Welcome to the market.

Choosing who sells your home is not a small decision, and I do not treat it like one. You could have picked any agent in Bradford. You picked me, and I am genuinely grateful for that.

Here is what you get in return. I take on a deliberately small number of homes at a time, so yours is never one of forty. I do your viewings myself. I write your copy, I plan your marketing, and when something needs chasing, I chase it — not a junior, not a call centre.

I will work as hard as I possibly can to make your move happen, and I will always be honest with you about where we are — including when the news is not what either of us wanted.

I started this agency because selling a home should feel personal. Not a diary slot with whoever is free, not a number on a board, never a call centre reading your file for the first time. Just one agent who knows your house and answers when you ring.

The next few weeks will have good days and quiet ones — a viewing that felt certain and comes to nothing, then a buyer you never expected. None of that means anything has gone wrong, and this guide exists so none of it comes as a surprise.

All I ask in return is honesty. If your plans change, or something is worrying you, tell me. Nothing you tell me is a problem — but something you do not tell me can quietly become one.

And if you ever just want a chat — about a viewing, a decision, or because moving is stressful and you need to think out loud — ring me. That is what I am here for.

Michael

07515 720 054 · michael@brownsett.co.uk

Michael Brownsett — Founder & director. eXp UK Best Newcomer 2025 · Yorkshire Prestige Best Independent Estate Agent 2026/27.

The first fortnight is the loudest your sale will ever be. Everything is new, every buyer who has been waiting sees it at once, and the phone tends to go straight away.

Your home has just landed in front of a register of buyers who have been watching for something exactly like it. That produces a burst of activity: portal alerts, saved-property clicks, enquiries and, usually within days, the first viewings booked in.

Expect it to feel busy. Expect short notice — good buyers often ask to come the same evening, and I would always rather ask you an awkward question than turn one away. Expect to hear from me regularly, whether there is news or not.

And expect the pace to settle after those first weeks. That is completely normal, not a warning sign, and page six explains exactly how I read the quiet spells.

• 72 hrs — Typical window before the first viewing request lands.
• Weeks 1–3 — Where the majority of your viewings — and most offers — happen.
• My promise — You deal with me. I do your viewings, I answer your phone, and I am the one who calls you with news.
• 24 hrs — Feedback with you within a day of me reaching the buyer — as soon as I have spoken to them.
• Fortnightly — A full market progress report from me every two weeks while your home is being marketed.

Photographed, filmed and live on every portal within days of instruction.

Buyers rarely give much notice, and the best ones ask to come tonight. The trick is not a deep clean before every visit — it is getting your home to a state where twenty minutes turns it around.

Light it up

Every lamp on, every blind open, even at midday. Dark corners read as small corners. Winter viewings in particular live or die on lighting.

Warm, not hot

Heating on half an hour before. A cold house feels damp and expensive to run; a stifling one makes people rush. Comfortable is the target.

Pets away

Even confident buyers freeze around an unfamiliar dog. Out on a walk is ideal; a closed room with a note on the door is fine. Litter trays and bowls out of sight.

Surfaces clear

Worktops, windowsills, the shelf by the front door. A basket you can sweep things into and hide in a wardrobe is the single best viewing tool you own.

Smell first

First impressions start at the front door. Bins out, windows cracked for ten minutes and no strong cooking beforehand — then a good diffuser or plug-in by the door, on the landing and in the main bedroom. A home that smells fresh and welcoming is remembered long after the viewing has finished.

Then leave

Go for a coffee and let me do my job. Buyers talk far more freely without the owner in the room, and honest reactions are what I need to bring you.

Twenty minutes of preparation is worth more than any amount of negotiation later.

Say yes to the short-notice viewing. The buyer who asks to come tonight is rarely the one just browsing.

Listing on a portal is the easy part — every agent does it. What sells homes now is what happens after launch week, when most listings quietly go still and mine keep moving.

• Rightmove
• Zoopla
• PrimeLocation
• OnTheMarket
• Brownsett.co.uk
• YouTube
• Vimeo
• TikTok
• Instagram
• Facebook

The portals

Rightmove, Zoopla, PrimeLocation and OnTheMarket cover every serious buyer searching this area — plus my own site and my private register, who hear first.

The social rotation

Your home is not posted once and forgotten. It goes into a rotation — the reel, the walkthrough, room features, a new angle — reposted across TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube for as long as it takes.

Video first, always

A vertical reel shot for how buyers watch on their phones, and a wide walkthrough for the ones serious enough to sit down with it.

Most listings go quiet after week one. Yours keeps being put back in front of people.

Every room, properly lit and properly shot. Buyers scroll past the rest.

A surprising number of homes are bought by someone who already had a reason to want that street.

My marketing reaches strangers. Yours reaches people with a connection — the friend whose sister wants to be near the school, the colleague priced out of the next village, the neighbour whose parents want to move closer.

Those buyers move fastest, because they already know they want the area. They just did not know a home was available until someone they trust put it in front of them.

