4 ways to make more from your house sale

Buying and selling a home are likely to be the biggest financial transactions you ever make, but how many of us really take the time to think about how we can maximise our profits? If you’re anything like me you’d probably just get a couple of quotes from High Street estate agents, have a quick tidy up and hope for the best.

Given what large sums of money we’re talking about though, there’s actually a lot of scope for increasing the amount of money you can make from selling your home, both in terms of the price you can get for it and the expenses you incur along the way. If you’re keen to make more cash from your house sale, we’ve got a few simple tips.

Shop around

I bet that when you buy a takeaway pizza you scroll through the offers and compare deals from a few pizza companies before you make a decision. Right? When you sell your house though, how many different estate agents do you research? How many solicitors do you get quotes from? Put those pizza price comparison skills to work by shopping around for everything and you could save much more than the cost of a 12″ meat feast.

Source: Unsplash

Try an online estate agent

You don’t have to stick to a traditional bricks-and-mortar estate agent to sell your house, there are loads of options for online estate agents nowadays who can do the job just as well but for a fraction of the price because they don’t have the same overheads. Let’s face it, we all go online to look for houses, so it makes sense to start there when it comes to selling. If you’re feeling confident and have some time on your hands you could do away with fees altogether and sell your house yourself.

Don’t be afraid to haggle

Many of us assume that things like estate agent fees are fixed, but when it comes to buying and selling, everything is up for negotiation, especially if your house is worth a lot of money and there’s a good fee for them at stake. Don’t be afraid to make an offer, the worst that can happen is that they say no. Likewise, think carefully before accepting below asking price offers on your home. Take advice from your agent and push back when you need to. A few hundred pounds might not seem much in the context of a house sale but it’s a significant amount of extra cash in your bank.

Source: Unsplash

Take some time to freshen up

We don’t mean have a shower, we mean take a step back and look at your home objectively. Would you want to live there if you were seeing it for the first time? Does it conjure up visions of laid-back family life or is it stuffed to the brim with clutter? Strip back the mess, store excess clutter away and freshen up paintwork and make sure that the front garden is clear and the front door is clean and tidy.

First impressions really do count and you want people to picture themselves in your home.