Do's and Don'ts of Selling Your Home at Auction

17th May 2022

If you are thinking of selling your home by auction, it can be a quick and hassle-free process. Our South Hams auctioneers have put together a quick guide of do’s and don’ts when it comes to selling a property at auction, to hopefully answer some of your most pressing questions:

Do

Take time to consider your auctioneer

There are a plethora of auctioneers around, from dedicated auction houses to estate agencies like ourselves who have a dedicated auction department. Get in touch with the auctioneer, request a property valuation and information about recent properties sold at auction so you can see if they are the right fit for your property needs.

Instruct your solicitor

Once you have established that you are selling your property via auction, you will need to instruct your solicitor. This is a requirement whether you sell your house via an estate agent or through an auction – the only difference is that you work with a solicitor to create the necessary documents needed for sale before an offer is made, rather than post-offer.

Let the auctioneer do the leg work

One of the benefits of selling your home at auction is that once you have instructed your property to be sold, you can allow the auctioneer to get on with the hard work with little input required from your end. If you instruct us to sell your property, it will receive intense marketing and advertising six weeks before the sale. This marketing will be across local newspapers, within in-house magazines, on our website and property portals such as Rightmove and OnTheMarket.com.

Enjoy some added security

When you sell through an auction, you have an added element of security with your sale, so feel free to relax! This is because once a sale has been agreed upon, the buyer cannot back out of the deal without incurring financial or legal penalties. Further to this, you will receive the money from your sale in as little as four weeks after the sale date.

Don’t

Worry about expensive sale costs

A common misconception is that selling your home at auction is expensive when in reality, this isn’t the case. When you sell your home with us at auction, you should expect to pay around 2.5% of the price you get for the property, plus an addition (£/%) for advertising costs. The only other cost you are required to pay is to your solicitor for legal fees, but this is something you would be required to do with any type of property sale.

Think you will get less than you want from an auction sale

Upon instructing an auctioneer to sell your property, you will agree on a guide price at which we will market your property, as well as a reserve price, which is the minimum amount that the property will be sold for. As a seller, this is an element of security and means you won’t achieve less than you are wanting for your sale.

Worry about a lack of interest

As we previously mentioned, once instructed, we are responsible for the marketing of your property. We will also handle the necessary viewings, which you don’t need to be present for.

Worry about fixing up the house

When you are selling your house with an estate agent, there are certain things you will do to prepare your home for sale to make a good first impression and attract potential buyers. However, with auction properties, buyers are often looking for something they can add value to by fixing it up, so a property that needs refurbishment will tend to pique their interest.

Worry about not selling your property

There are pros and cons to selling your house via auction, but one of the main positives is how secure they are. Contracts are only exchanged once an offer has been accepted, and all offers are final. This means that less than 1% of auction property sales fall through, meaning once that gavel falls, you can relax.