Questions worth putting to all estate agents
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To WIN agency selling instructions:
Do estate agents find and reference all the recently completed sales in your locality, not just the ones they sold themselves?
Do estate agents do a like-for-like comparison by giving plus and minus values to aspects of each sold property in turn, depending upon the advantages and disadvantages (the differences) between the house that was sold and your house (the house being valued)? They should estimate the amount that a buyer might pay for each plus and minus aspect respectively, and adjust the price of the sold house, upwards or downwards, as appropriate, to arrive at the value of the YOUR house.
Understanding the state of repair of the house being sold is also crucial to knowing the true current value. Do they?
If size differences between your house and the comparable ones are significant, do they work out a value per sq. metre for each comparable, and apply the results to the sq. metre size of the subject house; discounting bathrooms and landings altogether (Note: They should only attribute the estimated cost of construction to conservatories, outbuildings etc.)?
Do they ascertain whether each comparison sale analysed, involved a loan of more then 75% of the purchase price? If it did, do they ignore that transaction completely and look for up to three others that did not use excessive loan finance. Why? Because excessive loan finance tends to skew true market prices upwards.
YES to all / NO
The result should give you the price to ask, after adding a small amount to allow for the negotiations.
Price it right and buyers will come. It really is that simple