Selling property without EA

JohnCleary

Background info: I own the property (just me), clear title, no mortgage / loans, deeds with my solicitor who will be dealing with the conveyancing.

I put the unit on Daft just to 'test the water' last night. To my astonishment, I have 2 viewings today and 2 on the weekend.

Assuming someone makes an acceptable offer, what's the protocol? Do I sit for a certain amount of days? (I was thinking 7)

After that, is it a case of the purchaser contacting my solicitor and let him do the rest?

Understandably the circumstances could be different depending on whether the purchaser is getting a mortgage or a cash sale.


Any advice much appreciated. Going to pop down to the solicitor after lunch but would be good to hear from others also.

Henry Ford III

If you're happy with the offer (and the bidder*) accept it. Doesn't matter when really.

After that just pass on your solicitors details and ask their people to contact your people.


*I'd want a mortgage approval in principal, and ideally confirmation that no chain exists.

Zzippy

JohnCleary wrote: »

Background info: I own the property (just me), clear title, no mortgage / loans, deeds with my solicitor who will be dealing with the conveyancing.

I put the unit on Daft just to 'test the water' last night. To my astonishment, I have 2 viewings today and 2 on the weekend.

Assuming someone makes an acceptable offer, what's the protocol? Do I sit for a certain amount of days? (I was thinking 7)

After that, is it a case of the purchaser contacting my solicitor and let him do the rest?

Understandably the circumstances could be different depending on whether the purchaser is getting a mortgage or a cash sale.


Any advice much appreciated. Going to pop down to the solicitor after lunch but would be good to hear from others also.

Nice place

We viewed a house in Roscam a cpl years ago that was a private sale, didn't bid but heard afterwards the sale went through fine.

Once you've accepted a bid you should ask the buyer for their solicitor details. It's then up to your solicitor to draw up a contract and forward it to their solicitor.

Not sure if you can ask for a deposit at sale agreed stage but certainly the 10% deposit should be paid when they sign contracts. I'd be wary of giving a private seller a deposit at sale agreed stage, at least with estate agents there is a holding account and checks and balances. Maybe your solicitor could advise/hold a deposit without you having to deal with that...

Obviously a cash buyer is preferable with no chain to hold up a sale, but if you're not in a rush to sell it's totally up to you to accept any bid or hold out for a better price. Have you had it valued so you know your asking price isn't too low/high?

JohnCleary

Just been onto my solicitor (with plenty of experience, he has a great rep. in our city)

For anyone with the same question....
You accept the offer
The buyer instructs their solicitor to deposit an agreed figure into the sellers solicitor client account

Solicitors do the rest


Who the fcuk needs an estate agent, seriously? 6 viewings this week alone and already 2 solid offers (1 offering to go to the solicitors right then and there)

Barely Hedged

JohnCleary wrote: »

Just been onto my solicitor (with plenty of experience, he has a great rep. in our city)

For anyone with the same question....
You accept the offer
The buyer instructs their solicitor to deposit an agreed figure into the sellers solicitor client account

Solicitors do the rest


Who the fcuk needs an estate agent, seriously? 6 viewings this week alone and already 2 solid offers (1 offering to go to the solicitors right then and there)

An estate agent for high end houses but for bog standard (<1.5 mio in Dublin) houses in Dublin, there's no need

mistybluehills

Barely Hedged wrote: »

An estate agent for high end houses but for bog standard (<1.5 mio in Dublin) houses in Dublin, there's no need

Yeah, I dearly wish EAs would disappear.
How they feel entitled to a percentage of what your house is worth is hard to fathom for the "work" they do.
A flat fee is all they should get, at best.

daheff

what I would do if I were selling a house myself is


let all interested parties view the house within the first 2 weeks. Anybody making a bid tell them you are acknowledging their bid, but feel it only fair to let others people view house (unless you get a stupidly excessive bid). Anybody viewing after the bid should be informed before they turn up for a viewing of the bid currently in place (that would hopefully remove time wasters).