So please share it. Post the reel, not just the link — video travels far further than a portal page. Tag me and I will boost it. And a personal line of your own makes an enormous difference: people scroll past adverts, but they stop for "we're selling our home, and we've loved it here."

How to help

• Share the reel to your own feed and stories
• Send it directly to five people who love the area
• Post it in local village and community groups
• Add a sentence about what you will miss most

Find me here

@thebradfordestateagent on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and YouTube.

Some of my best buyers arrived because a neighbour shared the reel.

I ring every buyer after their viewing and, once I have got hold of them, feedback is with you within 24 hours. I pass on what they actually said — not a polished version of it. Feedback is only useful if it is true.

Useful criticism

• "The third bedroom was smaller than we expected."
• "We loved it, but the garden backs onto the road."
• "It's lovely — it's just at the top of our budget."

Patterns matter. One person saying it is an opinion. Four people saying it is information, and we act on it together.

Noise

• "Not to our taste."
• "We're still just looking."
• Comments about your décor, not your home.

Some feedback tells us nothing except that they were not the buyer. I will tell you when that is all it is.

Honesty runs both ways

Most buyers are far too polite to tell an owner what they really thought. They will say "lovely home, we'll be in touch" at your front door and tell me something completely different on the phone the next morning. That is why I ring them rather than relying on what you overheard.

I will always give you the honest version, even when it is not what you want to hear. All I ask is the same back. If your plans change, if you have gone cold on moving, if there is something about the house I should know — tell me straight. I can work with almost anything except a surprise.

When it goes quiet

It will, at some point, and it is the hardest part of selling. School holidays, half term, a bank holiday weekend, a stretch of bad weather — the market breathes in and out, and a fortnight without a viewing is far more common than anyone admits.

What I do in those weeks is the difference. Re-cut the video, change the lead photograph, rework the headline, push a fresh angle across social, and ring through my buyer register personally. If the quiet continues and the feedback points the same way, we will talk honestly about price — but not before I have exhausted everything else.

You will still hear from me every week, even when the news is "nothing yet". Silence from your agent is the thing that makes selling feel awful, and you will not get it from me.

There is a myth that holding out for a few months brings a better price. In practice it is almost always the opposite, and the reason is simple: the buyers who have been searching for months are the ones who see your home the day it launches.

They know the area, they know what things go for, they have their finances arranged and they have already lost out on something. When the right home appears, they move — and they bid properly, because they do not want to lose another one.

A home that has been listed for four months attracts a different sort of enquiry: the bargain hunter, who opens low precisely because it has been sitting there. Time on the market costs money.

So take an early offer seriously. It is not a sign we launched too cheaply — it is a sign the marketing worked. I will never push you to accept, but I will always tell you honestly what I think an offer is worth.

An early offer is not a warning. It is the market telling you it was ready.

• Weeks 1–3 — When most of my sales are agreed, and usually at the strongest price.
• Every one — Offer put to you in writing, whatever I think of it. The decision is always yours.

What I check

• Is the buyer's own sale agreed, or not yet on the market?
• Have they a mortgage agreed in principle, and with whom?
• Cash, chain-free, or a chain of four?
• How quickly do they need to move, and does that suit you?

Every offer I bring you comes with this checked and verified, so you are comparing buyers, not just numbers.

If more than one buyer offers, I run a best-and-final process: everyone is told there is competing interest, everyone gets the same deadline, and nobody is played off in the dark. It is fair, it is transparent, and it holds up.

The highest offer

For: more money, and often a straightforward yes.

Against: if it is stretched, it can fail at survey or down-valuation and cost you two months.

The strongest buyer

For: cash or chain-free means speed, certainty and far fewer sleepless nights.

Against: they usually know their position is worth something, and price accordingly.

The right timing

For: a buyer who can move at your pace is worth real money if you have a purchase to line up.

Against: waiting for a slow buyer can lose you the home you want.

The highest number is not always the best offer. The best offer is the one that completes.

Personal service does not mean slow service. Two things run quietly in the background of your sale so that nothing is missed while I am stood in someone's kitchen doing a viewing.

AI Myk — always answers

My assistant on the website and on the phone. He books viewings around the clock, answers calls when I am mid-viewing, and takes buyer enquiries at nine at night when a portal alert has just landed.

• Books viewings direct from the listing page
• Answers calls so an enquiry is never lost
• Chases your solicitor through the sale, week in, week out

He never replaces me. He just makes sure nothing waits for me.

MBSP — your portal

Michael Brownsett Sale Progression — the private portal where your sale lives. Log in at any hour and see exactly where things stand, without having to ring anyone to find out.

• Every milestone from offer to completion, tracked live
• Documents and searches in one place
• Solicitors chased automatically, and logged
• A real update from me every week on top

mbsp.uk · your login arrives the day your offer is agreed.

Most sales don't fall through because of the buyer. They fall through because nobody chased anybody for three weeks.

Meet AI Myk

Ask him for a viewing at eleven at night and he will book it. Then he chases your solicitor while I sleep.

