Our Top 10 Tips - get the Best Price for your property

What a strange year.  Plenty of people want to move but there is virtually nothing on the market for them to buy.  Prices are rising and firm, and mortgages are historically cheap.

For would be vendors - that makes it a great time to sell.

Take advantage of the best market for years and sell with the Isle of Wight's Number One sales office - Trigg & Co using our 'Top 10 Sales Tips'.

Our Special Agent Trigg top selling tips will also help you to buy too!

TIP 1 – Don’t “Find First”

When you are ready to move it’s always tempting to try and find your next property before you sell your current home.  That’s the wrong approach.

You won’t be taken seriously as a buyer if you haven’t sold your own house or have it on the market – essentially you are not in a position to proceed.  Consequently, you may well end up having to pay the full asking price for the house you want to buy and may well end up taking an offer on your own sale.  The worst of all worlds and it could cost you £thousands.

Get your own property on the market and find a buyer.  Then go and bag your new home!

At Trigg & Co our expert valuations are free of charge and without obligation.

TIP 2 – Ask for Evidence

What’s your house worth?  A good estate agent will back up their recommended marketing price with solid evidence of other sales in the area of similar properties.  These sales should ideally be recent and local.  Even better if the agent sold the property themselves and knows the in’s and out’s of the deal.  An agent will take into account the current market conditions and house price growth and should be able to provide evidence to back up their recommendations.  So, don’t just take their word for it.  Get the facts.

Trigg & Co will always provide you with a written report on the market conditions and back up our recommended marketing price with solid facts.

TIP 3 – A Picture really is worth a thousand words

First impressions count.  We all love a great picture.  And pictures sell houses.  A prospective buyer gets an instant impression of your home from the pictures that they see – online, in the newspaper, on their smartphone.  The quality of the photographs that an agent takes is fundamental to getting your property noticed.  The days of agents writing long detailed (boring) property descriptions are well behind us.  In today’s world it’s all about pictures, floorplans and increasingly common virtual tours.

Trigg and Co employ our own professional photographer for every property.  We have invested in the very latest technology to produce a stunning Virtual Tour of your home.  That’s all part of how we get it SOLD.

TIP 4 – On the Launch Pad

It’s a fact that a property has the greatest impact when it is first brought to the market.  Unsold properties can get stale.  Rightmove and Zoopla both prioritise new instructions and send details of new listings to registered buyers.  Agents ‘mail out’ new listings to their applicant base of buyers and ‘ring out’ on new properties.  So, it’s really important to get it right first time.  You can only launch a property once.

That means:  Right price, great photos, a proper marketing strategy and targeting the right buyers.

When you sell with Trigg & Co we will work with you to create a bespoke ‘launch’ plan that finds you a buyer at the best possible price in a timescale that works for you. 

TIP 5 – Don’t Choose Your Agent on Price

Why did you choose that Agent?  “He quoted me the highest price”.  “He had the lowest fee”.

When it comes to successfully selling houses, the worst decision is to choose your agent because they charge a low fee or quoted the highest marketing price.  Not all agents are the same!  The most important thing is to understand exactly what the agent will do for their fee and what you can really expect to achieve as a sale price.  An agent’s job doesn’t stop when they find a buyer.  It should be a total service from day 1 until the day you move.

At Trigg & Co our mission to get you the best price, from the best buyer in a timescale that suits you.  With literally hundreds of Trustpilot reviews you can be confident in making a wise choice.  Recommendations from satisfied clients is our largest source of new business.

TIP 6 – Keep it Tidy

Viewings.  The point where a decision is made to buy a house.  The buyer has seen the photographs, they know the layout, they know the road.  Now it’s time to look inside the house and fall in love with it.

It can be a tough process keeping the house clean and tidy with busy lives and family life.  However, keeping the home clean and tidy for viewings is a key part of getting the best price.  First impressions count too.  So, declutter the shelves, make sure the garden is tidy, the front door is painted and all those silly little maintenance jobs are taken care of before buyers see the property.

Trigg & Co will be honest with you about what you need to do to make your home look its best.  We can recommend you to local tradesman, gardeners, cleaners – everyone you might need to know if you can’t take care of everything yourself.

TIP 7 – It’s the “Price to Change”

When trading in your car it’s always about ‘the price to change’.  The same thing actually applies when you are moving up the housing ladder.  If you are buying at a great price you can afford to sell your existing property at a competitive figure to make that move happen.  Concentrate on the price to change and don’t get hung up on a small difference in your buying or selling price.

Trigg & Co always recommend that you get yourself into the best position by selling your own home first.  That way you can drive a hard bargain on both your sale and your purchase, making the ‘price to change’ as low as possible.

TIP 8 – Get the Right Lawyer

Not all lawyers are the same!  We know this because we are dealing with them every day of the week – chasing up sales and making chains happen.  We know which lawyers use modern technology and are accessible to their clients and which like to do things the old-fashioned way.  Getting the right solicitor is key to avoiding unnecessary delays and frustration.

We also know and recommend lawyers who charge a fixed fee and will not charge even if the sale or purchase falls through for some reason.

At Trigg & Co we work with and recommend a small number of hand-picked law firms who are tried and trusted.  They know us and we know them.  They all charge fixed fees and don’t charge fees unless the sale or purchase goes through.

TIP 9 – Human Beings sell properties - not computers!

The so called ‘on-line’ agents would make you believe that you only need to put your property on the internet to sell it.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Good agents have invested in building up large numbers of registered buyers and know those buyers’ requirements inside out.  They will pro-actively put your property in front of the right people and ‘sell’ it’s benefits over the phone, face-to-face and by email.  They know how to put a deal together, how to build a chain and check that everyone can actually proceed.

That’s how property gets sold to the right buyer at the best possible price.

At Trigg & Co our team register every single buyer personally and understand their requirements and buying position before we arrange viewings and send them to your home.  If they want to make an offer we check them financially and check the chain from top to bottom.  Computers really DON’T sell houses!

TIP 10 – Check it Out

If you are booking a hotel or a restaurant you are likely to look at websites like TripAdvisor to check out the food and the service.  It’s really helpful to know what other people thought.

The same thing applies when selling your property – only it is many thousands of times more important!  A bad meal costs a few pounds.  A bad agent could cost you £thousands and mean your plans get ruined.  So - check them out.  Look at their website, where do they operate from, how long have they been trading, are they local, what are their opening hours and where can you post and read reviews?

Trigg & Co have been inviting clients to review the service they have received since 2015 on the UK’s number 1 independent review site Trustpilot.  All our hundreds of reviews are from clients who have actually used our service.  We ask for their review at the very end of the sale not at the beginning like some others we could mention!  Check it out.  Then decide.