Time To Sell A House

[JackRyan]

Has anyone had any experience in selling a house?

My wife tells me that selling a house in Bangkok can take a year or more. I have heard this from a couple of other people as well.

We are just about to apply for her visa to migrate to Australia which will take up to 10 months. I want to try and avoid waiting around another year or so after that to sell our house.

A realestate company said up to 6 months, but I don't trust any of them.

I think most Thais try to sell their house on the Internet rather than pay an agent commission to sell it for them, so that may be the reason for long selling times, I don't know.

Anybody have any first hand information on this?

Kind Regards

Jack

[PattayaPhom]

The reason properties take a year or even longer to sell is because they are in a bad location and the owner normally wants an unrealistic price. If your on main transport links, close to ammenities and ask a reasonable price you should be able to sell without a problem. Put a for sale sign outside, get on all the free websites, and believe it or not use agents as well, they charge 3%-5% but if they do everythingg for you it is worth listing with them. Personal experience although be it in Pattaya, properties that are priced correctly and in good locations sell within a few weeks....problems arise when someone has a villa out in the boonies miles from anything and wants 10 mil....it just wont shift. Try and find out if any houses similar to yours in the same area sold for what price.

[JackRyan]

PattayaPhom,

Thanks for your reply.

I'm aware of what you correctly wrote and I agree.

I guess I'm referring to average clearance times.

It's a difficult decision for me. If I advertise to sell now and it sells quickly and my wife's visa is refused then I am without a house. The other side of the coin is if I wait until the visa is approved and the house takes a long time to sell then ...... Argh

Thanks for your reply

Jack

[xylophone]

PattayaPhom,

Thanks for your reply.

I'm aware of what you correctly wrote and I agree.

I guess I'm referring to average clearance times.

It's a difficult decision for me. If I advertise to sell now and it sells quickly and my wife's visa is refused then I am without a house. The other side of the coin is if I wait until the visa is approved and the house takes a long time to sell then ...... Argh

Thanks for your reply

Jack

I have sold two houses and one business over the past two years with the average clearance time being 5.6 months. Agree with everything that PattayaPhom has said and a few other things you may want to consider are: -

1). Put together a "punchy" bullet point email, along with a few flattering photographs and email them to your friends and ask them to do likewise to their contacts.

2). If you have any contacts in the business world here in Thailand, for example insurance agents, lawyers etc. then do the same with them and you can offer to pay them say 3% commission for a successful referral. Or you could offer a lump sum cash, less than that amount if you can get away with it.

3). Make sure your wife puts together a Thai version of your email and sends it to her friends.

4). Put together A4 sheets of paper with key features of the house as well as up to four smallish pics of it and get them laminated (spend some time on this and make it look very professional as it will pay off) . Ask friends who have businesses, bar owners, hairdressers, beauty salons etc. etc if they will display the laminated page in their premises for you. You can offer sum of cash if a successful referral results.

In A nutshell, the more people who know of your property for sale, the more likely you are to sell it......simple really, so networking and referral generation is of prime importance. In the past I have had good results through spreading the word amongst the Thai community and although they may want to add a few thousand baht to the sale price in order to line their pockets, it is always possible to negotiate some sort of deal in your favour.

Finally, don't worry about selling the house too soon because you can always take a deposit and aim for a delayed settlement, or arrange a contract whereby you sell the house and rent it back for a period of months for the time that suits you. Remember that once you have a buyer who is keen on buying the place, then you are in the driving seat and a suitable outcome for buyers and sellers alike can almost always be agreed upon.

PS. Make sure the sign you put outside of your house is big and bold and professionally done. It will "speak" volumes about you and the house. Also, if furniture is included, then include that as a feature.

Good luck.

[farang000999]

i would hurry up today and get it on the market and not worry about your wife's visa unless you have some particular reason to believe your wife will be denied.

[jamescollister]

OP took 3 weeks for my wife to be granted a spouse visa, a fair few years back I must say. Jim