Whether you are looking to downsize, or want to move to be closer to your family, selling your home can be a harrowing process.
Even if you have completed this task before, regulations surrounding the selling of property are susceptible to change and in recent times, the housing market has been anything but stable.
So, before you decide on the colour scheme of your new kitchen, here is a simplified guide to selling your home from conveyancing solicitors in Portsmouth.
Assess finances
Selling your home is expensive.
Before you begin the process, look for an assessment tool to give you an estimate of how much your home would be worth in the housing market. This is also a great time to contact your mortgage company and discuss if you are able to take any outstanding mortgage payments with you to a new home; this is known as porting. If not, you will need to establish a way to pay off any outstanding cost of the house should the property sell for its estimated cost.
While it may seem excessive to hire conveyancing solicitors from Portsmouth at this stage, it could save you a great deal of stress.
Renting or buying?
When you move to your new home, are you planning to rent it or buy it?
If you choose to rent, this will alleviate a lot of the pressures around finding a new mortgage company and will also reduce the concerns that surround sale prices.
In fact, renting a home before buying a new one will enable you to break out of the housing chain, making you a more attractive buyer to mortgage companies in the future.
Choose an estate agents
While it can seem that there is an endless supply of estate agents to choose from, if you have already hired conveyancing solicitors near Portsmouth, they will be able to recommend one that specialises in selling your kind of property.
And as there are now more online estate agents than there ever has been, this can really make the process more affordable.
Get appropriate certificates
In order to successfully sell your home, you will need to show that it is up to code and safe to inhabit.
Therefore, once your house is being looked over by an estate agent, it is a great time to dig out an energy performance certificate. If you do not have one or have lost the one you had, then you will need to apply for a new one before you can put your home on the market.
Decide price and prepare
With the help of a solicitor, an estate agent and some intense number crunching, you should now be trying to establish how much you want to sell your home for.
How do you do this? By assessing the local market and by not going too high. Remember, buyers will inevitably be wanting to haggle, so it is worth adding an additional 5-10% to the final price, so you are not left short.
