Property: Been there, bought it, sold it: Buying and selling a home is like taking an exam: with a lot of hard work and a little luck you can get the result you want, as Sarah Jewell found out

SELLING A PROPERTY

1. Go multi-agency. Register with up to six estate agents within a two- to three-mile radius of the property and ask for a valuation from each. The agents will charge more in commission for selling multi-agency (between 2.5 and 3.5 per cent of the sale price), but it will soon become apparent which agents are working hardest on your behalf. The best agencies are those that accompany all prospective buyers and take an active role in the negotiations. Others will come round, take the details of your property and you will never see them again. Ashley Gendler says his agency, Douglas Allen Spiro, has a policy of accompanying all prospective purchasers: 'People welcome the fact that we are prepared to accompany them around a property and go that extra inch to put a deal together, and they like to be chauffeur driven there.' If one agent appears to be outstanding, drop the others and go sole agency with the best one. Once you have all the valuations, take the average figure, look at the price of comparable properties in the same area and decide on the asking price.

2. Setting the asking price. The key to selling is to set the right price. Start off at just slightly above a realistic figure, not too low, not too high. As a spokesman at Drivers & Norris says: 'Forget yesterday's prices, forget what houses were selling for in 1988 and think only of today's prices.' Prospective purchasers will only come and look at a property that they think they can afford, and they are reluctant to look at properties in a higher price range and then make a low offer. As Paul Tyne, of Paul Simon estate agents, says: 'Don't put too much on the asking price just for the hell of knocking it off. If your price is too high, you won't get people through the door.' Having set your asking price, decide whether to have a sign board up or not. It is best to have only one; nothing looks worse than a house with a stack of boards outside implying a desperate owner with an unsaleable property.

3. Prepare for the punters. Tidy up your property. (This is the hard bit.) Make it clean, pretty and presentable. Buy flowers, clean the windows and bake bread. Make sure the rooms smell nice. As Mr Tyne says: 'I'm sure it is no coincidence that the tidiest properties have a bubbling coffee pot on the stove.' Pick up children's toys. Prospective purchasers worried about crunching plastic objects underfoot will lose concentration on the property. Make an effort to be available when the agent wants to book an appointment to show someone around. Prospective buyers do not always bother to make another appointment if a convenient time cannot be arranged immediately. If you are often away from home, give the agencies a key and let them do all the showing.

4. Sit back and wait for that elusive purchaser to walk through the door. When they do, do not overkill the sales line. As Mr Tyne says: 'It isn't necessary to point out all the telephone points on someone's first visit.'

5. When you get an offer, do not panic or get too elated. Negotiate to keep the price up, given that it may well have to come down after the survey.

BUYING A PROPERTY

1. Work out how much you can afford. Budget for all the extra costs, which quickly mount up. On a freehold or leasehold purchase, you will have to pay stamp duty of 1 per cent on any purchase over pounds 30,000. Land registry fees range from pounds 190 to pounds 300 for a purchase between pounds 80,000 and pounds 200,000. The local authority search fee varies from borough to borough but averages about pounds 60 to pounds 85 in London. Solicitors are expensive, and it is worth getting a quotation before starting negotiations.

2. Looking at properties. Be prepared for a long, hard slog. Michael Gausson, of Gaussons Chartered Surveyors, says: 'Quite a number of people I deal with have seen at least 50 properties and some of them are still looking.' Decide on the area, decide on the price range, drive around and take down names and numbers of all local estate agent boards and then visit or ring them up. Make friends with the estate agents: they are your key to a successful purchase. Once they have a clear idea of what sort of property you are looking for, they can direct your viewing. Ask for all lists of properties in your price range (many of the properties that are selling multi-agency will be on all the lists). Once you have chosen a few properties you like, start viewing. The estate agents will make all the appointments and it saves time and energy to view at least three or four properties in the same area in quick succession. Saturday is the accepted day for house visiting. People tend to be less keen to show their properties on Sundays, and evenings are a problem in winter because it is dark and difficult to see the garden and the condition of the property outside.

3. Ask questions. Find out how long the vendors have lived in the property (if they bought in 1987-88 they are not going to make much profit). The longer they have owned the property, the more profit they are going to make and there may possibly be more opportunity for bargaining. Ask if there has been any major structural work done on the property; find out what condition the roof is in and if there have been any problems with subsidence.

4. Making the offer. Expect at least two or three offers to fall through. Given that many properties on the market are still overpriced, always offer low. All the vendor can do is say no and negotiate the price up. Remember that the estate agency will be taking a 2.5 to 3 per cent cut in the selling price and it is therefore in its interest to keep the offer high. Find out exactly what is included in the offer price - cookers, fridges, washing-up machines, curtains, carpets are all negotiable items that can be added to or taken away from the asking price.

5. The survey. There are three types of survey. The cheapest is a basic valuation of the property for the mortgage company (approximately pounds 100), but this provides no detailed information. The house or flat-buyers' report is an inspection covering the main elements of the building, both internally and externally (approximately pounds 300) and gives plenty of extremely useful information. A full structural survey is expensive (approximately pounds 500 to pounds 600) but looks at every hairline crack. Try to avoid paying extra for the mortgage company valuation, the cost of this should be included in the house-buyers' report or the structural survey. Use the information gained from the survey to try and renegotiate the asking price depending upon how much extra work has to be done. Do not have a survey done on the property you have offered on until the property you are selling has been surveyed. If your purchasers withdraw their offer on your property as the result of a bad survey, your own offer may well fall through and you will have wasted a large sum of money on the survey.

6. Don't give up. However desperate or fed up you feel, just keep looking. If one property falls through, just keep on trawling through the estate agents' lists. It is hard work, but worth it in the end.

USEFUL ADDRESSES AND TELEPHONE NUMBERS:

Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (Rics): 12 Great George Street, Parliament Square, London SW1P 3AD (071-222 7000); Incorporated Society of Valuers and Auctioneers (ISVA): 3 Cadogan Gate, London SW1X 0AS (071-235 2282); National Association of Estate Agents: Arbon House, 21 Jury Street, Warwick CV34 4EH (0926 496 800)