Selling Your Home by Sealed Bid Auction
If property sales are taking a turn for the better and you live in an affluent area where it is a seller’s market, then have you considered selling your home by a sealed bid? This involves you deciding on a guide price that you’d like for your home before people make confidential bids that are submitted before a particular date. This process can be the best way of achieving the right price for your property.
It’s important you’ve done your homework on this type of sale, as it will require a whole number of factors from an experienced estate agent to knowing what the best bids would be for your home. However, by giving buyers a particular deadline and guide price, you could be looking at a much swifter, more efficient sale that could save you time and money.
Firstly, you will need to find an estate agent that has a lot of experience in selling homes by sealed bid as it does require some level of expertise, rather like an auction, and not all agents will be willing to offer this service to you. Equally, you will need to check that your home is right for this kind of sale, as some won’t be. If you find your home isn’t right for this type of sale, then you should perhaps look into auctions as this is another great way to often achieve the best price for your home and through a swift process.
Choosing your guide price.
Your agent will probably recommend a lower guide price than what you would want for your home; this will allow for more bids (rather like in an auction) and should attract more buyers. Have a long discussion with your estate agent and make sure you are completely happy with the choice of guide price and make it clear what your expectations are for the sale; but remember that the choice of your guide price could be the difference between a successful sale and a not so successful one.
Making it clear to buyers.
Always ensure that your estate agent is making it as clear as possible what the sealed bid process is to any potential buyers. Remember, some may not have bought in this way before and will need reassurance in what they are expected to do and the confidence to bid. Most estate agents will include details and advice in the brochure for your home, so make sure you have a read through to see if it is clear enough. There should also be a detailed section for the end buyer, as they will need to be 100% sure on what they are expected to do if their offer is chosen.
Early Offers
In some cases, if a buyer is really keen to buy your home before the sealed bid process ends, they may put in an early offer to you. Some will use the reasoning that they aren’t able to make certain viewing dates or the bid deadline, but your estate agent will guide you through responding to this early offer. You will need to carefully consider the offer; is it within the price range that you are wanting? Additionally, if you have had a lot of interest in your home, is it more worthwhile to wait the process out and see what other bids you may get as they may be higher?
Viewing days.
It is often recommended to set certain viewing dates for potential buyers to look around your home, rather than having appointments as and when. This is particularly useful if you work as you can set a date for buyers to look around your home, and it will also save the mad last minute clean when you have an unexpected viewing!
If you do choose to have a viewing day, your estate agent will normally assist you with this, being on-site during the viewings. Furthermore, by having everyone who is interested in your property around your home at the same time it sets up the edge of competitiveness that may help achieve that fantastic final bid!
Final bid date.
This is the exciting part of the process, getting those sealed bids. You will set a particular closing day at the beginning of the process, which is normally a Friday, when the sealed envelopes that hold the bids will be sent to either your solicitor’s or estate agent’s offices.
If you are a bit wary of the sealed bid process and you need assuring that this is entirely confidential, then it may be best to hold this at your solicitor’s office, so you can be confident that the bid has not been tampered with at any point.
Opening the envelopes you will find all of the bids that have been made on your home and even though you may be blown away by the highest bid, it is important that you take advice from your estate agent. They may have prior knowledge of the buyer, and will be able to advise you as to the quality of each bid, allowing you to make the right decision for the continued swift sale.
Choosing the bid.
Once you have chosen the lucky bidder on your home, you should find all of their contact details included in the form that they have enclosed their bid on. This will include all general details such as contacts, offer price, contact details for their solicitor and there will often be a summary of their financial situation, which will indicate whether they will be purchasing by a mortgage/lending or by cash funds.
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