Author Archives: Sam

This month we’re looking at how to attract female buyers to your home; they’re a large segment of property buyers, and consequently you need to be marketing properly towards them as a buyer. This week we’re looking at where you can be marketing your property to these potential buyers. Estate agent windows and websites aside, why don’t you take your marketing a little further?

Where will women be looking, and where should you be targeting your efforts? We’ve put together some suggestions below. Wherever you advertise, make it stand out: talk about its best qualities, whether it is a fantastic family home, close to local schools, or has an amazing kitchen. Often local advertising isn’t that expensive, and a half page advert in the local weekly paper could mean you sell your home a lot faster.

Social Media – Recently we talked about the benefits that social media offered as a place to advertise your property. This is ideal for catering towards the female market. Put together a social media profile for your home, and ask your local friends to like it and circulate it to their friends and so on. Everyone is bound to know a woman who is property hunting, and it is very likely your house will pop up in her news feed.

Supermarkets – Every supermarket has an advertisement board, and they’re ideal for promoting a home. Usually free, this is a great way to put your home in to the spotlight of thousands of female buyers.

Local advertising – You know those local papers, magazines and adverts you get through the door? Women will be looking at these, and an advert about your property wouldn’t go amiss.

Social/Activity Clubs – Think about where females socialise with their friends; the gym, the local yoga club, the parents crèche, a great local café in the centre of town. Wherever it is, ask if you can put up an advert about your property.

Are you following us on Facebook and Pinterest? We’d love to have you join us!

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

Zoopla.co.uk property news author Frances MacDonald provides a detailed breakdown of the less obvious costs involved for those planning to move house – including estate agency fees, EPCs, conveyancing and removal expenses.

If you are looking to sell your home, it is wise to be aware that moving can be costly. From furniture removal firms to solicitors’ fees and survey costs, there can be hidden surprises aside from your planned expenses. Plan ahead so that you have some cash to spare in case there are charges you haven’t accounted for. Below is a breakdown of some of the bills that will certainly be coming your way either before, during, or after the moving process, answering your question: how much does it cost to move house?

Estate Agent Fees

Before you even put your property on the market, you will need to decide whether you are going to sell through an estate agent or do it all yourself. Estate agents can be beneficial, particularly if you have little time on your hands, since they will advise you on how to present your home to buyers, plus dealing with any queries, the advertising and eventually the deal. However, none of this comes cheap and they will of course take a cut of the overall amount you sell for. This percentage cut can vary considerably depending upon the agent, with ranges often anywhere between 0.75% and 4%, so it is important to do some research before you get that ‘For Sale’ sign up in the garden.

Energy Performance Certificate

Although these are often provided through estate agents, in some instances you can opt to get your own Energy Performance Certificate (EPC). EPCs cover information about energy usage within a specific home plus the costs involved, as well as improvements that could be made to reduce this usage in order to save money. An accredited assessor must come round to your property before producing a certificate stating the required information. Costs associated with this will depend upon which part of the country you live, the size of your property, supply and demand etc.

Solicitors’ Costs

It might be tempting to consider using cheap solicitors, but in an ideal world you should try to get a solicitor recommended by somebody you know, or perhaps one you have used in the past. That way, you know that they will do a thorough job of helping you both sell your home plus purchase a new property. Legal fees will often cost in the range of £500-£1,000 or more, so ensure that you have enough saved for this.

Removal Firms

Once you’ve sealed the deal, it’s time to pack up and actually move. This can be a stressful process particularly if you have lived in your property for a good number of years and have an accumulation of clutter combined with your larger items of furniture. Looking into removal firms early is highly advisable and you should realistically estimate how much space your belongings will take up. What’s more, if there is a delay between moving out of your current home and moving into the new one, you may need to pay for several months of storage. There are several companies who will do both the removal plus keep your possessions safe for a longer period of time if needed.

Overall then, it’s important to consider the costs of moving house early in the process, so that you are not left with any surprise charges once the sale goes through.

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

With Rightmove.co.uk consistently being one of the top ten visited sites in the UK, it would be fair to say it is the number one ‘shop window’ when it comes to viewing property. Now we all know that first impressions count but when it comes to selling property in the 21^st century, it is more important than ever. Let me explain…

When trawling through property after property on Rightmove.co.uk whilst looking to buy a new home, there is sometimes the odd one that jumps out at you. It may look a little brighter than the rest, maybe a touch more spacious than the others for the money but nearly always it will have been well photographed. This will probably get your initial vote and you will put it on your viewings list.

With Rightmove being one of the most viewed sites in the UK, lots of other people will also earmark this stand out property to view. Some will decide it’s not the property for them, but some will see it as the next home of their dreams and put in an offer. Had the property been photographed ‘like all the rest’, it wouldn’t have attracted as many viewings resulting in fewer offers, if any at all. Interestingly, there is a tendency to introduce gamification even into this segment, namely, a well-known developer of online games has begun to create a prototype that can influence and improve all these functions, which are discussed in this article.

As a property photographer I love the statistics I get back from the estate agents. On average, after I’ve photographed a property and the images have been updated on Rightmove’s site, the agent gets over 5 times more ‘click-throughs’ (people clicking on a listed property to see it in more detail). This translates directly into increased viewings, which brings in the offers, which in-turn sells the property. Usually, based on my average, in about 6 weeks.

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

“We are extremely grateful for the help which you and Karen Kerridge have given to us. It is fair to say that the re-marketing of our home this year would have been a far more difficult and traumatic process without the help which we have received from both of you. We cannot speak highly enough of Karen and all the work, helpful advice and support which she provided. We will have no hesitation in recommending HomeTruths in the future, indeed we have already suggested some friends of ours give you a call!”

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

“I finally feel we’re taking some positive steps.”

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

“HomeTruths renewed my faith in marketing. Crucially they recommended the right estate agent who produced a superb brochure and highly effective advertising. As a result Queen Anne House sold within 5 days of the ad appearing. May I also take this opportunity to thank you personally for all your efforts and congratulate you on a successful outcome.”

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

“Our flat had been on the market for over a year and we had almost lost hope when we called in Sam. She gave us solid, practical advice that helped us refocus our efforts on all the little things that add value to homes. She also showed us how to select an agent and get the most from them. We are back on the market now at the same price and have had more viewings this week than we had in six months last year. We’re very confident this time that the flat will sell fast. I would unreservedly recommend Home Truths to anyone who wants to sell a property.”

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

“After 6 months on the market with viewings but no offers, we took some advice from Sam. By putting in place her suggestions, we sold our house in weeks. The lady who bought it literally commented on everything we had done differently. We had tried to sell the house unfurnished but by spending £2,000 on furnishing it, we have managed to up the offer by £12,000. As we were showing the prospective buyers around the house, comments including ‘how cosy it looked’ and ‘how they could imagine their furniture in it’ were very forthcoming. We even got asked if we had redecorated a room! If you are trying to sell a house and it isn’t working, get Sam on board straightaway!! Thank you so much for the advice – you have made this couple extremely happy!

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

“We were considering a low offer, and thank goodness we listened to HomeTruth’s advice. Our buyers eventually came up with an offer of £10,000 over the asking price when we’d been considering an offer of £40,000 under! A wonderful service, we can’t thank you enough.”

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

“Sam gave us so many ideas to transform the house into a much more saleable commodity at minimum cost. We could not believe ourselves what a difference the changes made and resulted in an offer being received very close to our asking price, within a couple of weeks of changing to her recommended Agents. Throughout our dealings we found HomeTruths to be professional and friendly and it was like having a personal property advisor on hand.”

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.