Guide to Selling

Selling your home can be stressful so it is important to choose an agent you can trust who will make this process as smooth as possible. Our highly trained, dedicated and professional teams aim to eliminate the stress and make the experience as easy as possible.

What to Do Next

Buying or selling a home?   Do you require a valuation?  Please contact your nearest Marchand Petit office for advice.

In the meantime, here are a few guidelines which we hope will assist:

VALUATION/MARKET APPRAISAL

Firstly, if you are selling, you will require a valuation/market appraisal.  We can offer you a free, no obligation factual and accurate appraisal of the current market value of your home.  Our experienced team will provide you with a valuation based not only on their in depth knowledge of the area, but also utilising our extensive database of recent properties sold.

INSTRUCTION OF THE AGENT/PROPERTY DETAILS

Having received your appraisal, and provided that you are satisfied with it, we will then proceed to prepare full sales details of your property including floorplans.  

MARKETING

Brochures – We have found that high quality, well presented, professionally printed particulars inspire greater confidence and encourage more viewings.  Therefore we will prepare descriptive details and we will ask you to approve their accuracy.  We will also use floor plans so that prospective buyers have a useful understanding of the layout.  Photographs will be taken in good weather conditions by one of our specialist photographers in order to showcase your property to best advantage.

Details of your property will be available in all six offices thus widening the net hugely, embracing all buyers considering a purchase anywhere in the South Hams, South Devon and southern Cornwall.  Our negotiators in all offices will have details of your property instantly available to them in order to promote it to potential buyers visiting or telephoning the office.

Email/Mail Out – Our six offices are networked by computer, allowing each office access to all properties that we are selling and every purchaser registered with us.  This database is of enormous value to us and enables us immediately to send your property to the right people.  We regard it as vitally important to be in constant touch with all the prospective buyers; especially those who are serious and urgently looking and making sure we have the right match of property to potential buyer is our priority.

We will immediately phone or text information to those buyers who are most likely to want to see your property.  Every suitable applicant will then be sent by post or email details of your property.  This proactive approach to marketing your property is a vital component of our record of success.

Website – Your property will reach buyers all over the world by being actively and strongly marketed on the following sites:

www.marchandpetit.co.uk

www.rightmove.co.uk

www.primelocation.com

www.findaproperty.com

www.propertyfinder.co.uk

www.globrix.com

www.mayfairoffice.co.uk

www.radarhomes.co.uk

The vast majority of purchasers – probably over 80% - do their regular searching for property through the internet instead of buying newspapers or visiting agents.  Our policy of embracing information technology fully, enables buyers to gain immediate access to not just a summary of the property, but a full description, complete with photographs and floor plans, creating their own brochure at the press of a button.  Our own website, and the property portals we subscribe to (listed above), are advertised regularly in the national press.

For Sale Board - This is the most simple and effective marketing tool, available 24 hours a day.

Office and Window Display – External and internal photographs will be prominently displayed in our premises in order to optimise exposure to the market place.

Advertising – Although many of our purchasers live elsewhere in the country, or abroad, we do not neglect the Devon and Cornwall market and our high profile regional advertising attracts many buyers.  We advertise weekly in local and regional publications including the Kingsbridge and Salcombe Gazette, the Dartmouth Chronicle, the South Brent and Ivybridge Gazette, the Totnes Times and the Western Morning News, and monthly in Devon Life.

We advertise in the property supplement of the Sunday Times and Saturday and Sunday Telegraph.  Periodically we have taken full page advertisements in the Sunday Times which has a readership of over 3.5 million, the Telegraph readership being just over 2.2 million.  This brings a great many more buyers into contact with us.  We expect all our clients to gain significantly from this initiative, either directly through their property being featured (for which there is a charge) or indirectly due to similar properties being advertised.

Public Relations – Details of your property will be sent to our PR consultants, MCPR, who will seek to obtain editorial coverage in national newspapers and magazines.  We are often able to place features and articles through MCPR who liaise with the journalists responsible for writing property supplements and pages.  They are therefore able to place articles and features in such papers as the Sunday Times, the Times, the Saturday and Sunday Telegraphs, the weekend Financial Times, The Mail on Sunday, The Sunday Express, the Evening Standard, Country Life, Yachting Monthly, Devon Life, Western Morning News, and numerous other publications. 

