How to sell your house - the complete guide (part one)

This week, our property blogger will be telling you how to sell your house – with a new section every day giving you all the information you need:

So many times I have heard the saying; "Bake some bread to sell your house, buyers love it!" writes Lea Beven of Limecastle.

Personally, after trying it, I don't think so. But I do think that having a vanilla smell in your property helps.

So here is my experience on selling a property and some tips and tricks I have picked up over 15 years.

I have broken it down into sections to kept it short and sweet – but with all the information you need.

Part one: How buyers search for property

Around 70–80% of buyers find their property online using property portals. The remainder use a combination of estate agents and local media or the For Sale boards outside property.

So, when using the portals, people usually put in a price band, a postcode or a town and then a rough idea of the size that they are looking for.

So, firstly, it is important to get your price right – you really want to look at pricing to sell rather than looking to price and hold.

These are my own terms, but pricing to sell basically means offering an attractive price to get people interested in coming to view your house – price and hold means you'll be sitting on the property longer hoping for an offer.

Most agents (the people who will add your property to the portals) will give you a price that they want you to hear, and hope that with that price they will win your business.

Many times I have seen property sat on the market for 18 months because the agent has given the buyer a price and they got so excited they spent the profits before the property sold – and then they could not move it on at that price.

My tip: Ask your estate agent for two prices. The first one is the one that he would tell anyone and a second price – the real price he thinks he could get for the property if he was to ring up 3 buyers and could sell it tomorrow (what I call the actual market price)

See part two: How to market effectively