housenetwork - a review

Phirefly

My colleague has just accepted an offer on her house 5k over asking price three weeks after I suggested she gave Housenetwork a go.

I have no reason to reccommend them other than I think it seems like a smart way to sell a house and it seemed like a good opportunity for me to see how someone else fares.

At first, my colleague was nervous about using housenetwork as it was a completely new concept to her and she was worried about there being a lack of traditional agency and the promise of hoards of punters already on the books desparate to buy her house. She looked into it though and realised that she could give it a go on their fixed fee service and would have little to lose.

In the three weeks its been on the market, shes had about 7 viewings, 3 of which resulted in offers. This morning we bore witness to her holding court over a bidding war between two interested parties which ended up in her acheiving 5k over asking price. The people she has dealt with at HN have been efficient and professional and she is over the moon with the whole experience.

Obviously, its just an accepted offer and she's got a long way to go yet, but I'm sold on HN. For me, her experiences have proved right my theory that if your house is competatively priced, well presented and advertised on rightmove, theres absolutley no need for a traditional EA.

I'm being a bit previous, we've only just completed on our first purchase! But when the sad day comes that we finally wave goodbye to the Wharf, I'm pretty sure I'll be doing it without giving 1.5% to an EA.

Canucklehead

Good afternoon: I agree....Housenetwork is an excellent option..after all who knows your property better than you do...showing prospective buyers around gets easier after the first viewing...seems to be fewer time wasters going this route i.e. having a snoop around your home purely for entertainment value (I'm basing my opinion on 2 successful sales, at above the valuations proposed by local 'experts').

Canucklehead

cashndash

Hi

we are about to put our house on the market and are strongly considering Housenetwork.

Has anyone any recent experience with them, ie since house sales have slowed?

many thanks

54druids

Unless you live in Scotland as they have no properties there. Something up with their marketing techniques for North of the border.

chickmug

As a retired agent in certain circumstances I have considered using an online agent and my choice would have been housenetwork. However I have made the decision to appoint a local agent and feel there are times where the local agent may be a better option even though it would cost more.

My situation was on behalf of one of my family with a small one bedroomed ground floor flat only 50 yards to the main street in a very very small town with a known elderly population. My concern about online agents is the lack of window presence knowing my target market. The flat is comprehensively refurbished from top to bottom and the various agents have agreed with my thoughts that the likely buyer will be retired elderly single or couple. Not young as the nearest centres of employment are 45 minutes drive away.

So I feel this group of people will often not use the web as much as other groups and even though their families may look for them you can see this type of age group outside of the local agent’s windows every day and as confirmed by those agents. Also this age group tend to want to pop into the agent’s office to communicate face to face.

So housenetwork do look a good option but there may be specific circumstances where you need to make absolutely sure the lack of the local shop window and office will not be a problem.

cashndash

that is very sound advice and is certainly something I have considered.

I imagine our buyers will be a family possibly with older children, so similar to us ie in their 40s.

From our personal circumstances, we have so far viewed 4 houses and everyone has been on right move, phoned the agent and met them at the house, I haven't been near a 'house shop' yet (and don't really want to!!)

this is what makes me think HN could really work for us.

googler

54druids wrote: »

Unless you live in Scotland as they have no properties there. Something up with their marketing techniques for North of the border.

Same applies to Rightmove in large areas of Scotland, so that's a double negative whammy for Housenetwork....

cashndash

luckily I live in Hampshire :j

54druids

googler wrote: »

Same applies to Rightmove in large areas of Scotland, so that's a double negative whammy for Housenetwork....

Well, googler I am using Rightmove and have found loads of hooses in Scotland but their are none at all on House Network. However since it is solicitors in the main that sell houses in Scotland (not my house) there tend to be alot which use sspc. I can never understand why these solicitors don't also use the big SE like RM or Primelocation.

googler

54druids wrote: »

Well, googler I am using Rightmove and have found loads of hooses in Scotland but their are none at all on House Network. However since it is solicitors in the main that sell houses in Scotland (not my house) there tend to be alot which use sspc. I can never understand why these solicitors don't also use the big SE like RM or Primelocation.

I haven't looked everywhere, but down my way (Lothians), barely 25-30% of the available properties seem to be on RM - and even then, RM just duplicates what's on the agents own sites..... so why not look at the source?

My take on why they don't use the portals is that the SPCs have had market dominance with their own centres and websites since the 1970s (but maybe not for long....). In the pre-internet days, office workers would throng the city centre SPC premises on the days that the new properties were released, or the printed listing paper came out. That changed, and now they get a peak of web hits on the days they do a batch update of their listings on the websites, and you could shoot buffalo in the high-street premises most days......

I'm not sure, but I think the SPC websites may have been up and running long before RM and Primelocation were even a tap of a programmer's keyboard - so people were looking there long before they looked at RM/PL.

With established SPCs and SPC websites, it becomes a case of "How can RM/PL pull the web traffic away from the established sites....?"

cashndash

has anyone else got any recent experience of Housenetwork please?