Selling Video #1 Should I Stay or Should I Sell?

Video 1 in our selling series is probably best titled ‘Should I Stay or Should I Sell?’ It may seem bizarre for a real estate agency, a company that makes its living from selling people’s houses, to be discussing this question. While a question like when to sell your house might be expected, the suggestion that staying might be better than selling probably doesn’t sound very in line with our business vision.

However, the reality is that sometimes people just want to explore the idea of change for its own sake, which is absolutely fine. We’re not laying down any rules, but making the decision to move house does come with a hefty price tag. I’ll give you some examples.

If your home is worth about $300,000, it’s probably going to cost you around $10,000 in fees and marketing to successfully sell it (unless you can sell it yourself and bypass the commissions etc).

You will then pay a solicitor about $1000 (a conservative estimate) and a furniture removalist (most likely) about $1000 as well. So you can see what can happen here – the dollars are starting to rack up.

Let’s imagine you’ve just bought another house. Even if you bought it at about $350,000, the government’s stamp duty alone for a place of that value is $13,870. You can see what’s happening here – we’re racing towards $30,000 just in fees and charges to move from the equivalent of one side of the street to the other.

Here’s the point: if you are moving because you need more space or because you’re tired of where you are, ask yourself these questions. Is there scope to get a builder to provide a quote to extend your house? Is it worth renovating to refresh the house and give it a new lease on life?

Jens Veal can’t answer those questions for you – that’s for you to decide. But just understand, the idea of moving from House A across to House B comes with a fairly major cost implication and it’s worth giving it some thought. Often too many of us dismiss the costs while they’re still an abstract concept and later regret it when the bills come in. It’s not a small amount of money, so you want to know exactly where you stand. That’s all for today, so we’ll wrap it up and see you in the next video!