Henry Pryor on Property

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With newspapers screaming about the state of the market, mortgage lenders pulling out of the mortgage business by clearing their products off the shelves and the Diana Inquiry still dragging on it is sometimes hard to be optimistic that spring will ever arrive.

We long for the hot summer, the green lawns and houses selling for just more than we can afford. If Mr Fayed could pop back to his grocery store and Alistair Darling could get my newly nationalised bank to actually give me a mortgage, I think I would feel just a little better.

But looking out of the window, the rain is beating down. The Tv is telling me that First Direct won't lend me any money to buy a house (is this a case for the Advertising Standards Authority - a mortgage company that doesn't have any mortgages?) and a call from an estate agent who didn't get the instruction to sell a flat for me four years ago asking if I have anything else to sell as they are keen for some business. I bet he is!

Anyway, it occurred to me that there must be a load of different ways of saving money when you sell - or more importantly, ways of making more out of your property. Getting the very most you can even in a 'challenging' market.

First, make sure you really want to sell. If you don't sell, you won't have to spend the money on agent fees, lawyers costs, stamp duty, removal men, HiP etc., etc. If you need another room, why not try and convert the attic or the garage or better still, try to extend.

In theory it's easier now as the Government have directed local councils to make this kind of thing less bureaucratic. Do you need to loose 5-10% of the value of your home by moving AND take a paper loss on what you thought it was worth last year?

Although selling on your own sounds like it will save you dosh and there are many happy people out there that will tell you they did I have two things to say.

1. There's a reason that less than 2% of Brits sell their own house. A good agent can get you the price of his fee back in one bid and he is doing this all day long. Ok, I know that the bad agent won't but it's easier to pick a good agent from a bad one than it is to sell your own home.

2. How many irritating people have you heard saying how much they made out of property in the past ten years? Every berk has been able to make money, he just had to keep breathing and his house went up in value. Well, the same goes for selling. The private seller may have sold well in the past 5 years and I'm genuinely pleased for those who did but did they get the most they could have? Remember, you only pay an agent if you actually sell - if you don't then he gets the bill for the local advertising and the cost of the ad on Rightmove.

Next, listen to your agent. as we have already agreed, he only earns when you sell. Simple as that. You might think that he will want to knock it out for as little as possible but remember, you can sue him if he under-sells it and anyway, if it's that cheap, you will get competition and even in this market competition gets the price up.

Make sure it looks it's best. Tidy up, wash the bath, clean the dog room, rake the garden. Make sure each room looks like whatever it's supposed to be. If it's a bedroom, can you see the bed under your sons' cloths and magazines?

Incentivise your estate agent. He is faced with laying off staff or shutting branches in a market like this so believe me, you have his attention. If he does a good job, make sure he will get rewarded for it. Similarly, if he does a poor job then he should share the pain like you do. 1.4% is an average fee these days but competition is fierce. Make sure that once you pick the agent you want that he will be thinking of your property and not the others he has on his books.

With only one in three homes selling at the moment, yours must stand out. Have a For Sale board even if it's just for three weeks. Make sure it's in the paper, on the internet on the property portals and try and get the local paper to write about it. PR is free and almost every home has an angle somewhere.

You can put off paying for the Home Information Pack that the Government says you must now have by using a firm like Hip Payment Services. They will give you ten months to sell before they take the money. Don't be tempted to chose an agent who offers you a free HiP - he owns the HiP and if you sack him you will either have to pay him or pay for another.

Sell before you buy. Don't worry about where you are going to move to if you do sell, worry about finding a buyer who can get a mortgage and if you have to rent then at least you will come out the other end as a cash buyer and be able to drive a harder bargain.

It may seem illogical but in this kind of market - one that I have witnessed twice now in my career, setting a lower guide price than you might accept feels wrong but will get the result you are after. If you are buying and selling in the same market conditions - as most people are then it is only the difference between the two that matters. If you sell for less then you will pay less for the home you buy.

At the end of the day, you want to save money of course but actually what you really want is to buy a new home where you can live, where you can enjoy the summer and where you can stop worrying about house prices or whether it was the Duke of Edinburgh wot did it!

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