How To Set Your House Price

When selling your property the asking price you set is critical. The single biggest reason a house fails to sell is that it is put on the market at a price too far above what other similar homes are selling for in the same area. The value of your house is tied to the selling price of other similar homes in your neighbourhood. This is the case no matter how much you have spent on improving it. If you have spent a lot do not expect to get it all back when you sell the house.

You must balance the cash you want with the actual value of the property i.e. the price someone else is willing to pay. If you set your price too low you could lose thousands of pounds but if you set it too high you could fail to sell it or even get any viewings.

There are two aspects to setting your selling price:

1. the asking price at which you will be advertising your house
2. the actual selling price - the size of offer you are prepared to accept

The actual selling price may be about 5% to 10%, or more, lower than the asking price depending upon the house market conditions.

Finding Out About House Prices

Estate agents do not set house prices. They simply make an estimate of a reasonable asking price based upon their knowledge of the housing market. Buyers set the price based upon what they are willing to pay.

The first step to setting the price is to find out which houses in your area are similar to your own in terms of size and number of rooms and locating those that are for sale. These are the houses that buyers will be comparing with your house when you put your house up for sale. Next check out the asking prices of houses that are up for sale by looking in estate agents' windows, checking their web sites, looking at local property newspapers and reviewing the major property web sites.

Walk by and view the the homes that are for sale. Decide if they are bigger or smaller than your own. Do they have extensions or bigger gardens? Is the general condition better or worse than your house? What other differences can you see that may affect their value relative to that of your property? Set your asking price higher or lower than the selected homes based upon your observations.

Other ways to obtain a house price estimate are to ask estate agents to view your property saying you are considering putting it on the market with an agent; or to pay for a professional property valuer from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. (RICS).

What Prices Houses Sold For

The asking price you set will not be your selling price. What you have discovered so far is the current asking price of properties similar to yours.

Now you need to find out what price similar houses have sold for in the recent past. This will give you a guide to the size of offer you should accept. Every property transaction is registered with the Land Registry and this information can be accessed from the Land Registry itself or from several web sites set up to provide this information based upon the figures from the Land Registry e.g http://uk.houseprices.yahoo.net/

Seasonal Factors

Demand for houses is highest in the spring and also in late summer. The holiday periods of Christmas and August when buyers are otherwise engaged are times when demand is lower.