Tag Archives: advice

It’s Friday and the last in my mini-series of learning from Andy Murray to help you sell your house!

However on top of their game Andy is, if he wants to stay there, he knows he has to defer to his coach for advice and, well, coaching! He has to put his total trust and faith in Ivan Lendl, and believe whole-heartedly that he has Andy’s success at heart, wanting the win as much as the player themselves do. It must sometimes take a lot of courage and ability to overcome his own misgivings in following advice that might seem counter-intuitive, but he knows that without this faith, Andy would be on his own and success would almost certainly evade him.

If you’re trying to sell your home and it’s just not going very well – perhaps you’re suffering from a lack of viewings, and maybe you’re trying your best to resist pressure from your agent to reduce your asking price – you may be wondering what on earth you can do. That’s where HomeTruths comes in. think of us as your personal property coach! We ask you to put your trust and faith in us, and in return we will advise and coach you through what can be a very difficult and emotionally-trying time. We’ll be there for the inevitable ups and downs, to tell you what to do when the feedback is less than flattering, or when you get a very low offer. We will do everything we can to get you a sale at the price you want. Sometimes, as I’m sure happens from time to time between Ivan and Andy, you might think we are wrong, that our advice is counter-intuitive, but stick with us, and keep the faith, and together, we’ll get you moving!

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.

Welcome to Wednesday and the third in my series themed on Wimbledon.

In his book, Adapt – Why Success Always Starts With Failure – Tim Harford explains we must adapt—improvise rather than plan, work from the bottom up rather than the top down, and take baby steps rather than great leaps forward, in order to achieve success. Thus our great tennis players are constantly adapting in order to improve their games, often one tiny step at a time. Only by losing a point or a game can they re-evaluate, review, adapt and apply a new technique. In other words, without failure, there can be no success.

If your house is languishing on the market, with no viewers in sight, it is very easy to become disheartened and disillusioned with the entire selling process. It certainly isn’t often easy, especially when you are selling a unique home. Maureen O’Hara once said, “To cope, people need to be certain enough to act and uncertain enough to learn”, in other words, to have the courage of your convictions whilst still being humble enough to accept you may need advice and help. Not an easy conflict to deal with.

If you don’t have any viewings, review your marketing, and make some small changes to effect overall large improvements; if you have plenty of viewings but no offers, critique your home; maybe commission a professional home stager. If you are getting offers but they are below your target sale price, read up on negotiation skills, or even engage a professional homebuyer to negotiate on your behalf. In short – raise your game, and adapt, adapt, adapt.

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.

This great post is courtesy of Louise Reynolds, the director of Property Venture.

So do you want to live the dream of having a holiday home but don’t want the hassle? Or not sure if you’ll know a bargain when you see one?

Some of the most time-consuming parts of finding an ideal 2^nd home can be doing due diligence: finding the right location, right property and making sure it is all that it seems.

An Agent can do a lot of the due diligence work up front, whether your search is in the UK or abroad. Sourcing all the necessary third parties that might get involved in a second home purchase, can be more onerous abroad than in the UK. For example you might need: a “Sworn” or Certified translator (translating for legal equivalence is a legal requirement in some countries) an independent lawyer, a suitable bank that offers a decent mortgage rate and whose account you can operate remotely over the internet from the UK.

An Independent Agent can help an inexperienced buyer acquire an overseas property in up to a third of the time it might take them to do it on their own, thereby saving time.

In the UK, sourcing a property against a specific brief can save a busy, professional lots of wasted, “first-viewing” time. Are we talking year round facilities needed because holidays will be taken throughout the school holiday season? Or ease of access to beaches? If these are deal-breakers, better to get them checked out first before seeing the property yourself.

Saving money is often a key motivator, which drives some people to cut corners. One way of thinking about this, is as an inexperienced DIYer. Doing a job properly first time round can save a lot of time, money and aggravation.

A good Agent can guide on what is and is not, a good purchase for a Second Home or an Investment Property. Are you looking for a renovation project, but not sure what state “irreparable” is? A decent Agent will be able to check out and advise on whether a project may be biting off more than you can chew, or will blow the budget for post-completion work.

So the “point” of a professional Agent or Buyer’s Agent is to save:

Your time, particularly if you have a full-time career
Your money, so that you buy within your budget, including any work that might need to be done post-purchase
The amount of hassle involved in acquiring the property you intended to.

Written by Louise Reynolds – Director, Property Venture

Property Venture, a UK-based agent who helps people buy holiday homes and investment property in Europe, more easily and safely than they can on their own. http://www.property-venture.com

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 recently attended a month-long fitness ‘boot camp’; you know the kind of thing: lots of exercise, clean eating plan and a very scary instructor (thanks Jo!) to keep you on your plan. Halfway through the month, I had a social occasion to attend, and asked Jo if I could have her permission to take an evening off my plan, so I could enjoy the delicious food and a glass or two of wine. “Of course”, she said. “Just don’t be surprised if you don’t reach your goal”. A bit harsh, I thought. Could one evening of enjoying myself really make that much difference? My goal was a weight I really wanted to achieve, and if that one evening was going to put me in danger of not making it, I just wasn’t prepared to risk it. That evening, I stuck to fizzy water, and stayed away from the pastries and crisps. It wasn’t so bad, actually. Two weeks later, I stood on the scales, elated that I had, in fact, reached my goal, to the pound. I was so glad that I’d stuck to Jo’s advice; after all, she was as keen for me to succeed as I was.

What has my boot camp got to do with selling houses? It’s all about following the plan – the plan of proven success. Note that these are prices ex. VAT. You can use the VAT calculator to calculate including VAT prices.. When we deliver a Home Sale Strategy to a client, in the form of an action plan, it is designed to get the house sold for the best price possible. If that client then decides that instead of the estate agent we’ve recommended he uses, he wants to use someone he knows from the golf club, or that the front path is fine as it is, despite the fact we have advised it be weeded and tidied, can he then really expect to get the result he wants? Do what we tell you to do – no more, no less – and you’ll massively increase your chance of selling your house for the price you want.

Our advice is, after all, the right advice to sell your house.

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.