Selling without an estate agent - any recent experiences?

vbt

Hi,

Does anyone have experience of selling their property without an estate agent recently? There are previous forum posts but they are very out of date.

Can anyone recommend a house sale website? I had a look at www.thelittlehousecompany.co.uk and that seemed quite good and a number of properties in the city we live in say 'sold' or 'under offer' on there.

We're just about ready to put our flat on the market, we did the HIP ourselves and have just finished re-painting the walls.

We do plan to put it up for sale with an estate agent as well, but we want to maximise our chances of selling by covering as much of the market as possible. We'll also do some local marketing ourselves.

Grateful for any replies.

Thanks.

pie81

No experience, but I'd be interested in this too as we're considering doing the same.

I looked at the little house company but it doesn't advertise on rightmove, primelocation or propertyfinder. house network does advertise in these places but it's quite a bit pricier.

vbt

Is HouseNetwork the only one which advertises on Rightmove? This might be a good halfway house for us...

Pee

This seems like a good idea in principle, but in practise, I'd be very wary buying off someone without an estate agent acting - there is no middle man to chase things along plus I'd assume the seller thought all the agents had given a ridiculously low value for the property and they wanted to beat that...

maggie111

We looked at a private property for sale on through House Ladder.

We only found this property as the owners had reduced it, which flagged it up on property snake which I looked through on a frequent basis.

I wouldn't look on any non-estate agent websites, and the fact it wasn't on with an EA did bother me so I was put off the house quite a bit.

chickmug

http://www.housesimple.co.uk/default.asp

Another option that does go on rightmove.

chickmug

As a retired agent in certain circumstances I have considered using an online agent and my choice would have been housenetwork. However I have made the decision to appoint a local agent and feel there are times where the local agent may be a better option even though it would cost more.

My situation was on behalf of one of my family with a small one bedroomed ground floor flat only 50 yards to the main street in a very very small town with a known elderly population. My concern about online agents is the lack of window presence knowing my target market. The flat is comprehensively refurbished from top to bottom and the various agents have agreed with my thoughts that the likely buyer will be retired elderly single or couple. Not young as the nearest centres of employment are 45 minutes drive away.

So I feel this group of people will often not use the web as much as other groups and even though their families may look for them you can see this type of age group outside of the local agent’s windows every day and as confirmed by those agents. Also this age group tend to want to pop into the agent’s office to communicate face to face.

So housenetwork do look a good option but there may be specific circumstances where you need to make absolutely sure the lack of the local shop window and office will not be a problem.

vbt

chickmug wrote: »

As a retired agent in certain circumstances I have considered using an online agent and my choice would have been housenetwork. However I have made the decision to appoint a local agent and feel there are times where the local agent may be a better option even though it would cost more.

My situation was on behalf of one of my family with a small one bedroomed ground floor flat only 50 yards to the main street in a very very small town with a known elderly population. My concern about online agents is the lack of window presence knowing my target market. The flat is comprehensively refurbished from top to bottom and the various agents have agreed with my thoughts that the likely buyer will be retired elderly single or couple. Not young as the nearest centres of employment are 45 minutes drive away.

So I feel this group of people will often not use the web as much as other groups and even though their families may look for them you can see this type of age group outside of the local agent’s windows every day and as confirmed by those agents. Also this age group tend to want to pop into the agent’s office to communicate face to face.

So housenetwork do look a good option but there may be specific circumstances where you need to make absolutely sure the lack of the local shop window and office will not be a problem.

Thanks very much for your reply. I think this is the key point with our flat - it is only going to appeal to young people as it's right in the city centre, in an area where bars and clubs are. We've done quite a lot of research already and we know the area and other local residents very well and we're of the opinion that most of the target market for our flat will be in their 20s, first time buyers, and will use online search facilities such as Rightmove etc to look for a property, rather than going in to an EA. This is certainly the case with us - we have never been in to an EAs to look for any of our properties. We have only ever searched Rightmove and then contacted an EA by phone as a result of that.

I hadn't seen housenetwork before today, but I've had a look at them this afternoon and it seems like a good middle ground in terms of the service and price. The main point for us is that it appears on Rightmove to be honest and we've just had such bad experiences with the agents that we've spoken to so far.

I'd be really keen to hear from anyone who has sold or tried to sell or buy through housenetwork

googler

Been browsing and writing in this forum for just over a year now, and think I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of posters I've seen who have said "Yes, I sold my house through a self-sale website"

Where are the majority in your area selling from? That's where the majority of buyers in your area will be looking, I'd wager.

chickmug

googler wrote: »

Been browsing and writing in this forum for just over a year now, and think I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of posters I've seen who have said "Yes, I sold my house through a self-sale website"

Where are the majority in your area selling from? That's where the majority of buyers in your area will be looking, I'd wager.

Did you mean you can count on one hand the number of posters who have sold their house at all:D

dander

If you're planning to market it privately as well as with an agent then I wouldn't have thought there was any need to get a private marketing company that advertises on Rightmove, the agent should get you the rightmove coverage you need, I would have thought you'd be better off using your private marketing budget to reach the places that the agent won't cover - maybe focussing on the kind of publications that people pick up in the pubs and clubs in the area.

I think, also, one problem you always have with private sales is that one of the appeals of searching for houses on the internet is that it's realtively faceless - you don't have to get personal. I think a lot of people would feel a bit awkward dealing with the vendor right from the outset and just feel more comfortable with a third party like an estate agent.

I'd also say that when I sold, I found the estate agents invaluable for dealing with viewings. I was surprised to find that an lot of viewings seemed to take place during working hours on weekdays, and it was so much easier to just get a call saying "can we take someone round now?" and say, "yeah, get on with it" than trying to figure out when I could be there to show people round. I think this is another thing that the young/intenet generation type buyers tend to expect - instant, easy access to view. I'm not even all that young myself, but even I was really thrown when I moved out of London and found estate agents in the suburbs weren't open on Sundays and didn't generally seem to hold keys to the properties. It just wasn't the kind of service I was used to getting in a 24/7 world!