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Selling your house.

Selling your house can be quite a daunting experience.

Recently I decided to place my house in Dunnottar up for sale. Of course I had numerous Estate Agents in Springs come around and give their advice on the value of the house.  

While I already had a conservative value in mind I realised straight away that many of the agents would deliberately estimate the value of the house as being substantially more and then try to convince you to sign a sole mandate on the house. Never sign a sole mandate if you are wishing to sell your house fast.

I had previously experienced this puffing up of values with a house that my mother in law was trying to sell. The valuations of the house varied by as much as R200 000-00. Come on guys - how does one Estate agent see a value in a house of over 25% more than another estate agent. These estate agents are supposed to be experts in the area and should be able to supply a fairly accurate valuation of the property!

Estate Agent Commissions.

The second area where there were huge discrepancies between the various estate agents was in the commissions that they charged to sell your house. Fair enough, in the long run the commissions are paid by the seller but they do add to the advertised house price and could end up making your house unaffordable to the prospective house buyer.

In my case I had agents with commissions varying from 4% to as much as 12%. Needless to say my house was offered on the market from as little as R590 000 to as much as R639 000 due to the varying commissions charged by the estate agents. This is a massive price variation of nearly R50 000.

Estate Agent Service

When it came to service supplied by these estate agents it was really quite amusing to discover that in many of the instances the estate agents with the highest commissions did the least to sell the house. What they were really looking for was the opportunity to place a "For Sale" board outside the house and have prospective buyers call them from the board. This way they could effortlessly make huge sums of money from the house sale commission.

Want to really piss off an estate agent - just tell them that they can't place a for sale board outside your house!

Unfortunately when you want to sell your house it is best to allow some estate agents to erect a sign outside your home. Be careful to allow one, two or three at the most. Too many sign boards will make it seem as if you are really desperate to sell and will discourage any prospective buyer. However a great deal of house sales are generated by the "For Sale" sign and so I do suggest that you do have at least one or 2 boards outside.

It was really amusing to see the reaction of estate agents once I had my "For Sale" boards up. Agents would come and demand their right to place a board outside my home. Others that I had never heard of before would come knocking and requesting me to list my house for sale with them. Of course after the initial listing you would never hear from them again.

The Best Estate Agents in Springs

From my simple experience in selling my house let me tell you the best estate agents to deal with in Springs. Out of all the Estate Agents who listed my house for sale there were only two estate agents that really made an effort to sell the house.

The first was a lady "Elize" from Helna Estates. She unfortunately has moved off to another estate agency since.

The second and overall best service received was from Bramel Real Estates who coincidentally also had the lowest commission rate out of all.  

I must say that dealing with Melanie and Brandon at Bramel Real Estates was nothing short of being a pure pleasure.  If you are planning to sell your house in Springs then make sure to give them a call at 011 734 4750.