Making the Right Impression

Posted on 17/12/09, filed under General | No Comments

A lot of vendors ask us here at Hunters Estate Agents if buyers are looking for a house or if they relate better to a “home”? The papers and TV are full of stories about “dressing” your house to sell quickly, but very few of us have the luxury of vacating a property when it’s being sold. Even though your house may be on the market with Hunters, you still have to live in it and human beings cause mess and untidiness.

You don’t need to go to extreme lengths to tart up your house, but you should at least try to keep clutter and untidiness to an acceptable level.   Assume that the estate agent might ring you with a buyer ready to view your house at half an hour’s notice. Ideally then, your home should be in a condition that requires only 30 minutes preparation for a successful viewing. Easier said than done of course, but if your viewer aspires to buy your home so they can improve their lifestyle, get more space etc , then  if you can present your home more attractively  to suit those desires, a sale is likely to be the end result.

Try to look at your house with a stranger’s eye and imagine what you would like to see if you were the viewer. Put away old newspapers and magazines and try not to clutter the table surfaces with correspondence. Ashtrays are an absolute no-no. Smokers need to realise that the smoke can be smelled by a non smoker, so the house needs to be heavily perfumed with anti-tobacco air freshener to disguise the smell of cigarettes.

If you have a particularly unattractive old car or bits cluttering garages or driveways, move them somewhere until after the viewing. If you have a particularly unattractive teenager moping in a bedroom, move that somewhere too!  If the viewing is accompanied by someone from Hunters estate agent, go out for ½ hour or so – you don’t need extra bodies cluttering up the rooms.

There’s no real guide to making your house presentable or showing it off to its best advantage.  It depends on the nature and character of your property. Nor do you need to constantly “bake bread”   as some style gurus would have you believe, but there are a few things you can do to make your house viewing the best it can possibly be:

• Clean all the windows and glass doors, mirrors and shower screens and make sure they stay that way. Open windows to the garden if it is a sunny day  – it looks attractive and shows you have a nice garden to look at.  Speaking of gardens, the lawn needs to be kept mown and weeded and any nasty oil spills on the driveway cleaned up so the area looks expansive and clean.  Clean all the floors and make sure you have a working vacuum cleaner to run over the rugs or fitted carpets just prior to viewing.
• If you have kids, get containers that can accommodate any toys which have been left out. You can throw them (toys that is – not the kids)  into these containers, chuck them under a bed and sort out where they belong later.  If you have pets, pick up their food bowls and beds and put them away somewhere until the viewer has gone. Not everybody can tolerate pets so it is well not to advertise yours. Make sure that any animal droppings are cleared from lawns and pathways.
• The kitchen and bathroom must be completely spotless. Fresh fruit works well in the kitchen and make sure the kitchen towels are fresh. Pay special attention to chrome taps and pipes and keep a supply of fluffy, colour matched towels on hand to display the bathroom to advantage. When the viewer has gone, remove them until the next viewer comes.  That way you will not be constantly washing them. Ensure there is new toilet tissue and new soap near the wash basin – it looks nicer than used soap and perfumes the room.
• Pick up discarded clothes from bedrooms and bathrooms and put them away. Clear away any shoes from bedroom floors and hallway.

Hunters Guide to Conveyancing

Posted on 17/12/09, filed under General | No Comments

Conveyancing is the legal process by which ownership of a property is transferred from the seller to the buyer. It’s not necessarily a complicated process and indeed there are many DIY Conveyancing guides available, but it can be lengthy depending on the number of parties in your chain.

It’s true that the present house buying system can be plagued with delay and anxiety. The Land Registry is developing ‘e-conveyancing’, an electronic system for the buying, selling and registration of land and property in England and Wales to improve the process.  Assuming everything about your property (and those of any prospective buyers and sellers in your chain) is clear and uncomplicated, conveyancing is fairly straightforward.

However, should any issues or problems arise things can become tricky, especially if your property is leasehold or if it’s been extended and may not have approval for the extension work etc.  You are always best advised to hire a solicitor or licensed conveyancer to carry out the work.  Hunters can help you find a solicitor in your area that specialises in conveyancing or you can seek advice and recommendation from friends or family. You must bear in mind that this is really where the process slows down so a saving of £100 or so pounds may not, in reality, be a saving at all. If both buyer and seller use this option it can help to speed things up as the respective solicitors will be working for the same company (albeit probably in different offices) so communication will be speedier than with entirely separate companies.  Licensed Conveyancers are regulated by the CLC (Council for Licensed Conveyancers) in England and Wales.

The objective of conveyancing is to arrive at the point when all the solicitors in the chain can exchange the contracts they have drawn up for each property and then a date is fixed for the completion of the sale. Completion is the date that the property is legally yours and you can move in.

Normally, up to 10% of the property purchase price could be needed in advance and paid on exchange of contracts, although if the completion date is less than a week or two from exchange a lesser amount would be required.   You should therefore ensure that you have sufficient funds available to transfer to your solicitor if needed as often mortgage lenders do not release the entire amount of the mortgage advance until completion of the sale.

On exchange of contracts and provision of the deposit, the buyer is effectively committed to the purchase.  This does not mean that completion is inevitable – it’s possible that some circumstance may stop the sale even at this late stage, but if that does happen the buyer will lose their deposit.  Generally speaking, once you have exchanged contracts, the deal is done and when you have the completion date (usually agreed at the time of exchange) you can arrange the day of your move.

