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Informal Tender can be a really effective way to sell properties that need complete modernisation or any other kind of development opportunity such a houses with planning to significantly enlarge or building plots. Take for instance this large four bedroom detached house that we recently agreed a sale on through informal tender:

It was in a prime location and clearly had scope to significantly improve and extend so I advised the client to go the Informal Tender route. What we did was set a deadline for buyers to get their bids in by, usually four or five weeks after you start marketing, and then agree a guide price range, in this case £500,000 – £550,000. The range gives buyers an indication of the sort of price you expect to achieve, though it is quite common for the winning bid to beat the top end. You then arrange a couple of…

We have just managed to rescue a house sale that nearly fell apart because the buyer had agreed to use a cut price solicitor recommended by their High Street estate agent. These companies are the bane of our lives because in order to cut costs to a minimum they often cut corners. The one in question wasted three weeks while they worked out whether they were or were not instucted (their client kept calling to ask them to act for him but to no avail). They even threw away the first lot of paperwork we sent them as it arrived a couple of days after the sale was agreed and they din’t have a case number opened. Unbelievable. You see people think they are going to save money, but it can end up with them losing their dream home as sellers lose patience with them. The problem is that…

The Government have anounced today that they are getting rid of the Property Misdescriptions Act which is the legislation that was brought in to protect consumers from rogue estate agents basically telling lies about a house to fool unsuspecting buyers into paying over the odds for dodgy property. What are they on? They claim that they are acting to help create better competition in the market, but how is making it easier to tell porkies going to achieve that end. Behind this are the big lobbying groups of people like Tesco who want to provide a platform for buyers to sell their homes DIY, but all doing this means to consumers is that if they buy a house from Mr & Mrs Smith of 47 Acacia Avenue they had better be very careful they aren’t being led well and truely up the garden path. If you want to sell…

You are on Rightmove as you have finally decided it is high time you moved and so you start looking for the next dream home. You put in your price range and the number of bedrooms you need plus, of course, the area you are searching in and “click”, hey presto up come the results. There are some nice promising houses in there which you feel would be well worth viewing. Then you come across a house that is on the market with five different agents. You can tell from the pictures that its the same house. What do you think? Well the first reaction isn’t “how lovely, I must book a viewing” but is more likely to be “what’s wrong with that house that they’ve had to instruct so many agents”. On second thoughts you’ll no doubt think “it must have been on the market for ages” as…

On a couple of occasions recently we’ve lost out on a new instruction that we were on the cusp of winning because a competitor has aggressively under cut our already low fees. I see this as FANTASTIC news! Why? Because I never set out to be the cheapest estate agent for one very simple reason – if you are too cheap then you can’t offer your clients the level of marketing and service that they not only need to get the best price, but quite understandably demand. So the fact that after less than two years High Street agents feel the need to undercut us to win an instruction is just perfect. It shows that we have become established as a real player in the local market. We may lose the odd instruction. But we will win many more as people seem to like the rather different fresher approach…