Website for privately selling a property

littlened

This morning I've been pondering over an idea to help people sell their properties privately. I'm sure it's already been done before but I'm unsure of how succesfull it is.

What I'd like to do is develop a website which allows people to add their property for FREE. The seller uploads their own photo's and description. There'll be additional paid for options as well, and these include a for sale sign for outside the property, hips packs, properly written descriptions and someone to visit the property to take photos or 360 degree photos.

Initially I'd like to do this in our local area, where we have 5 or 6 estate agents.

The general idea is a seller advertises their property on the site. A potential buyer comes along, sees the property and chooses the option to arrange a viewing. The site then sends the seller an e-mail and SMS notification advising them that someone would like to make a viewing. The seller contacts the potential buyer and a viewing takes place. Once the viewing has taken place, the potential buyer is asked to comment on the property via the website (with the comments being private to the seller). If the buyer would then like to make an offer, they do this via the website and from their the seller would accept or reject the offer along with any comments. If the offer is accepted, but parties are asked to enter their solicitors details and can print an offer summary detailing the properties address, the seller, and both solicitors.

If this takes off in our area, I'd like to expand the site to cover other areas too.

My problem however is that this will take time to develop, and time is money, I need to try and work out if there would be a need for this sort of service, or are sellers happy going through estate agents?

I'm just wondering what everyone's thought are about this? I'm trying to reduce the cost to the seller for selling their property.

not_loaded

I have a feeling that unless you can duplicate the property info on the big portals you won’t get the hits needed.

You’ll need NAEA membership to do that I think.

littlened

not_loaded wrote: »

I have a feeling that unless you can duplicate the property info on the big portals you won’t get the hits needed.

You’ll need NAEA membership to do that I think.

I see what you mean, and it's something I'd need to look into.

The properties being advertised will all be within a 10-15 mile radius, so promotional wise I'd do leaflet drops, and offer free boards on houses to try and generate some traffic to the site. Whether that would be enough I don't know.

chickmug

You say the service is free so who is paying for it all?

Are you a charity for home sellers - I don't understand

littlened

chickmug wrote: »

You say the service is free so who is paying for it all?

Are you a charity for home sellers - I don't understand

Hi,

The only service that is free is the ability to search for a property, and for a seller to submit their property to the site, in this case they upload photographs and enter there own description.

There would be paid for listings, and these would include someone to take photo's of the property and create a property description, as well as a for sale board on the property directing interested parties to the website. This paid for option may include submission of the property to rightmove, but I'm looking into that at the minute.

The website will offer sellers the option to purchase a HIP's pack online, with the sellers details being e-mailed to a local company to do the HIP's who will pay me per client.

At certain stages throughout the site, there would be bits asking if the visitor needed to speak with a financial advisor, with the visitors details being passed to a financial advisor I know, who again would pay per client.

Solicitors are another option for referral payments as well.

To the poster earlier who mentioned NAEA membership, I've read through rightmoves terms and conditions, and I can't see that they require you to have that, so maybe it's possible for the site to link up with rightmove, but I'd need to look more into it and research costs etc.

chickmug

"What I'd like to do is develop a website which allows people to add their property for FREE".

As you said the above I was confused but thanks for explaining.

What will happen, in my opinion, (unless you throw a BIG budget at it) you will be struggling to get business and the main problem with this 'business model' is trying to persuade people to get on board, with their house, whilst you are a 'start up' or small growing company.

I have tried some parts of what you are saying but with an 'already established' business of many years standing and whilst I thought it was a good idea to run alonside an existing business it wasn't to be.

sandiep

Building the website is a small proportion of what you've got to do. Your website is totally useless if you can't get it to rank, and estate agency terms are some of the most competitive out there.

Don't be under the impression that you just build the website and the visitors come, getting the visitors in is 90% of the work.

littlened

sandiep wrote: »

Building the website is a small proportion of what you've got to do. Your website is totally useless if you can't get it to rank, and estate agency terms are some of the most competitive out there.

Don't be under the impression that you just build the website and the visitors come, getting the visitors in is 90% of the work.

Thanks for the advice. Currently I run a web development business, so I'm aware of the need to promote and advertise a website, I give my own client this talk every day.

Initially I'd offer some low cost fees to get sellers on board, and because of the area some leaflet drops and space in a local paper may help get traffic.

At the minute its only an idea.

mchale

I think a easy to remember domain name is also important

G_M

I can't believe I'm having to say this : have you researched the market and competition? There are lots of sites doing this already. They are hard to find and frankly few buyers browse them unless they link into Prime Location, Rightmove etc. Which is only possible if you are a registered agent..

Try google.

littlened

G_M wrote: »

I can't believe I'm having to say this : have you researched the market and competition? There are lots of sites doing this already. They are hard to find and frankly few buyers browse them unless they link into Prime Location, Rightmove etc. Which is only possible if you are a registered agent..

Try google.

there may be lots of sites already doing this, but there's not in our area. from what I've read so far, this would essentially be an online estate agent, so in essence getting properties onto rightmove shouldn't be a problem.

As for researching the market, I've had a look around and have noticed a certain amount of sites already offering this type of service, but they seem to operate on a national scale rather than locally or regionally. Going national brings it's own promotional problems, but starting locally means you're only competing on a local level and advertising costs are reduced.

Some of the research I've ready so far seems to indicate that there is a gap in the market for online estate agents, and that the current model of estate agency is subject to its own risks that technology may render them obsolete in years to come. There's also a number of articles which point out blatent issues with estate agent websites, where searches are barely usable and that many use vebra within an iframe on a page, causing two scrollbars and renders the back button more or less useless. So on this basis it's also worth baring in mind that although there is competition out there, they're not necessarily making the best of it, which means theres always space for competition.

As I say, it's an idea and something I thought I'd put out there. I'll continue researching