Selling without an Estate Agent

M.Holloway

princessamy86 wrote: »

Well, you will need some sort of internet coverage. If your area is an area where rightmove is predominantly used for searching for property, you'll need to go with someone like house network, lots of threads on that if you have a search, or I think there are some internet only "agents" where you pay a fixed fee to be listed on rightmove/other property portals and then you handle all the viewings calls etc.

One thing I would flag up is whether or not you are comfortable negotiating with people, either face to face or on the phone. I think at £800k you really do need good internet coverage, on rightmove if possible. You need pictures, floorplans and a decent description, and you may find, as timmyt pointed out, that people are a bit wary of the reasons behind you selling a house in this price range using an internet listing which is generally more prevalent for lower value houses. I'm not saying it's unheard of, but it is unusual and may put people off. Can you say specifically what your agent has/hasn't done that has annoyed you so much?

Yes there is good rightmove coverage in this area.

And we're all very confident negotiators. The only problem would be lack of free time, but between four of us it shouldn't be hard.

I don't want to get too specific at this point as it might be you!

But in general poor communication, the work they have done has been appalling and needed constant corrections for basic details. Also they ripped us off with the HIP, hiding their own referral fee in the charge.

I will provide more specific details once we are outside of contract.

princessamy86

Haha it's not me I can guarantee that, I've not sold an £800k house for a long while, nor had one on the books! Well, sounds like you definitely need rightmove so have a search of the forums for things like: selling without an EA, online agents, house network. I believe doozergirl has had some good results with an online EA, so it might be helpful to ask her advice? I might be wrong, sure I read it somewhere that she had used them! How long have you got left in your contract? Will you be taking your own pictures and sorting a floorplan out? One thing I will say is that the cheapest isn't always the best, particularly on a high value property. Is it worth trying to negotiate with a different agent that you will pay them a flat fee to put a brochure together with pictures and floorplan, and for the rightmove listing? We have done that a few times with people who wanted to handle everything themselves.

noxey

you could use 2movehome ,they are free to list a for sale by owner property but will charge you for featuring on the home page. May not be as big as rightmove but a big help and money saving way if it's for sale by owner.

M.Holloway

Cheers guys. I think I'll go with rightmove becuase they have the traffic in place. I'm not going to quibble over £300 or whatever to get listed on the established website. Cheap is no good if no-one ever finds it! Also that site looks like it's been made out of lego. Seriously I think I might have actually caught leprosy from going on it!

Yes, we're going to do the photography, brochure and floorplan ourselves. (we've already done most of this ourselves anyway :-/)

princessamy86

Is it possible to get listed on rightmove if you're not an agent? I'm not sure is all, seem to remember others having problems as rightmove only deal with agents and developers.

googler

princessamy86 wrote: »

Is it possible to get listed on rightmove if you're not an agent? I'm not sure is all, seem to remember others having problems as rightmove only deal with agents and developers.

That's what I thought, too.... no private sellers or FSBO

M.Holloway

If I get an audi, a bluetooth headset cheap suit and pink tie will they let me list on rightmove? :P

I'll either find a way or I'll make one gents!

JQ.

Personally, if I was looking at £800k houses and one came up that was being marketed by one of those cheap internet sites or even worse being personally advertised, it would actually put me off. It would make me worry that the vendor had scrimped on other things such as maintenance or that they would be a nightmare to negotiate with. I would consider that people who own £800k houses have better things to do than market their own houses.

That's just my opinion and it may not have an impact on other peoples view. Why not just get yourself a decent EA?

M.Holloway

JQ. wrote: »

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That's just my opinion and it may not have an impact on other peoples view. Why not just get yourself a decent EA?

Easier said than done.

You do have a point though...we'll see where things stand at the end of this contract