Any decent ways of selling without agents

Eleanor_M

What about an online estate agent that offers a complete service, i.e. attended viewings, dealing with the interested parties, etc? I've had a quote from one that's around £1000 for this service, half what the traditional estate agents are quoting. Does anyone have any experience of this type of deal??

googler

Eleanor_M wrote: »

What about an online estate agent that offers a complete service, i.e. attended viewings, dealing with the interested parties, etc? I've had a quote from one that's around £1000 for this service, half what the traditional estate agents are quoting. Does anyone have any experience of this type of deal??

Sort of stops being an 'online' agent when they do all this, doesn't it?

Essentially a high-street agent without the high-street office, no?

chinup_3

sweetd- c18% property sold online in last twelve months [scource = sunday times c3 weeks ago. AND RISING.

shrewdmoves.co.uk = free, and do your own photos, negotiation etc.

move4us, err co.uk, i think, for complete serive except viewings for 0.5%. Used by a few invesors I know to shift unwanted stock.

''you pay for the EA'S SKILL'' in their fee's !!! say what ? and what extensive training do they recieve then ? Do me a favour !

celyn90

We did see a few private ads when we were searching, but I was loathe to actually phone about them.

For the most part - the pricing was unrealistic, I didn't like the idea of going on an unsupervised visit, the fact that people weren't using an agent worried me that they could be difficult to deal with.

I might be behind the times but as buyers we got on well with most of the agents we dealt with and I felt they worked really hard for us. I seriously appreciated the advice we got from them and felt that them acting as a conduit between the buyer and the seller was a good thing. I am naturally a fairly shy person and not a good negoitator, so I appreciated having a middleman in the centre as it allowed me to view it as a business transaction, saved me a lot of stress and made me feel more comfortable. They suggested properties we hadn't thought to look at (the cynic could say it was to maxmise viewing figures etc etc) but actually, it helped us to guage the market pretty well and showed us things we wouldn't normally think to look at. Likewise we also always gave feedback so they could pass information onto the vendor. One house we viewed was a total wreak - the agent actually thanked me when I gave him honest feedback as now he could talk to the vendor - whereas I would never have had the nerve to talk to the vendor about why the kitchen ceiling was caving in.

In the end, we bought a house being sold by an asset management company. The advice we got from the agent and the "sales chaser" in the office was invaluble; obviously there was noone with any knowledge of the house to ask anything of.

I do feel that agents get a bad press (and before you ask, I don't work in property or any connected industry). It doesn't necessarily mean there aren't other ways to sell a house and that these ways can't be successful too, but likewise I don't think it's fair to be so dismissive of their role. If you don't wish to pay for them, then don't use them.

cel x

SailorSam

I tried to sell my last house myself without an agent. It was on a newish estate and i thought it's the type of place people drive around looking for EA boards 'cos they know they want to live there. I just put up a homemade board with my phone number, i had loads of phone calls asking the price and about 5/6 viewers, but gave up after a few months and went an EA, he sold it for me but it still took months so maybe if i stuck out i would have been ok and got the sale.
Here we bought without an agent, knew where we wanted and just talking to someone in passing who said 'my sister lives there, she wants to sell'

johnno71

chinup wrote: »

sweetd- c18% property sold online in last twelve months [scource = sunday times c3 weeks ago. AND RISING.

shrewdmoves.co.uk = free, and do your own photos, negotiation etc.

move4us, err co.uk, i think, for complete serive except viewings for 0.5%. Used by a few invesors I know to shift unwanted stock.

''you pay for the EA'S SKILL'' in their fee's !!! say what ? and what extensive training do they recieve then ? Do me a favour !

Do you have a link to this article? I tried finding it online, but no success!

moneybunny123

timmyt wrote: »

Don't let strangers unchecked into your house. Use an agent. They can squeeze best price to pay their own fee.

But you let strangers into your house even if you ARE on with an agent. What checks do they do exactly?! Hardly CRB checks?! When I've rang up agents to go and view properties, all they do is take my name and address. I've even given a friends address before now and no checks were made.

And selling my current home, the estate agent hasn't done a single viewing. In fact, whenever I've bought or sold, it's always been the vendor/myself doing the viewings. Estate Agents, IMO, don't earn their commission.

I also don't believe they squeeze the best price out of anybody. If I want a property, I don't care if an Estate Agent is trying to sell it, or if it's a smurf. (I'd probably trust the smurf more...)