2. Valuing Your Home

A crucial part of selling your home your self will be to identify a good selling price.  You want to maximize the asking price to ensure that you have made a good return however you also want a realistic price that will encourage viewings and ultimately lead to a sale. Too high and you might not get any viewings and therefore never sell and too low and you will loose out. It is important to make sure that you have allowed for some room for negotiation in the asking price.

There are a number of places to get a rough asking price for your home including the land registry, up my street and looking to see what local properties are listed with estate agents for in your area. It is often worth working out an average price per square foot for properties in your local area, multiplying this by the square foot of your own home and this will give you a rough guide.

A Chartered Surveyor will give you an accurate valuation of your home. It is worth finding a local firm that is well established. The valuation that they give you will be based on their extensive local knowledge and their long experience of the local market. A Chartered Surveyor will charge you a fee for this.  It is possible that a good survey will speed up the sale of your home as the potential purchaser may be able to use the survey for their mortgage therefore saving time.

It is possible to get a free valuation from an estate agent, many offer this service. Ther are a few things to think about though with an estate agents valuation. They often state a price that will be higher than they think is realistic as they will want your business. Naturally as the person selling your home you would like to get the higest price possible so be wary of this. Also be aware that the aim of the estate agent is to sell you're their services so they will try very hard to get you to sign an agreement. However you may well feel they are able to offer you a service that you are unable to refuse to save on your own time.

It is worth trying to get the sale figure right and realistic at the time of listing it. Having to lower your price should be avoided as it indicates one of two things

• 1) You are desperate to sell - this may result in time wasting offers.
• 2) You have been badly advised or misinformed - this may put them off altogether.

When pricing your home remember the old tactic that £79,950 looks much better than £80,000.