New Stamp Duty Threshold for First Time Buyers

As you may or may not have heard there is a new stamp duty threshold of £250000 for firsttime buyers. This means that for anyone who is buying there first home will not have to pay stamp duty unless the house value is above £250000.

So remember to bear this in mind when selling your home, if you are hoping it will be snapped up by first time buyers you can probably get away with raising your asking price a bit, but not too much as you will over value your house and make it a poor option.

For example if you value your house at £250000 a first time buyer will pay no stamp duty, but if you value your house at £250001 the first time buyer will pay around £7500 in stamp duty, effectively reducing your house to a real market value of around £242500 and potentially losing you the sale.

So remember if your home is valued at over £250000, you may be better off reducing your price in order to sell your house.

Also remember that is you are buying your first home, this double in the threshold means that you can now spend around £2000 more for every £100000 of asking price, on your new home up to £250000.

Springtime is finally here.

As Spring is fast approaching its now time to take care of the annual tasks, such as spring cleaning the house, tidying the garden, washing the windows.

Although this may seem like they are very selfish tasks, these are an essential part of your home selling toolkit. Think of it this way, when you go into a shop is it tidy or messy? You need to make your house look and feel like a show home and not just on the inside.

As Kerb appeal is the most important part of selling your house, as research shows that over 90% of people who are looking to buy a house will visit the house prior to making any viewing appointments at all. So make sure you get rid of the winter blues from your house and remove all the dead stuff in your garden. Making your house look as appealing as possible without needing to go in.

Just remember the viewing process as follows.

1. Kerb Appeal
2. Front of House
3. First Impressions (smells, sight and sounds on entering)
4. The grand tour
5. The specifics (Kitchen, Bathroom, back garden)

Just try to visualise the journey a potential buyer takes and make sure its a tidy one.

Cold Weather Warning

With the continued cold weather we are experiencing at the moment, I thought I would give you some advice. So this tip is more about what you should be doing to aid your house and not necessarily the sale of it.

Please make sure that you do the following if you hope to sell you house in the coming months or year and dont want to have to pay out before hand, after all people want to buy a property that is in good working order not a broken run down one.

Things to do.

1. If you are going away make sure to leave your heating and boiler set to the mode for cold weather, if it does not have this mode set it to around 5 degress celcius, this will prevent pipes freezing and bursting.

2. Open your windows - This may sound like false economy but a build up of warm humid air in your home can lead to a variety or water realted problems, including mould, damp, rot and lots more. So when you wake up open your window for around 30 minutes to get rid of the warm air built up over night, and after a bath leave it about 20 mins then open a window DO NOT OPEN YOUR BATHROOM WINDOW IMMEDIATELY AFTER HAVING YOUR BATH OR SHOWER.

3. Use your heating - try to keep your house as warm as possible, with your heating on to avoid a problem occurring with damp and humidity realted problems.

4. Lag your pipes - this may not be the best time to do this but if you can remember to lag / insulate your pipes, insulate all pipes that are heating un used spaces, such as wall cavities. You dont need to lag pipes running in rooms. This tip will heating keep your boiler in full working order.

These are just a few tips to help keep your house saleable whilst the weather is bad and save you money in the longer term.