FOOL'S EYE VIEW
Reducing The Stress Of Selling Up

By Jane Mack (TMFJane)
July 6, 2004

It's said that moving house is one of the top three most stressful things in life - divorce and bereavement being the other two. A friend of mine can certainly testify to it - he put his house on the market three weeks ago and has been surprised by how stressed out he's been.

When he rang last night to say he'd just accepted an offer the relief in his voice was palpable. Judging by the bulging property pages of my local newspaper quite a lot of people are going through exactly the same stress - for some reason the world and his wife seem to have their homes on the market at the moment! But while looking for a house to buy is the fun bit - selling your current home is not as easy as you'd think.

Seeing as my friend's just gone through the mill, I thought it would be interesting to ask him what sort of tips he would have for others thinking about selling up.

He says it's essential to be methodical about it. He's been planning to sell up for the last six months and has set about it in a very deliberate fashion. He points out that it is difficult to watch an evening's worth of television these days without getting someone's advice on how to sell your house so he and his girlfriend have spent many weekends touching up the paintwork where necessary and carrying out all the little DIY jobs that he's managed to ignore for the last ten years. De-cluttering and cleaning has also taken a lot of time.

He decided to choose his estate agent in an equally methodical way. Like many people he doesn't have a very high opinion of them claiming that they were put on this planet to make solicitors look good! So, apart from canvassing opinions from friends about who they might recommend, he spent some time checking out their websites before calling five of them in to give a valuation. He was put off by agents using generic house-selling sites only and looked for those who maintained their own. A professionally presented website might mean he stood a chance of getting an agent who would behave professionally.

When the agents started traipsing round, he decided to conduct discussions as if he was giving them a job interview. He was about to spend in the region of £2,500 with one of them and he wasn't going to spend it lightly. He also made a checklist of questions so he could avoid being steered away from asking what he really wanted to know.

A couple of them annoyed him because they kept mentioning the words 'free valuation'. Nonsense, he thought - they're bidding for my business and a valuation is simply part of the tendering process so it's nothing to be impressed about. One was patronising, another was a bit too school-marmy and he said a third had a handshake like a warm wet fish. The 'wet fish' agent also valued the house at £10,000 - £15,000 more than the others which he found a bit suspicious as it's a common tactic used by agents to try and get your business - buyers won't pay over the odds so inevitably you end up having to reduce it later. Ultimately he made his choice on the basis of the fee he managed to negotiate (1.2%), the fairly short lock-in and notice periods, and a large dose of gut feeling.

So far so good. Except that the day the sign went up, his emotions came into play and the stress levels rose. This surprised him because he really wants to sell the house and felt he had prepared for the process quite thoroughly.

He hadn't bargained for the amount of effort it would take to keep the house absolutely spotless at all times. He worried constantly about whether it was priced correctly, whether it was the right time to sell and whether people would like it. And, above all, he hated the thought of all those strangers poking around his home - it was an invasion of his privacy.

To get around this unexpectedly emotional response to selling the house, he went out a lot during the week and away most weekends. The less time he spent in the house the less time he spent thinking about it.

In short, the whole process has been disruptive, unsettling and time-consuming and the only good thing about it is that he does not have the added worry of having to look for another house to buy because he's moving in with his girlfriend.

His top tips to sellers would be to prepare your house for sale properly so that you know it's looking its best. Get several valuations so you feel reassured that it's going to be marketed at the right price and choose your estate agent very carefully - the more faith you've got in the agent, the more confident you'll feel. And once it's gone on the market, keep yourself occupied by indulging in some of your favourite hobbies and pastimes - distraction works wonders for the emotional aspects associated with selling your home.

Now he's just keeping his fingers crossed that the sale won't fall through!

Check out How To Find a Good Estate Agent; Clean Up On Your House Sale; Homebuying and Mortgages