DIY home sales – potential risks
#2: Security
Showing potential buyers around your home needn’t be particularly demanding. Anyone who has sold property before via an estate agent will likely already know this because it’s standard practice for agents to try and get their vendor clients to conduct the viewings – even though the agents are earning a large fee to market the property.
It probably helps that a lot of vendors are actually quite keen to be involved, perhaps figuring they will do a better job of showing prospective buyers around their home than a poorly paid junior ‘sales negotiator’.
The question is, if you don’t use an estate agent could you be leaving yourself vulnerable to security risks by showing people round your home? Maybe a stranger posing as an interested buyer might have an ulterior motive?
For some sellers one of the big attractions of using an agent is that they claim to vet interested parties before they set up a viewing. But most purchasers have no particular recollection of any ‘vetting’ process being carried out by agents, other than the financial variety aimed at flogging you a mortgage.
Just because you live alone or are fearful of strangers visiting the house, it doesn’t mean you can’t sell without an agent. Some online listing services provide anonymous messaging systems. But to a large extent, managing your own viewings is simply a matter of being businesslike.
When making appointments over the phone, note the applicant’s name, address and phone number, and then call them back to confirm.
You can effectively interview buyers over the phone before they come for a viewing to weed out any time-wasters or raving loonies. Ask them questions about their own situation:-
Do they have a property to sell?
Are they in a chain?
Are they first-time buyers?
Do they have their mortgage arranged yet?
Equally important, this allows potential buyers to ask you questions prior to viewing to ensure that the house is suitable, and save them making wasted trips.
Our next blog – coming soon ……
Selling privately (continued)
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