A Hunters Guide to Why You Need a HIP

Posted on 17/12/09, filed under General | No Comments

The Home Information Pack (HIP) became legally compulsory for the sale of homes or flats on the market in England and Wales from 6th April 2009.    A HIP is a set of documents that provides your potential buyer with key information about your property and must be provided by the seller or the seller’s agent on the day the property is marketed.  The HIP lets buyers see important information about the property at the start of the process and from the buyer’s perspective, the attraction is that it’s Free of Charge.  The seller is entirely responsible for the cost of a HIP.

Some providers may offer HIPs that you can pay for at a later date but can charge up to twice as much (on completion of the house sale for example).
Hunters Estate Agents and others are not allowed to market your property unless the HIP is available, so if your agent hasn’t offered the HIP as part of their service, you’ll need to make arrangements to have a HIP or call us and we can help you out.  It’s feasible to compile the HIP yourself, but it’s far easier and takes much less time and effort to have a Hunters Estate Agents or a HIP provider to do it for you.

The HIP can help reduce delays and there is less chance of your buyer becoming aware of any last minute issues, surprises or potential problems at the end of the house buying process, so the progression towards exchange and completion should be less fraught.

A HIP is not a substitute for a survey and does not give detailed information about the structural condition of the property.  Buyers will have to arrange for their own survey either through their lender or call us and we can advise on local surveyors. Use the information in the HIP  only as a guide.  A HIP contains compulsory and optional items and documents. There shouldn’t be any marketing or advertising material in the pack.  It contains only official information concerning the property for sale.   If there’s a delay in getting certain documents, like the local searches, these can be added after your house is put on the market.

For Freehold properties the following documents must be included in the HIP:

• Home Information Pack Index
• The new Property Information Questionnaire (PIQ)
• Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) or Predicted Energy Assessment (PEA)
• Sustainability information (required for newly built homes)
• Sale statement
• Evidence of title
• Standard searches (local authority and drainage and water)

For Leasehold properties, the HIP must contain all the compulsory documents as above and a copy of the lease. Aside from these above, other documents are not legally required, but their inclusion could help to speed up the sale and ensure that the process goes more smoothly. These optional documents could include:

• Home Condition Report
• Legal summary
• Home use/contents form
• Other documents like specialist searches (for example, the seller may choose to include a mining search if the property is in a mining area)

Hunters Take on House Prices for 2010

Posted on 17/12/09, filed under General | No Comments

Despite the prevalent air of financial doom and gloom when the credit crunch and the banking crisis led to a slump of about 20% in the value of the average UK home in 2008, house prices started rising again  in the spring of 2009 and have kept on going pretty much every month since then.   Thankfully, the rise is not as meteoric as it has been in the past, but according to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) completed sales rose steadily from the rock-bottom level of just 41,000 in January to 90,000 in the last quarter.  The Nationwide Building Society estimates that if prices stay on track through to the end of December, then they will finish the year nearly 6% up on January. This is obviously across the whole of the UK, and our experience here at Hunters is that things can change considerably in localities.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) has been equally upbeat about this apparent resilience in the housing market.  Prices could have fallen further, but government policy combined with low interest rates appears to have been successful.  The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) has once again decided not to make a public forecast of house prices for 2009 (indeed, no-one forecast the rise this year)  as they still believe it’s impossible to  predict accurately in what remains a volatile market.

So what about 2010?  Some maintain that 2009 is a false dawn.  Unprecedented levels of government economic stimulus – low interest rates, bank bail outs, the car srcappage scheme, the VAT cut – have had a positive short-term effect.   The uncertainty of the upcoming general election, tax rises, government spending cuts and unemployment potentially rising above three million leads some to believe that house prices will fall again this coming year by 10%-15%, mainly in the second half.

It’s probably true to say that after consecutive months of rises, whatever the underlying reason, a stabilisation trend has been established and although prices may not continue to rise as they have done, the likelihood is they won’t drop and will probably flatten out.  The consensus view seems to be that by December 2010, house prices will be about the same as they are now.  What seems unlikely to change much is the supply of mortgage funds to potential borrowers.   Most first time buyers will still need to put down a 25%-30% deposit (around 2/3 of all mortgage deals currently on offer still specify this) and although mortgage rationing is easing, it remains a slow process.

House Hunters Online

Posted on 02/11/09, filed under General | No Comments

We are really pleased to instigate the first Hunters Blog. We want this to be an easy and helpful way to update anyone who is interested in property in mid Sussex and further afield.  We’ll try to keep you up to date on what’s new and what’s happening in the property market, hints and tips on buying, selling or renting a house.

The housing sector seems to change so rapidly these days and there are no predictable cyclical trends any  more,  so if you want to keep up to date what’s really happening or get the lowdown on interesting developments  in the local market place, this is the place to come. Also, by joining us on Twitter you can continually keep updated through messages published there.

Market Prospects

So what’s the market look like at the moment and how does it feel?  We have definitely seen a rise in the levels of buyer activity through viewings arranged. These are mostly new sellers but there are still a notable number of first time buyers.  We’ve also noticed that a lot of buyers who sold over the last couple of years and rented appear to be re-entering the market.   They recognise that the market is changing and they need to consider their options more seriously.   In our opinion, there is definitely a market out there for sensible buyers and sellers.

Accompanied or Unaccompanied Viewings?

The other common observation we’ve heard  recently from many sellers is the apparent increase in unaccompanied viewings,  especially at weekends.  We have always taken the view that accompanying the vast majority of viewings will get the best results for both buyers and sellers because we get a more informed and personal feel for what people don’t like as much as what they do like.  We can give a better service to buyers, matching candidate properties more closely with their need, and we get a far stronger understanding of the current view from the buying market so we can give better advice to sellers.