Selling without an estate agent

Mr_Thrifty

Hi guys, I've had a few estate agents come to value my property and have been less than impressed with their valuations, not to mention their poor attitudes. They are clueless and not very professional!

Anyhow, rather than paying these people a couple of thousand pounds to run a few ads for my home, I'd like to sell it myself.

Do you know how I can get my property listed on the main property websites like rightmove, propertyfinder, etc without paying an estate agent? Obviously running adverts in the newspapers is easy as I just go to their website and create the ad online.

Also any other advice would be appreciated. Many thanks!

googler

What do you mean unimpressed by their valuations? Too high or too low?

sonastin

Best bet is to use an online agent if you want an online presence. I understand their fees are considerably lower than high street EAs. Rightmove won't deal with you unless you are an agent, and I think it might be more expensive to set up your own agency than it would be to suck it up and pay an agents fees.

Lots of threads on this board discussing the pros and cons of various different online agencies...

Mr_Thrifty

Quotes have been too low.

They have been comparing with less desirable properties - smaller, poorer condition, further from the train station, smaller garden, leasehold instead of freehold, next to schools, etc.

googler

"Too low" .....

If they all say 'too low' in your view, then either you have an over-inflated view of what your property is worth, or - very co-incidentally, wouldn't you say - three agents have all under-valued your home.

Put it this way - how many properties have you sold this year? How many have the EAs sold? How many prospective buyers for your area have you spoken to this year? How many have they spoken to?

Who's more likely to have their finger on the pulse of what the general public are buying, and what they're likely to pay?

Badger_Lady

Unfortunately sites like Rightmove will only list properties from an estate agent... so you need to use something like an online estate agent if you want to appear there.

I successfully sold without this, just using local classified ads/sites and googling "house for sale in X" to see which sites came up first and trying to get on them. I also set up a microsite with property details on it, and stuck a large version of my property details in the window of the flat.

Of course, the market was more active back then, so you might struggle more than I did... but I got the full asking price in 6 weeks, at a total advertising cost (including printing a bunch of property details that went unused) of £80.