Best Private Sales Website - SO

jonnydoe

House network charge £10 for a for sale sign anyway, if on rightmove I'm not sure if this is really needed?

jonnydoe

courtjester wrote:

Just to be clear, housenetwork, halfapercent etc., are NOT private sales websites - they are stripped down *estate agents*. This is very important if you are already using an existing estate agent.

If you use an online estate agent you CANNOT use a traditional estate agent alongside as this would be a breach of your agent's contract.

Their fees compare very well with high street agents because they don't offer local expertise, but this leaves you with the need to check your own pricing and conduct your own viewings. They will get you listed on Rightmove because Rightmove only accept listings from estate agents - at least until their shareholders like Halifax and Connells wake up and start complaining about 'cheap' online estate agents in the way they did about private sales websites and get them banned from using 'their' website as well.

The (better) private sales websites charging £100-£150 are for those that want to do the whole thing themselves (take photographs, draft listings and deal with buyers direct) and save even more money by just paying for the pure advertising element.

One of the advantages of the private sales (advertising) websites is that if you choose one of the professional ones, you can use this advertising to bolster an existing agent's marketing and potentially save your agent's commission entirely if the house is sold privately - a sole agency agreement does not prevent you from advertising privately (using a non-agent private sale website or your own newspaper ad).

Free or very cheap property websites are rarely worth considering as these have no funding to market a property effectively.

Yes we are aware they are not private but housenetwork are one of the only cheap EA's with a VERY low fee to advertise on rightmove. The private companies don't advertise on rightmove so you'd have trouble selling. I've seen a few littlehousecompnay signs around here and they've been up for ages not selling..

Rightmove is the quickest and easiest way to sell your house, now if the private companies could use it then it would be a different ball game and I'd wonder how long EA's last. but as you say rightmove are affiliated with EA's (for obvious reasons) so this won't happen..

I've been researching selling privately for a number of years now and tried to sell a place privately 3 years ago tna, there needs to be a sticky on this topic not just the one about reducing EA fees to 1% as this is still daylight robbery IMO. Housenetwork is the best thing I've heard about in years..

It's so easy to sell a place nowadays through rightmove, take a few pics upload them give a standard description hardly rocket science, who needs EA's? I live for the day when EA's are non existent, it's a crime what they do (or don't do)..

lynzpower

thanks for that court jester

I spoke to 1/2 a percent yesterday they said they would conduct the viewings if I wanted them to?

courtjester

jonnydoe

Rightmove are not 'affiliated' with estate agents, they are *OWNED* by estate agents - to be precise, the main three shareholders are Halifax, Connells and Countrywide (Bairstowes).

That is why they banned private websites which had contracts with them (in some cases for many years) because their shareholders made them restrict access to agents only because they were becoming paranoid about the growth and rise in effectiveness of private selling.

Unfortunately (for agents) this avoids the point that restricting access to a service like Rightmove does not mean that private services will fade away, in fact since the restriction was imposed 2 years ago, the sector has grown rapidly as it does not rely upon any one 'portal' service.

Property searches are moving away from the big name portals - the search engines are where most people now start their search for ANYTHING thanks to easy access to broadband and cheap internet services. A decent private property website with reasonable funding has just the same status on Google if they have property for sale. Rightmove have always relied upon the shareholders branch network to promote them, but as more and more buyers go online to start their search, their prominence is not as great as they would have you believe.

In addition, as more of the portals have followed suit in this (illegal) restriction of who can list property on their services, they have assisted in the creation of a separate and growing market of private sellers whose properties are *NOT* available on the main portal sites. As the homebuying public become more aware of the existence of this alternative sector, they will be forced to look not just at sites like Rightmove but also to the better private sales sites to avoid missing out.

Once again a home-goal for agents too lazy to improve their game, preferring instead to throw sticks at worthwhile and fair competition.

If you want to see agent's dominance of the property market diminish, then use the alternatives - they definitely work and the more people that use them instead of the traditional route, the more effective they will become.

Maybe the signs you have seen are for properties that are not selling for some reason specific to those properties or low buyer activity in the location - much of the market has been slowed during the World Cup in any event. Signs are one of the most effective means of selling any property - that's why agents are so keen to get their sign up in front of any property. More properties are sold due to signs than any other single aspect of marketing so they should never be under-estimated, but a sign alone will not sell a bad property, an over-priced property or a property in a difficult location.

jonnydoe

Sorry I couldn't be bothered to read the whole post (too lazy) I just need to know where the cheapest place to sell my house is.. I'm not too interested in the politics of it all..

I'm pretty sure rightmove is the best place to sell a house judging by it's ranking in the most visited websites..

Thanks Anyway

JD

Jorgan_2

jonnydoe wrote:

House network charge £10 for a for sale sign anyway, if on rightmove I'm not sure if this is really needed?

As has been said, boards are a very effective marketing tool, don't underestimate them. Likewise just don't rely on someone looking at a website/portal, not everyone has access to the internet.

jonnydoe

Jorgan wrote:

As has been said, boards are a very effective marketing tool, don't underestimate them. Likewise just don't rely on someone looking at a website/portal, not everyone has access to the internet.

Hmm not convinced, depends on your location (near a main rd etc..). I'm in quiet cul de sac with no throughway, so mainly existing residents will see the sign..

Lotta_Littlies

We've had our house up with Housenetwork since the start of June and we've had one viewing (which I'm a little suspicious about) which was booked within an hour of the house going on the site and nothing at all since. Emails went unanswered, the floor plans took over two weeks to go on the site and I'm not all that impressed with their customer service to be honest.

I think in hindsight I'd have probably gone with The Little House Company (who we actually found the house we are buying through) who still put your house on several sites but charge a lot less for doing so. The difference between the two being that Housenetwork is classed as an Estate Agent while Little House is not, so if you did decide further down the line to use an Estate Agent too it would mean you'd have to use a multi agency agreement if you wanted to continue with Housenetwork, and only a sole agency agreement if you wanted to continue with Little House.

Lotta

Sorry, just editing to say that I've checked and that Little House does not include advertising on RightMove

Jorgan_2

jonnydoe wrote:

Hmm not convinced, depends on your location (near a main rd etc..). I'm in quiet cul de sac with no throughway, so mainly existing residents will see the sign..

If I could stick a board up for £10 & advertise on one website I could slash the amount we spend marketing the properties that we sell.

Boards are a great marketing tool, even if you are in a quiet cul de sac. Your neighbours may know someone looking to move into your area, they may even aspire to own your property, they may tell a friend that a property has become available in their road, the friend tells their friend who is looking to move. Many people drive round looking for boards, they are serious buyers. We get calls all the time from people enquiring about houses in cul de sacs, they see the board & call to get more information.

lynzpower

Lotta_Littlies wrote:

We've had our house up with Housenetwork since the start of June and we've had one viewing (which I'm a little suspicious about) which was booked within an hour of the house going on the site and nothing at all since. Emails went unanswered, the floor plans took over two weeks to go on the site and I'm not all that impressed with their customer service to be honest.

I think in hindsight I'd have probably gone with The Little House Company (who we actually found the house we are buying through) who still put your house on several sites but charge a lot less for doing so. The difference between the two being that Housenetwork is classed as an Estate Agent while Little House is not, so if you did decide further down the line to use an Estate Agent too it would mean you'd have to use a multi agency agreement if you wanted to continue with Housenetwork, and only a sole agency agreement if you wanted to continue with Little House.

Lotta

Sorry, just editing to say that I've checked and that Little House does not include advertising on RightMove

thanks for this, its these sort of experiences Im after hearing about? How have your complaints been handled?