.
Please note: We have compiled these home selling tips in good faith, but we accept no liability for any errors, or for any use that is made of it, or for any problems or damage that may arise as a result of using or acting upon this information.
