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Selling your Historic Victorian
House and Home
Get advice from Independent Surveyors
Our Building Surveyors can help whether you are buying or selling a property with regard to building surveys, structural surveys, engineer's reports, specific defects report regarding problems such as dampness or cracking, home buyer's reports or any other property matters. During the survey we like to meet you at the property and we are more than happy to talk to you about the problems we find. Please free phone 0800 298 5424 for a friendly chat.
Free phone 0800 298 5424
Why should you have a building survey on a house you are selling?
Caveat Emptor
Caveat Emptor means Buyer Beware and whilst the buyer should be aware that they have liability it can help to make a unique selling point if your house has its own independent structural survey carried out. We ask you to take a minute to have a look at an example of one of our surveys to see how good they are. Not only are they technically accurate and carried out by experienced, expert Building Surveyors they are written in plain English with photos and sketches to help you and the buyer understand and appreciate how your house is buying. |
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Victorian property sketch with sash window bays |
Let's talk about Estate Agents
Many things are said about Estate Agents, some good and many not so good. We believe they are similar to bankers and politicians in the popularity stakes. We do however feel that there are excellent Estate Agents out there who are very helpful but you do need to keep in mind that you are dealing with a salesperson and as such you should always ask your Estate Agent what they have been doing that week to sell your property. |
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Rightmove.co.uk and property selling websites
There are a number of main property selling websites. Rightmove advise that they have the most traffic and the largest number of properties which is not surprising as they are owned by most of the large estate agents although they were originally, as we understand it, set up by the bank Surveyors. These are some of the other property websites that are worth looking at. zoopla.co.uk, primelocation.com, home.co.uk, yourmove.co.uk, housenetwork.co.uk |
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Sell it yourself
There are also various sell it yourself websites, here are a few of them.
thelittle house company.com, the houses ale.co.uk, sellyourownhome .co.uk |
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Estate agent websites
Have a good look at the Estate Agents website to see how it is presented and see if it is in a format that you like and decide if it is somewhere you would go to obtain further information on a property. As an example Countrywide Estate Agents are also Surveyors and also Solicitors so we would reinforce that you do need independent professional advice in the form of both independent Surveyors and independent Solicitors.
Other things an Estate Agent's website tells you about them
How frequently an Estate Agent updates its own website and the general look and quality of the website does give an indication, we feel, of how pro-active they are and also how comfortable they are with modern technology. However you will have to judge this for yourself.
Estate agents and Unique Selling Points
All Estate Agents do is sell property so they should have Unique Selling Points or USP's. They usually do advise you of these, often within a presentation packet explaining what their USP's are. This does not necessarily mean they do them to a good standard. From a sellers point of view we know that the USP's are often overlooked and, from experience, judgement is made purely on the price the Estate Agent put the property on the market for. You do need to make sure that you are looking at the whole picture when choosing a professional Estate Agent. |
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Meet the Estate Agent
We would always recommend that you meet the Estate Agent who will actually be selling your house and not just the person known as the Lister. The Lister is the person that initially brings you on board into the Estate Agency adding your property to the list of properties that they have to sell.
House price decided by the Seller / Estate Agent client
Be very aware of not taking advice from the Estate Agent particularly with regard to the price the house should be marketed at. We generally find that people selling their houses usually overvalue their property and it is a rarity for a seller to undervalue their property. A good Estate Agent should be able to show you comparable house sales that have been available in the area and also the price that they were actually sold at and not the price that they were on the market for. In fact it is an interesting exercise in general to find out the price properties are marketed for compared with the price the properties sold for
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Estate Agent website or their shop window
It is said that a large percentage of people now look on the internet as their primary source for finding a property. Indeed with busy lifestyles and the accessibility of computers almost anywhere it is one of the methods that people will always use. It is said that websites only have about three seconds to catch the eye of the purchaser.
However now and again people do see a property they like within an Estate Agents shop window. So have a stroll down to the Estate Agent that you are thinking of dealing with to see how the shop front is presented and decide if you would like to have your Victorian property for sale there.
