Author: Diane

Sell your house without an estate agent?

How easy is it to sell your house without an estate agent?


HouseWeb is one site that lets you sell your house without an estate agent. The biggest and first direct sales company! So what advantages are there? You will save massively on fees for starters! Even if you negotiate estate agent fees you could end up paying many thousands of pounds to the estate agent! With houseweb prices start at £47 so you can see the huge potential for saving there too.


So what does an estate agent do and can you do it instead?

You would want to provide the same information as an estate agent. That is room dimensions, information about the property and photos. The photos should be taken to make the property look good and clearly show the house. Decluttering is an essential first step before even thinking about getting a camera out! Something some estate agents don’t tell you – but when you’re in control you can re-take the photos if you decide you don’t like them, or declutter more! Sometimes it’s hard to be objective – we’d be happy to look at your photos or house listing and make suggestions on how you can improve the look!


There are three packagaes on houseweb. The cheapest allows only one photo, the next level up allows 6 and the most expensive allows up to 25.

You could decide which option to go for by making a list of all the rooms you think would be worth having a photo of.

Why exclude some rooms? If you can’t get a good photo of a room even though it looks fine, then it might be worth not including a photo of that room. Sometimes you need a wide angle lens on a camera to get a good photo of a smaller room. If the lighting is difficult then you can also find it easier to not include a photo!

For a house that needs a lot of work you might put some people off by showing every last room.


You can add extra photos, EPC (That’s an energy performance certificate), various other options, but the most important one we think is a for sale board! Whilst you could just stick a notice in your window or make your own, then the professional one you’d get from houseweb is worth the money.

You should take your time taking the photos and writing the listing. Get someone else to look it over first to give you a second opinion.
I’ve often seen photos selling a house that have been taken on a rainy day and it just makes me feel sad – 99% of houses and gardens look better when the sun is out! Wait another day to take a photo if it’s rained!

Houseweb is definitely worth a look if you want to avoid huge estate agent fees.

Restoration Home -Stanwick Hall

Stanwick Hall is part 4 of this series of Restoration Home. You can watch it on iplayer

Stanwick HallStanwick Hall is in appalling condition and faces an incredible battle for survival, which City high-flyers Gina and Simon have taken on. The Hall is on the buildings-at-risk register which means it is one of the most endangered structures in the country.

As the restoration throws up more and more serious problems, long forgotten evidence comes to light showing it was built on the biggest financial scandal of the early 18th century and was emblematic of the huge upheaval in the early 19th century that changed the landscape of Britain forever.

It starts by saying that George Downing built Downing Street. And he was a bit of a dodgy property developer. By the 1950s it needed restoring.
Stanwick Hall was also built on the cheap. It has been bought by the Russells in 2007.They paid about £1million for it and have half a million to do it up. They have had to get their plans approved by the heritage commission

Stanwick Hall is on the at risk register at English Heritage – I assume if the family restore it then it will be removed from this list.

STANWICK HALL, HIGHAM ROAD, STANWICK, RAUNDS, EAST NORTHAMPTONSHIRE, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE

Listing text here Grade: II*

You can buy the book Restorarion Home.

Auction properties on Rightmove – how to find them

How to find the auction properties only on rightmove.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/Cheshire/auction.html
This link goes to this page listing property in Cheshire for sale at auction

So it should just be a matter of changing the location on rightmove and finding other auction property.

You get a longer more complicated URL doing that – but you can manually edit the url in the address bar so it reads
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/Manchester/auction.html
and then that takes you to the Manchester auction properties.

We spotted this useful hint from Venger! Thank you!

Traditionally auction properties have been bought by cash buyers. If you have a mortgage appreoved then ask if they’d consider letting you buy an auction property – buy do searches and surveys in advance and get a solicitor who specialises in auctions in before you start spending any proper money as they can look through the legal pack and warn if there’s something obvious.
Don’t expect mortgage companies to be happy with any major issues on an auction property like subsidence. Leave well alone to people who can afford to lose their deposit!

Council to buy out landlords

A local council is considering buying up large swathes of private rental accommodation in a bid to crack down on unscrupulous landlords and offer longer, more secure tenancies.

Artiucle on Landlord today.

If Newham Council in London buy at sensible prices (lower than current price levels for starters!) then this might be a positive for the council. If they overpay then that’s a very bad idea for council tax payers and residents.