Any decent ways of selling without agents

spook

I'd also suggest that the idea that "everyone looks on rightmove" might seem true among a forum community like this one, but in reality I think there is still a percentage of of potential buyers who still rely on looking in local papers and estate agents' windows.

I personally have been happy dealing with an online EA for my purchase because the vendor is friendly and easily reachable by phone. However I think some would prefer to be able to have the EA as a 'buffer' between them and the vendor, and might be put off by an online EA for this reason.

mariya5321

Hello sweetd,
Don’t think about agent fee because agent fee is not that much, but while buying home you should be clear about all the documentation. Because in property buying you need to consider all the basic point, and sometimes to understand everything at your own is impossible, we need someone who is having the details regarding the property sales.
As my point of view agent is important at the time of buying property.

Thefunkygibbons

It occurs to me that if there was a better route, then professional sellers (ie property developers) would be using it. The fact that they also use EA's suggest they recognise that the benefit exceeds the cost

sweetd

not sure about what EA would know that I don't about my property, we all have good idea of what properties have sold for in area and what the minimum price is in our heads.

when you say fee is not that much it is more than monthly net salary for average male in UK.

but let us have the facts, professional sellers do you always use EA's, what are the chances of success by using EA compared to on line agents?

any stats from anyone, just got anecdotes so far.....

googler

sweetd wrote: »

when you say fee is not that much it is more than monthly net salary for average male in UK.

Again, you're comparing a fee/commission with a salary - which isn't a direct comparison.

When your employer pays you your salary, you don't have running costs of your employer's business to deduct, since the employer has already factored this in.

However, I'm not sure what point you're making - why is it a bad thing that the commission on a house sale exceeds this net salary? How does this compare with other business fees/commissions?

JQ.

Financial_Savvy wrote: »

Compare the service from an online estate agent verse a high street agent.

They both have similar overheads (office space, staff, travel, phone calls etc) but you would expect a high street agent to have higher costs of expensive prime offices in the middle of shopping centres and staff to do viewings etc.

Then compare £500 verse say £3500 and ask yourself this:

Does this equate to value for money? and which is the most profitable?

High street agents rob customers blind.

If you get a good high street agent who can get an extra £5,000 on your sale price, using their negotiating skill then yes its very worthwhile and provides far greater value for money.

Getting the cheapest product does not always represent value for money.

GAH

Sweetd: Surely the most importnat thing if you are serious about selling your home is who can get it sold.

If you feel an online agent can do this by sticking it on a website thats fine, remember as they take their fee upfront, they don't really care if it sells or not.

Where as, an estate will risk doing a whole load of work for free, and if a vendor decides not to sell, it will actually leave the agent out of pocket.

A good High street agent Should be able to get you a better price as they will reach more buyers.

There are no statistics to really back this up as every single property out there is different.

What I would suggest is do a test, put it on with a high street agent and and online agent (the high strret agent won't cost anything) and then you can compare who gets the most viewiers and offers.

sweetd

it is interesting that there are no statistics to prove these points, still not convinced about this negotiation skill that JQ refers to, how exactly given all things equal would an EA manage to extract more money out of a buyer than a seller, it is always up to the seller and buyer how the final price is arranged, there are a lot of opinions on this site but very little facts eg research shows that using on line agent reduces ones chances of selling by x per cent or takes x weeks longer or gets you on average .02 % less off sale price, seems a lot of guessing going on, if anyone can provide stats then would be interested

ILW

You could just stand on a street corner with a sandwich board shouting "wanna buya house?" at everybody that walks past.

JQ.

sweetd wrote: »

it is interesting that there are no statistics to prove these points, still not convinced about this negotiation skill that JQ refers to, how exactly given all things equal would an EA manage to extract more money out of a buyer than a seller, it is always up to the seller and buyer how the final price is arranged, there are a lot of opinions on this site but very little facts eg research shows that using on line agent reduces ones chances of selling by x per cent or takes x weeks longer or gets you on average .02 % less off sale price, seems a lot of guessing going on, if anyone can provide stats then would be interested

My comments are based on personal experience - the last 2 houses we've sold the EA has achieved sale prices £10k more than the 4 EA valuations we got prior to marketing. They did this firstly because they were good at their job and secondly because I heavily incentivised the fee. They got good prices by using the tactics that everyone on here moans about - phantom offers, telling viewers that their's been loads of interest, accidentally triple booking viewings, playing hardball, pretending I'm playing hardball, pushing my house to potential buyers who are looking at completely different locations, budgets and types, and winning the trust of buyers - make them think they're working for them not me.

Obviously all the above is based on getting a good EA - there are plenty of bad ones out there. There are also people who the above tactics won't work on (most of the inhabitants of this forum for a start). However, they do work on the vast majority of people, as very often picking the house you wish to buy is a decision of the heart not the head.

As for statistics - you won't get any meaningful statistics, this is a subjective matter. Any statistics you may actually find will biased in favour of whoever produced them.

For example - sale price as a % of asking price. It's completely meaningless as a statistic because some people price their houses realistically and some live on a different planet. You have to work out yourself whether each house you look at is priced correctly.

And as for whether online or high street agents produce better sale prices - how on earth can that be calculated unless you market a property with both and they both produce offers - again you'll never know the answer.

However, what I do know is that the good EA we've used fiercely protects his reputation and works very hard to get the very best prices thereby getting repeat business. I don't see how you could ever get the same level of dedication from an internet site. Yes, they might sell your house, yes you might be happy with the price, but who's to say that if someone really put the effort into working the buyer they could not have squeezed an extra £5,000 out of them.

When I've got someone selling the most valuable asset I am ever likely to own, I want them working as hard as possible on it.