Find him on brownsett.co.uk, or he will answer if I cannot pick up.

Once an offer is agreed, the sale moves into the hands of the solicitors. This is the stage people find most opaque, so here is plainly what happens — and what you can do to make it faster.

What your solicitor does

They prove you own the property and have the right to sell it, draft the contract pack, answer the buyer's enquiries, handle the searches their lender demands, agree a completion date, and finally move the money. Conveyancing is essentially a long, careful conversation between two solicitors.

How long it takes

Eight to twelve weeks is typical from agreed offer to completion. Longer chains, leasehold titles and slow local authority searches stretch it; a chain-free cash buyer with paperwork ready can be a good deal quicker.

Where the delays really come from

Almost never the law itself. It is missing paperwork, an unanswered enquiry, a guarantee nobody can find, or a solicitor who simply has not picked the file up this week. That last one is exactly what AI Myk and MBSP exist to prevent.

Get these ready now

• Photo ID and proof of address
• Title deeds or Land Registry details
• Your EPC (I hold a copy)
• FENSA or CERTASS certificates for windows
• Gas and electrical safety certificates
• Boiler service records and warranty
• Building regulations sign-off and planning permissions for any extension, loft or conversion
• Guarantees: damp, timber, roof, cavity wall
• Leasehold pack, ground rent and service charges, if applicable
• Your mortgage account number and redemption details
• The fittings and contents form — what stays, what goes

Every one of these you gather before the offer comes in is a week you do not lose later. Instruct your solicitor now, not on the day.

Paperwork gathered before the offer comes in is weeks you do not lose later.

Offer agreed

I confirm it in writing to both sides, verify the buyer's funds and chain, and the property goes Sold Subject to Contract.

Solicitors instructed · week 1

Memorandum of sale issued to everyone. Your solicitor sends out ID checks and the property forms. Your MBSP login lands.

Survey & mortgage · weeks 2–4

The buyer's lender values the property and their surveyor visits. I attend where I can, and I deal with anything the report throws up.

Searches & enquiries · weeks 3–8

The longest stretch, and the quietest. Local authority searches come back, the buyer's solicitor raises enquiries, yours answers them. Chased weekly.

Report on title · weeks 8–10

Enquiries satisfied, the buyer signs, the deposit is readied and a completion date is agreed along the whole chain.

Exchange of contracts

The moment it becomes legally binding and the date is fixed. Neither side can walk away — and this is the point at which you book your removals firm. Usually the first proper night's sleep too.

Nothing is certain until exchange. After exchange, nothing is uncertain.

Completion

Often the same week as exchange, sometimes the same day. Keys change hands once the money lands.

Meanwhile

Track every step live on MBSP, and get a full progress update from me every Thursday at 6pm — whether there is news or not.

Completion day itself is short: the money moves, and the keys are released once it lands. The thing to understand is that almost nothing can be firmly booked until contracts are exchanged — so the sequence below is built around exchange, not around a date in the diary.

Before exchange · get ready

• Get three removal quotes in — but do not book yet. Your solicitor will tell you the same: dates are not certain until exchange.
• Start on the loft, garage and shed now. It always takes longer than you think.
• Decide what is going with you and what is staying, ready for the fittings and contents form.
• Line up help — family, a van, someone for the children.

On exchange · book it all

• Confirm your removals firm — now the date is fixed and cannot move.
• Notify gas, electricity and water; book broadband and TV transfer.
• Close council tax at this address; arrange Royal Mail redirection.
• Bank, insurers, DVLA, GP, dentist, schools.
• Buildings insurance in place for the new home from completion day.
• Book time off. Exchange to completion is often only a week or two.

The day before

• Pack an essentials box: kettle, mugs, tea, chargers, loo roll, bedding
• Defrost the freezer
• Charge everything
• Arrange care for pets and small children

On the day

• I will meet you at the property to collect the keys, and I hand them to your buyer myself. You do not need to wait around for anyone.
• Take final meter readings and photograph them before you go.
• Leave every set of keys — window keys, shed, garage, gate.
• Leave manuals, warranties, alarm codes and which day the bins go out.

There is no fixed time for completion. It depends entirely on how quickly the solicitors move the money and how fast everyone else in the chain gets into their new home. I will keep you updated through the day so you are never sat wondering.

A kind note left for the people moving in costs nothing, and they never forget it.

Premium marketing. Personal service. Outstanding results.

Any question at all — about a viewing, an offer, your solicitor, or just how it is all going — ring me. There is no such thing as bothering me about your own sale.

• Mobile — 07515 720 054
• Office — 01274 955 559
• Email — michael@brownsett.co.uk
• Your portal — mbsp.uk
• Recognised — eXp UK Best Newcomer 2025 · Yorkshire Prestige Best Independent Estate Agent 2026/27 · 5.0 from 27 Google reviews
• Where I work — Wibsey · Clayton · Queensbury · Thornton · Shelf · Westwood Park · Halifax
• brownsett.co.uk · Bradford & Halifax

Not every agent. The right agent for your home.