Sales Particulars
Make sure the sales particulars from the Estate Agent are accurate. It is your responsibility to check them as the Estate Agent is almost immune from prosecution due to the way the law works with property. A good set of sales particulars is maybe all that people have to remember your house by after they have had a quick look round four or five properties in a day. |
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Here are some other articles that you may find interesting.
Why you have never seen any building surveys or structural surveys like ours
Estate Agents recommend not having a survey
Mortgate surveyors won't do a builidng survey, or should that be a can't do a building survey?
Heat loss in a poor insulated house
Winter snow and ice and how it causes problems in your house and home
Good photos of your Victorian or Edwardian property
Make sure there are good photos both on the internet and within any booklets that the Estate Agent produces to help you when selling your Victorian property.
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Terraced Victorian properties
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Victorian property rear view Is this photo taken too far away |
Photo of the lounge in a Victorian property. Does the room look too cluttered? |
Floor plans, should you or should you not have floor plans drawn of your house and home?
We believe that floor plans help considerably when selling an old historic Victorian property as the layouts tend to be unique. It also helps people to remember your particular property so we would always recommend you have a floor plan layout produced. A design service that we offer, if you so wish, is a 3D modelling of the house and this is not as expensive as you may think so please call us to talk to us about this. |
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Extension and alteration possibilities
When selling your Victorian property you may also wish to include information, either as a separate report or within our pre-sales structural survey, identifying areas where the property could be extended, converted or altered. |
Converted Victorian apartments |
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Modern glass extension on Victorian property |
House with a modern extension |
Tell people about problems in your beautiful Victorian home
Most people who are buying an historic building are well aware that there can be problems. The beauty of having your own pre-sales structural survey is that you can advise people of potential problems so they are well aware of these when negotiating the sales/purchase price. |
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Typical problems that we find with a Victorian property
Typical problems found in a Victorian property, such as high level work on chimneys where the pointing or brickwork has weathered and the flashings have deteriorated, can be resolved before the house is put on the market or you can make the decision to advise people of the problem.
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Chimney is weathered and some of the lead flashing has been displaced |
Lead flashing to chimney |
No foundation to Bay Windows
Bay windows in this era of property typically do not have foundations underneath them and may have been subject to movement. We are aware that some insurance companies underpin bay windows with a modern foundation. We think this is excessive and unnecessary. |
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No foundation to bay window |
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What do the circles and ovals mean?The circles and ovals are a system that we use within our structural surveys and building surveys to highlight problem areas so that you are not left wondering what the problem is. |
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Our Sketches
In addition to this if the photographs do not explain the problem together with our survey report we also add in one of our own sketches such as the example that is shown here below. |
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| Bell mouth detail |
Unexpected reasons that a sale of a historic property fails
In our experience of dealing with many house purchases we believe that is uncertainty on an element or a feeling that someone has been misleading with regards to something that is often the reason that a potential purchaser backs out. There are often many other reasons but these are the main ones.
Independent Surveyors
If you truly do want an independent expert opinion from a surveyor with regard to building surveys, structural surveys, structural reports, engineers reports, specific defects report, dilapidations or any other property matters please contact 0800 298 5424 for a chat.
Our Good, Bad & Ugly Surveys!
We would also like to introduce to you what we call our good, bad and ugly survey which is a building survey which is sometimes known as a structural survey which we have developed over many years, in fact several decades. We have listened to feedback from our clients and amended and altered our surveys to make them easy to read and describe issues clearly. The key factor we believe is our surveys are easy to understand in plain English.
Examples of our building surveys
We are more than happy to provide you with examples of our unique building surveys via email. Our surveys contain photos, sketches and definitions that help to explain the specific problems that we find within the property.
We trust you found the article of use and if you have any experiences that you believe should be added to this article that would benefit others, or you feel that some of the information that we have put is wrong then please do not pause to contact us (we are only human).
The contents of the web site are for general information only and are not intended to be relied upon for specific or general decisions. Appropriate independent professional advice should be paid for before making such a decision.
All rights are reserved the contents of the web site is not to be reproduced or transmitted in any form in whole or part without the express written permission of www.1stAssociated.co.uk
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