We also get many properties mentioned in local and regional newspapers.

Although we cannot guarantee that any particular property will be included in editorial features our frequent appearance in various papers and magazines ensures that many people reach our website, or ask to go on our database, which is to the great advantage of all our clients.

In House Publications - Your property will be featured in the next edition of the Marchand Petit At Home Magazine.  This magazine generates a tremendous amount of interest.  It is produced several times per year and is sent to everybody who is on our mailing list or who contacts us about property information or visits our offices.  You  will also benefit from general marketing of property in South Hams Life which has a wide distribution including doctors, dentists, holiday homes and hotels.

Mayfair Office, London – Visitors to our associated London office in Mayfair will also have access to your property.  Shared with a number of other leading agents through the country, our London presence enables buyers access to your property from this influential address including investors from the increasingly important overseas market.

Through the Mayfair office we have links with over 350 estate agents’ offices throughout the country working co-operatively for the mutual benefit of clients.  There are heavy concentrations of these offices in the London/Home Counties and Midlands areas – this is of particular benefit since many of our purchasers come from these areas.

VIEWINGS

Our trained staff will accompany all viewings where possible.  Not only have they got extensive experience in showing a property to best advantage; it gives us a chance to overcome any objections at the time at which they arise and to actively sell your property.  It is also our strict policy to follow up every viewing within 48 hours where possible and to let you have feedback.  In this way we expect to be in regular communication with you, and to be able to address any issues which arise, and to tailor our marketing campaign accordingly.

OFFERS

Any offers we receive are promptly verbally notified and then followed up in writing.  Our sales team will negotiate between you and your prospective applicant in order to achieve the best outcome.

We will inform you of the position of the buyers and liaise with you until an accepted offer has been agreed.

Should you require your sale to be completed by a certain date, this is when you should notify us and we will endeavour to satisfy your request wherever possible.

At this stage, you should also provide your list of Fixture and Fittings which will be negotiated separately between the solicitors and forms part of the final contract.

AGREED SALE

At this point (if you have not already done so), you will need to instruct a solicitor and, should you require assistance, we will only be too pleased to recommend local firms.

The solicitors will then write to all parties and the buyers will instruct a surveyor to conduct a survey of your property (the “agreed sale” is subject to the contract and any survey) and the buyers’ mortgage offer (if required) will also be subject to the results of the survey.

The seller’s solicitors will requires a redemption figure from the lender (if applicable).

The solicitors draw up the DRAFT CONTRACT which sets out the Terms of the Sale and sends it to the buyers’ solicitor together with any relevant documents. Any enquiries will then be raised, the Title Deeds and Lease (if applicable) will be checked and further LOCAL SEARCHES if required will be carried out.

Once the draft contracts have been approved, it can be signed by both parties.

FINANCE

We will ensure that prospective buyers will have any assistance that they may need with raising finance.  We have connections with a panel of local fully independent financial advisors who can help with mortgages, inheritance tax advice, investment planning and a range of other financial matters.  We have worked with them for some time and can recommend them as reputable, effective and friendly firms.  This sort of assistance can often help ease the passage of a sale once it is agreed and helps us to make sure that your buyer is fully able to proceed with the purchase.

UPDATING ON YOUR SALE

We will keep you regularly appraised of your sales process right through to completion and liaise with your purchaser, the legal representatives, surveyors and mortgage lenders in order to ensure that your sale is progressed as smoothly and as stress-free as possible.

EXCHANGE OF CONTRACTS

As long as the mortgage offer has been received and cleared funds placed with your buyer’s solicitor, a mutually convenient date can be agreed upon for the exchange of contracts.

COMPLETION

The completion and your actual house move and take between 7 to 28 days depending on the buyers, sellers and their respective solicitors.  We will arrange for key transfer and meter readings to be read if required.