Sell your house at Tesco for £200!!

googler

The pre-launch site is live at www.isold.com - it appears their 'service' starts at a minimum of £999 incl VAT..... far from the £200 hoped for by the OP.

Patr100

Also looks like Bristol only?

slimgym

Thanks for that link - good to see some evidence of progress, even if it is a little more than originally quoted (though I expect the original figure was a press guess). They'd be hard pressed to make any profit given the running around, visits, telephone calls and stuff you expect them to do at £200.

Great to see they'll be tagging into the estate agents websites too - findaproperty, rightmove, mouseprice etc. If nothing else their presence might force agents to go fixed fee too - why should it cost more to sell a higher value property?

I hadn't been planning to move but spotted a great property, fell in love with it, made contact with the agent and put mine on with him with the promise he had people "queuing up to buy places like yours". Three months later, the other one sold before mine and as I saw it slipping away in the period between I didn't have the option to go multi agent because he tied me in for 12 weeks sole agent.

They should operate in the interests of the client rather than going for the most commission.

Jowo_2

Much more background available on the pilot here

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255413/Tesco-turns-estate-agent-iSold-website-lets-sell-home-flat-999-fee.html

RenStar

I don't see how iSolds offerings are any different to say housenetwork, except that at 999+VAT, they are more expensive?? [By the way, whatever happened to the 'confused' smilie on here?]

RenStar

I have just finished reading the background bit in the mail - it looks like they'll do adverts in local papers too and facilitate an open-house if you go for their £1,199 service. Guess, that's the difference then.

googler

Can anyone tell me what's 'special' about it?

They'll send a valuer out. Regular EAs do that. From the sounds of it, the Bristol valuer will be covering the whole of the country in the pilot stage.

Then a negotiator will handle things - just like a regular EA.

They'll put it on their own site, and feed it to Rightmove et al. Regular EAs do that.

They'll organise adverts in the local paper and open houses - hang on, isn't this the 'old school' stuff that they're saying we should move on from.....?

The website says they're using the latest technology - but I can't find what special technology they're using...... what is it?

Jowo_2

googler wrote: »

Can anyone tell me what's 'special' about it?

If an estate agent charges a 3% fee for a £300k property, they'll charge 9k for selling it, plus VAT.

If Tesco charge £1k for the same service, I make this a saving of close on 8kk.

Seems fairly special to me if there's an 80% saving in cost for the same quality and type of service...

googler

Do you think it'll be the same quality and type of service? When will they have valuers in every town & city in the land?

If they don't, how will a small group of valuers based in a few major cities cover the rest of the country? What local knowledge will they have?

Will they know where your house is, or will they merely travel to it with the aid of satnav? Will they know ANYTHING about your neighbourhood before they arrive to take the photos?

If they don't, how will they know what to value it at? They won't have dealt with anyone who's actually been looking to BUY in the area, so how will they have any idea what the buying public are likely to pay for a house in your area? Will they use the estimates on zoopla and nethouseprices?

It may be cheap, but 'cheap' doesn't mean 'special'.

MissMotivation

Jowo wrote: »

If an estate agent charges a 3% fee for a £300k property, they'll charge 9k for selling it, plus VAT.

If Tesco charge £1k for the same service, I make this a saving of close on 8kk.

Seems fairly special to me if there's an 80% saving in cost for the same quality and type of service...

Except that most agents charge nowhere near 3%.

There are plenty of high street agents charging less than £1000 for selling a house that have been around longer and can do it better than Tesco.

All this sensationalism about agents charging 2/3% is getting ridiculous and I still don't get what so unique about Tesco's proposition?!?