Thinking of selling your house in 2007? As the season kicks off, read our guide on getting your house ready for the market

GET YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER

PUT yourself in a buyer's shoes and you might not be too impressed with your home. Is the entrance warm and welcoming or cluttered and tatty? Are there exposed lightbulbs and dusty paper lanterns? Are the kitchen units out of kilter? The timber floors scuffed and worn? The livingroom an obstacle course of furniture? Still no curtains in the bedroom? The back door falling off its hinges? Has the garden overgrown the back wall and is it in a state of collapse?

It's time to do all the jobs you've been meaning to do for a long time and then some. Start with a major declutter. Did you know that some vendors put most of their furniture in storage before an open viewing? Others redecorate from top to bottom and hire furniture and mirrors to give it an edge over the competition. Start filling boxes for storage and plastic bags for the charity shop weeks or even months in advance of a sale. You have a lot more stuff than you think and it's easiest to do it in stages.

Hire a handyman to do all the little jobs that have been stacking up, such as repairing leaky taps, putting up shelves, fixing broken masonry.

Plenty of time before you sell? Then consider doing larger jobs - creating off-street parking if there is none, which involves planning permission and expensive landscaping. It's expensive, but you will get the money back.

CLEAN UP YOUR TITLE

CONTACT your solicitor early to make sure that your title documents are in order so that the property can in fact be sold. Make sure that you have planning permission for extensions and conversions to the property.

Selling your property is not just about cleaning the garden and freshening-up the bathroom. Without a clean title also, your property just won't sell. Up to 10 per cent of sales fall through because of mixed up titles, according to one estate agent. That bundle of arcane and very boring title documents is critical to your sale. So, how to avoid delays and problems? Firstly, contact your solicitor early and certainly long before the "Sold" sign is stoutly hammered into your front garden by your estate agent.

Have the contract for sale drafted and the title tidied up before they are needed. Failing that, the range of problems that can delay or even stop a sale entirely is potentially huge. Are there documents missing? Are there planning problems? Did last year's kitchen extension or attic conversion need planning permission? Is there a question mark over the side entrance? Is there a right-of-way along the front path? Does anybody else have an interest in the property that does not show up in the title documents? Selling a property is a formal legal transaction. The requirements are strict and unforgiving. Prepare in advance. Then sit back and enjoy the champagne.

CALL IN THE AGENT

THE days of calling in four or five agents to value your home - and then choosing the one who offers the highest valuation and the lowest fee - are over. In a tougher market, agents are being more selective about the properties they take on their books, and vendors should be equally choosy.

What you need is the agent with the best record in your area. Choose two or three at most, and ask how many sales they have handled in the neighbourhood, how long the properties took to sell and what prices they have achieved.

It's important to have a good rapport with your agent as you will be depending on him or her to sell what is probably your most valuable asset. Agents are wary of property that they think might not sell, where the vendor may have unreasonable expectations.

Narrow your choice down to two or three estate agents that are particularly strong in your area, or that come personally recommended.

An agent will walk through your house, do a quick calculation on the size and give you a verbal valuation for free. They will also discuss the costs of selling, including their fees, marketing and advertising. You should ask advice on what needs to be done to make the house more appealing and you should also establish if the agent will be the one showing your house to viewers, rather than an office junior. It's important that you have an agent who is able to show the house as often as possible during the sales campaign. Potential viewers who call an agent only to find that the earliest they can get into a house is three days hence and at an inconvenient time may not be bothered.

THE COST OF SELLING

DUBLIN estate agents have been undercutting each other like crazy in recent years with fees dropping to as low as 0.5 per cent. There are plenty of anecdotes too about agents offering to sell properties in good locations for no fee at all, just to get their board on the road. However, that trend is likely to be reversed this year: in the boom years, agents could be virtually sure of selling a property in a matter of weeks, or even days.

In today's market, houses are taking longer to sell and they are costing the agents more to keep on their books. Expect to pay from 1 per cent upwards, with some of the larger firms heading back towards 1.5 per cent. Consider building in an incentive to the fee to increase your chances of selling well. After all, it's better to pay a slightly higher percentage of a higher price, than a lower fee on a property that's lingering on the agent's books.

Fees aside, the biggest expense in selling is advertising. A high profile marketing campaign - whether the property is being sold by auction or private treaty - is expensive.

Reckon on at least €4,000 to €5,000 for advertising over a three-week campaign in national newspapers and on the web. This sum will include photography and brochures but there may be additional administration costs. However, it is not unusual for vendors to spend €10,000 and more on advertising their home.

AUCTION v PRIVATE TREATY

ONLY a fraction of houses are put to auction in Ireland every year - in Dublin the figure is 10 to 15 per cent - but the indications are that auctioneers will be more selective about the property they put to auction this year. In the boom years, every type of property was seen as a suitable auction fodder, even modest three-bed semis and apartments. However, the market has changed and this year, agents will be persuading the majority of vendors away from auction to private treaty sales, saving only the most rare and unusual for the auction room.

