Has anyone had any experiance with online estate agents? Are they good idea or not?

wannaberich41

Hi
I'm looking to sell my house and have had 2 valuations done. they have both given me their fees. this works out to be est £2780. Ive been looking at rightmove and have noticed a company called http://www.mypropertyforsale.co.uk/index.php are they a genuine site? has anyone had any experience with them? if i can save over £2000 by going with them and the are legit that would be great. Your views and opinions would be very much appreciated. or can you recommend any other online sites that are OK?
thank you in advance.
Also came across this one:-
http://housenetwork.co.uk/index.asp

wannaberich41

sorry to add comment but has anyone done this before and would they do it again?

badgeraudio

Hi,
Im just getting on the market at the minute and using "Move and Save". They are Internet based but in the Newark-Leicester area mainly.

They are cheap but to be fair the service is a little crap. You have to really drive it and be willing to do a lot your self. But at the end if the day its your house and I know I am willing to push for a sale etc. I know of a few people in my area that have used Move and Save, they have sold, but it has been a bumpy ride.
If you want an easy sale, use a high street agent.
If you want to save money But at the expense of your time and effort use and internet agent.

Mike

googler

badgeraudio wrote: »

...You have to really drive it and be willing to do a lot your self. But at the end if the day its your house and I know I am willing to push for a sale etc. I know of a few people in my area that have used Move and Save, they have sold, but it has been a bumpy ride.
If you want an easy sale, use a high street agent.
If you want to save money But at the expense of your time and effort use and internet agent.

To draw an analogy; I can change the oil & filter on my car. However, first I have to get oil, filter, drain plug washer from supplier. Set aside time on a dry day to do it. Clean up after myself, and make a trip to the dump to dispose of the waste oil.

Or I can take it to the garage. They've got everything on the shelves, ready to go, they have suppliers who take the waste oil away in bulk. Hand the car in, collect the car (or wait while they do it)

It costs more in money terms, but saves in terms of my time and effort. My time is money, too.



If you've got time in your day to field phone calls, conduct viewings at times suitable to your viewers, negotiate with them, and carry out a host of other tasks, then go for it. If you haven't, then hire someone to do it for you.

Cannon_Fodder

My concern over Internet-based EAs would be, how would they know your area well enough to give accurate advice on pricing/marketing ?

There have been threads on here, where it had to be explained where a specific village was, why it was highly thought of, that the school was highly rated, etc. A decent EA, of any type, should know these specifics, if you are not going to give the place away.

Saving £2k in fees is very MSE, as long as it doesn't cost you £5k off the price...

taralampy

Hi wannaberich41

Have you decided if you're going with an online Estate Agent yet? I've also been looking into this option as I can't really understand what my local estate agents do to earn a £2k commission.


Most people look online to find their house these days (not an estate agents window) so as long as the online estate agent can get you on to Rightmove then buyers are going to find you surely?

• Other than that do I need help in deciding what price to market my house at? Not really - I can check what other houses on my street are advertised at and what they eventually sold for online.
• Do I need help in taking photos of my house or writing an accurate description? Not really I have a decent camera and still have the description of my house from when I bought it.
• Do I need help showing people round the house? Not really - I can answer questions about the house, area and neighbours better than anyone else surely?

The only area I would like help with is negotiating on any offers received but I'm not sure the estate agent would be on my side for that process anyway. They probably think its better to get a cheap sale than no sale at all.

So I've been looking at Housenetwork, Mypropertyforsale, 121move and Turtle homes online estate agents instead as the fixed price is less than a quarter of the cost of using a traditional estate agent. I'd appreciate feedback on any of these companies though. Has anyone successfully sold through them? Had any bad expereicnes with them?

Thanks

googler

taralampy wrote: »

Most people look online to find their house these days (not an estate agents window) so as long as the online estate agent can get you on to Rightmove then buyers are going to find you surely?

Only if Rightmove have most of the properties in the OP's area on their website. In my area, they have around or less than 30% of the available properties; the rest are on the EA's own sites, their own portals, and other portals (and in their windows, and their own property papers....)

Have you ever looked at the numbers of people who DO stop at EA's windows and counted them? Do you have any firm statistics to back up the statement that "Most people look online......" ?

...besides which, even if it's true that MOST people look online, that implies a percentage of between 50 and 100% - what does the online agent do to promote the property to the remainder? Anything? If not, then why would any owner want to limit the exposure of their property this way?

Richard_Webster

The only area I would like help with is negotiating on any offers received

That's fair enough and I don't know what the internet based agencies do in that respect. If they don't know the area how can they really help?

However I assume the fact that you feel that the only area is negotiating then that means that you will feel confident that you can check the buyer's ability to proceed in terms of the status of any chain of transactions below him and his ability or otherwise to obtain a mortgage.

If she tells you that there's no problem with the money because she is separating form her husband and he has agreed to give her enough to provide a substantial deposit you won't be bothered later by the delay of 2-3 months while the husband's solicitor makes sure that the "deal" is rubber stamped by a court order to "make sure she can't come back for more"....

I have had ordinary estate agents not pick up on this kind of thing - but the good ones should do this, and advise you about the proceed-ability of the buyer.

googler

taralampy wrote: »

Other than that do I need help in deciding what price to market my house at? Not really - I can check what other houses on my street are advertised at and what they eventually sold for online.

Yes, but a good local EA will be able to guide you as to how the RECENT day-to-day viewers and buyers are reacting to local pricing.

You won't get this sort of info from public websites with sold prices, nor from browsing current asking prices. You won't have had any interaction with viewers or buyers prior to putting your house on the market - your local EAs will.

Debras_Angel

see my comment below from last year, when I used an online company. I ended up sending them some pictures as some of the ones they took were poor, they kept pushing to take less. Would never do again.


I used an online site and they were a waste of time, they never contacted me, except to try and get me to take a very low offer.

I got a letter via royal mail from a prospective buyer as he couldn't get any info from them re my property. I organised direct with him on the viewing.

He came back with an offer 35k below the asking price and I said no way. The company tried very hard to get me to accept this offer as they could negotiate on the one I wanted!!

Don't think so, I held out for 5 months later we got another viewing (2 in total) and they compained that it took so long to get any details from the company. I negotiated the price with the buyers and got the asking price!

The company were a waste of time (W.O.W. properties) and when you're paying a fixed fee they don't care what price the house sells for.

googler

taralampy wrote: »

Do I need help in taking photos of my house or writing an accurate description? Not really I have a decent camera and still have the description of my house from when I bought it.

Cameras don't take good pictures - people do.