So you want to sell your house quickly, and you know that using an estate agent is likely to take weeks or months just to exchange, never mind to complete the sale. What do you do?
Sadly, you are probably going to call one of those “we’ll-buy-your-home-quickly” companies that seem to populate the property sections of most local newspapers. Of course, their tagline should really be: “We’ll buy your home quickly… for a massive discount… obviously.”
Allow me to throw another option into the mix: instruct an auction company like Auction House London. And here’s why.
I took a call at 10am one Friday morning a few weeks ago from a gentleman with a house in Mill Hill, NW7, he needed to sell quickly – very quickly – he wanted a sale within just three days. And not a wishy washy “sort-of-under-offer-subject-to-contract” type sale that could take ages to progress further. No, an actual exchange of contracts.
Our auction dates did not work out for him and his timeframe, but he knew we had a huge database of buyers and a large presence online, and felt we would be the right firm to help him.
The property was in a desirable part of north-west London and had a value of £1m on the open market, according to him. I quickly deduced, by doing a quick desktop valuation, that the right level to take it on at would be circa £850,000/£900,000. I dare say a property buying company would be offering a lot less than that.
As it was not being treated as an auction instruction, there was no harm in taking the vendor’s valuation as our guide: either we would get what the vendor wanted or we would not. Simple.
We were given access to look around at 2pm, but rather than simply going with just one of the auction team to view it, we decided – with the owner’s blessing – to promote and conduct an impromptu block viewing for any potential buyers too. It seemed silly not to while we were there – time was of the essence after all.
So we blasted a quick newsletter out to all our registered buyers for north-west London, uploaded the details to our website and all of the portals and spent the next three hours drumming up interest.
By the time one of our team was on his way to see it at 2pm, we knew he was going to be joined by a dozen potential buyers who had rearranged their afternoons to get a first look at this new instruction.
At the viewing, the vendor let us in and, without interfering in any way, witnessed a stream of potential buyers. My employee made it very clear to all those on site that best offers would be invited as soon as the viewing was over. For most of the parties on site, the house was not quite right or was priced a little beyond their own valuation, but two of the viewers were seriously interested and ready to proceed.
After discreet discussions with both, one of the buyers was willing to proceed at the full £1m asking price.
The seller’s solicitor had prepared a legal pack during the previous couple of hours, and we forwarded that to the buyer’s solicitor. In the meantime, the buyer came to our office, where we sat and chatted while awaiting the lawyer’s verdict.
It was now around 4pm and the buyer took one or two phone calls from his solicitor with questions that we quickly obtained the answers to, and within half an hour the buyer was happy and ready to put down his deposit.
We produced a sale memorandum and exchanged under auction conditions at 4.30pm – approximately six hours after we had learnt about the property for the first time. Not only had the vendor achieved his (very) quick sale, but he had exchanged at the same price he had been told by local estate agents that his house was worth. No discount given.
Now I am not saying that we could reproduce that kind of result every time we are asked, but it does show that us property auctioneers are not just about loudly yelling out numbers at people in glamorous hotel ballrooms – we have the ability to find buyers at very short notice and conduct quick, professional, legally binding sales at the very highest price when needed to as well.
Andrew Binstock, director and auctioneer, Auction House London