Auctions are an effective - and quick - way of selling if all goes well. An intensive three or four-week sales campaign, during which the property is on open view at least twice a week as well as by appointment, ends in the auction room, where in a good market over 50 per cent of properties will sell under the hammer and a further 20 to 30 per cent will be sold afterwards through negotiation. The vendor may get more than they were expecting, though in the current market, agents are doing their best to dampen expectations.

The downside of selling at auction is that it's expensive, because of the intensive advertising, and may well have to be followed by further ads if it is withdrawn from auction and has to be marketed for sale by private treaty. Keeping the property in show condition can also be a strain on a household as a good estate agent will have viewers lined up for several days of the week.

Selling by private treaty is a more leisurely method where the agency simply posts a property on its books, advertises it selectively and shows it to viewers by request.

You should expect at least weekly contact after you've put the house on the market. The average time it will take to sell a house in Dublin is about six to eight weeks (up from a four to six-week average earlier last year) - expect longer in rural Ireland. If your agent is doing a good job, people should be looking at it regularly: you need about 20 people through your house to get a real idea of its current market value.

The downside for vendors is that the process can seem to go on interminably, and the longer the property remains for sale, the less attention it might get from a busy agent. Even if there appears to be little interest, you shouldn't let an agent bully you into accepting an offer.

If your house proves difficult to sell and your agent loses interest - if you haven't heard from him in a month or two - you really need a better agent.

SELLING OFF MARKET

IF YOUR home is particularly special or in a wildly desirable location, then you may be able to place it quietly on the market and sell it without a breath of publicity, the expense of advertising and the bother of open viewing. Most of the big Dublin agencies have a number of properties quietly on their books, particularly at the upper end of the market.

The downside of a private sale is that, in a rising market, the property might do a lot better at auction. It's better to sell privately mid-season, when prices have been established in the neighbourhood, rather than at the beginning or end of a season, when there could be a lift around the corner.

OPEN VIEW

TIME to throw your home open to the public. Some canny vendors move out entirely for the weeks of open viewing, returning daily to plump up the cushions and freshen the flowers. A calm clutter-free look is what you're aiming for with plenty of space to allow viewers move from room-to-room, and from door-to-window. The clichés still hold true - fresh flowers, the smell of coffee, and crisp white bedlinen create a good impression.

Edit the family photos, remove valuable ornaments and don't cram cupboards: viewers like a sense of order behind closed doors - if they see chaos they'll start wondering if you've really looked after the house. Make sure the house is warm and bright. Have a fire burning. Expect a certain level of pilfering of your soaps, perfumes and towels. Keep lights on at night so that drive-by viewers can have a look after dark.

SURVEYS, CONDITIONS OF SALE

A couple of weeks into a sales campaign potential buyers will start to send in their surveyors. But that doesn't mean you should wait and see if they spot that the house needs to be re-roofed before letting them know, says agent Felicity Fox.

"If there is a correctable problem in your house - gutters weeping, anything glaring - I advise vendors to fix it before the property goes on the market." If it's a major job you're unlikely to fix before selling - a new roof, new windows - the vendor should let potential buyers know at the point they are going off to get a survey done. If it's a private treaty sale, for example, "you should not sale agree until you've told them. Because they will discover that the house needs a new roof costing €20,000 or more, and they'll drop the price or back out anyway," says Fox. However, if you have been upfront and a buyer tries to renegotiate the price on foot of a survey, Simon Ensor of Sherry Fitzgerald's advice is to stick with your price.

Conditions of sale are drawn up by the vendor's solicitor and given to potential buyers in advance of an auction or a private treaty sale. As such they're a good indicator of the level of interest. If a property attracts several surveyors and requests for conditions of sale, it's likely to sell well at auction. If there are no conditions of sale requested, it's highly unlikely that an auction will fly. Conditions of sale allow vendors to introduce special conditions, such as a closing date and items that may or may not be included in the sale. These should also be noted in the brochure - e.g., "all light fittings except the chandelier in the drawingroom included".

AUCTION DAY

AUCTIONS are nerve-wracking for vendors who are usually closeted in a small room away from the action, with bids being piped through via intercom. The agent and the seller will have agreed a reserve price in advance - the price below which the vendor is not prepared to sell - and when this price is reached at the auction, the property is deemed to be on the market. After that it depends on how much one or other bidder is prepared to go. A good auctioneer will draw the very last euro out of the room.

IF IT DOESN'T SELL . . .

IF a house fails to sell at auction, the vendor may negotiate and agree a price immediately afterwards. The choice then is to withdraw completely or leave it with the agent to sell it by private treaty. If you are selling by private treaty, there's often an agonising period between "sale agreeing" and signing final contracts. The key to not getting messed about or "gazundered" (when a buyer comes back and tries to negotiate a lower price) seems to lie in opting for the right buyer in the first place - usually one who doesn't have their own house to sell.

Reports by Orna Mulcahy, Frances O'Rourke and Pat Igoe