Once the first round of viewers have seen & are bidding, make sure anybody who bids can show demonstrable proof of funds. Give underbidders a few days to consider another bid, but dont leave it too long. they'll get the message that things are moving fast and need to bid quickly to their highest level or risk losing out.



Personally the only benefit I can see of having an EA is that if you are working they can do all the viewings /take the phonecalls about the property. Other than that they are useless!!

Mr. Incognito

Estate Agents are not required.

They show people around and can make up phantom bids to drive up their commission.

If you have time to show people around it's fairly easy. Plus people like to deal directly with the seller as they can ask you themselves and if you accept a bid then they know that its genuine.

Was_SeeDot

Mr. Incognito wrote: »

Estate Agents are not required.

They show people around and can make up phantom bids to drive up their commission.

I have seen this a few times and never understood the logic of it. I have just sold a house for the asking price which was €20k under what the EA was telling us we could achieve. We were happy with the offer but felt the EA was pushing to hold off going sale agreed at that price.

Our agreed fees were 1.25% - I never thought the extra €250 commission was why the EA was trying to get other bidders involved. More reputational benefit from getting a good price (the house was in a Dublin suburb which was v. competitive and has a lot of quick sales). Once I strongly stated that we wanted to close before Christmas and were happy with that price (since we were ready to do a deal that it made possible and were nervous about losing our purchase) the EA v. quickly moved on with the sale. He had been nervous we would feel he had left money on the table and in a close neighbourhood that would really impact future business.

I am not defending handing thousands over to an EA for what does at times seem like shooting ducks in a barrel - but I don't think it is the EA seperate to the vendor who is holding out for an extra €5k for the sake of commission of €50 / €60.

Barely Hedged

Was_SeeDot wrote: »

I have seen this a few times and never understood the logic of it. I have just sold a house for the asking price which was €20k under what the EA was telling us we could achieve. We were happy with the offer but felt the EA was pushing to hold off going sale agreed at that price.

Our agreed fees were 1.25% - I never thought the extra €250 commission was why the EA was trying to get other bidders involved. More reputational benefit from getting a good price (the house was in a Dublin suburb which was v. competitive and has a lot of quick sales). Once I strongly stated that we wanted to close before Christmas and were happy with that price (since we were ready to do a deal that it made possible and were nervous about losing our purchase) the EA v. quickly moved on with the sale. He had been nervous we would feel he had left money on the table and in a close neighbourhood that would really impact future business.

I am not defending handing thousands over to an EA for what does at times seem like shooting ducks in a barrel - but I don't think it is the EA seperate to the vendor who is holding out for an extra €5k for the sake of commission of €50 / €60.

It's not the €50 that's the issue, it's the commission. If your house sold for 500k they'd take over 6k for what?

Was_SeeDot

Barely Hedged wrote: »

It's not the €50 that's the issue, it's the commission. If your house sold for 500k they'd take over 6k for what?

I am not arguing that the €6k is not very easily earned, especially in todays market.

My point is that these supposed phantom bids that EAs generate to try and get another 5k out of the purchaser actually put the 6k commission at risk for a very small return - the €50 I mentioned. Since the vendor is getting 98.5 - 99% of any increase, I do not believe that EAs are putting sales at risk inventing phantom bidders for small amounts of EXTRA commission.

Barely Hedged

Was_SeeDot wrote: »

I am not arguing that the €6k is not very easily earned, especially in todays market.

My point is that these supposed phantom bids that EAs generate to try and get another 5k out of the purchaser actually put the 6k commission at risk for a very small return - the €50 I mentioned. Since the vendor is getting 98.5 - 99% of any increase, I do not believe that EAs are putting sales at risk inventing phantom bidders for small amounts of EXTRA commission.

I'm sure there's more phantom beliefs than phantom bids.

But like the famous phrase: crime is going down, but the fear of crime is rising