housenetwork - a review

a_gwtw

Grolsch30 wrote: »

First viewing went really positive. Viewer was on time and seemed very positive about our house, said she would come again with her hubby.
Awaiting feedback from HN now.

Well done Grolsch! Our flat went live with HN this time last week and have received no viewing yet However, we're in no rush and understand a week's nothing in this econ environment given there're quite a few properties in our area...

Grolsch30

a_gwtw wrote: »

Well done Grolsch! Our flat went live with HN this time last week and have received no viewing yet However, we're in no rush and understand a week's nothing in this econ environment given there're quite a few properties in our area...

We were very suprised to get a viewing within the first day of being on the market and have another viewing booked today @ 12.
I was preparing for a long wait for any interest given the climate.


We are also under no pressure to sell (we will be emigrating), so if it takes a week, month, year to sell no problem for us so we just let it all go and think what happens happens if you know what I mean.

I must say it's all pretty exciting the first viewings (probably will wear off), but it's a pain trying to keep your house tidy with a 3 year old child


a_gwtw,

How many hits have you had on your HN site?

beccad

Contessa wrote: »

I intend to use HN. Did people who used them decide the asking price themselves, or got valuations from local EA's? At the moment I'm decluttering and debating whether or not to spend quite a lot of money on repairs/tarting up my house so I'm not really sure what the value of my house might be (apart from what someone is prepared to pay!)

We got local EAs round to do valuations, although we always intended to instruct HN whatever happened. HN asked as what we wanted to put our flat on the market for and stuck it on at that price.

a_gwtw

Grolsch30 wrote: »

a_gwtw,

How many hits have you had on your HN site?

30 odd hits in the first week, mostly us I guess :cool:. Very disappointing isn't it?

Selbyjay

Quick update on my Housenetwork experience.

We've been on with them for just over 12 weeks and still no sale. We've had more viewers cancel than show up and have had feedback from only about 20% of the viewers (inc reasons for cancelling). We did a "mystery shop" and posed as prospective purchasers and HN didnt fare very well. They didnt know the answers to basic questions about the property (even tho i had previously sent them the info), they didnt chase up a brochure request to offer a viewing or check if we had all the info we needed and didnt offer a viewing when we were asking questions about the property. They havent offered any form of professional advice about how to get the property sold other than "you have a very nice property", gave only 1 line responses to emails and have generally been a bit rubbish.

We have written a letter of complaint to HN and they have offered us a partial refund of the money we paid and have switched our sale to a senior account manager. Previously, i've only dealt with staff training for their NAEA qualifications (as shown on HN website) so i'm giving them the benefit of the doubt to see if their service improves. They openly admit that the service we've had so far has been below par.

Although we have taken the decision to leave the property on the market with HN, we have also instructed a local agent to give us a basis of comparison. I'll update more as and when it happens, but although HN have made redress for our disappointments, i so far couldnt recommend them.

Grolsch30

Selbyjay wrote: »

Quick update on my Housenetwork experience.

We've been on with them for just over 12 weeks and still no sale. We've had more viewers cancel than show up and have had feedback from only about 20% of the viewers (inc reasons for cancelling). We did a "mystery shop" and posed as prospective purchasers and HN didnt fare very well. They didnt know the answers to basic questions about the property (even tho i had previously sent them the info), they didnt chase up a brochure request to offer a viewing or check if we had all the info we needed and didnt offer a viewing when we were asking questions about the property. They havent offered any form of professional advice about how to get the property sold other than "you have a very nice property", gave only 1 line responses to emails and have generally been a bit rubbish.

We have written a letter of complaint to HN and they have offered us a partial refund of the money we paid and have switched our sale to a senior account manager. Previously, i've only dealt with staff training for their NAEA qualifications (as shown on HN website) so i'm giving them the benefit of the doubt to see if their service improves. They openly admit that the service we've had so far has been below par.

Although we have taken the decision to leave the property on the market with HN, we have also instructed a local agent to give us a basis of comparison. I'll update more as and when it happens, but although HN have made redress for our disappointments, i so far couldnt recommend them.

Interesting.....

Our house has been on sale with HN for just over a week now and have had 2 viewings with another booked for today.

Although all of my booked viewings (even though its only been 2 nearly 3), have turned up I agree with you that any kind of feedback has been difficult to obtain but I put this down to the viewers either being lazy to give feedback of any sort or just not at all interested in sharing their views on your property.

I know it's to early as we have only been on the market for a little over a week but up to now I am satisfied with the service offered.

All my tickets raised have been answered very quickly.
the staff phoning with viewing appointments have been courteous and proffesional.

Third viewing in an hour and hopefully third time lucky :beer:

pilotj

I've just found this thread after a google seach for complaints housenetwork and have much to add...

We've been registered with housenetwork for about 6 weeks and have had many problems including (but not only), the guy who came to take the photos being rude, the house description (written by the same guy) was rubbish, just cut and pasted from details I gave, very difficult to communicate with them and get a human response, I posed as a viewer and left an out of hours answerphone message requesting a viewing, they didn't get back to me and when I later asked them if anyone had phoned about viewing they said no, I said that a "woman I met at playgroup" had definately left a message, they said they hadn't got a message but they would "check the server". I rang again during office hours and managed to arrange a viewing but they twice updated our page to say they had contacted the viewer for feedback, this was just not true, nooone contact me. There's much more but you get the drift.

I've emailed to complain twice, the first time the manager apologised for the poor service and said he had spoken to those concerned and it wouldn't happen again. However on looking back at my records one of the people responsible for the problems was him which he didn't mention, makes me think he took no action at all just gave some platitudes. Over the next couple of days there were more problems, mainly to do with appalling communication so I emailed again to ask for a refund. He immediately replied (within hours) to refer me to the refund policy which as far as I can see says that once they have taken pictures and put them on rightmove it's too late to get any money back at all. In the same email he said he would look into the problems but that was a couple of weeks ago and I've heard nothing back.

I'm starting to think that housenetwork is a fully automated service which at times can work, if you are in when the potential viewers call for example and manage to make an appointment, but in the most part make no attempt to do what they say on their website (what a normal estate agent would do only not on the high street). I don't believe the two managers I've dealt with have made any attempt to work on the problems I've pointed out and have just fobbed me off.

I'm very frustrated and have no idea what to do next, I feel we've been conned. Any suggestions?

pilotj

Oh, and I'm interested in the person who got a partial refund, what did you say that I didn't as they said there was no possibility of any refund for us, I'd be really grateful for advice from you.

Canucklehead

pilotj wrote: »

I've just found this thread after a google seach for complaints housenetwork and have much to add...

We've been registered with housenetwork for about 6 weeks and have had many problems including (but not only), the guy who came to take the photos being rude, the house description (written by the same guy) was rubbish, just cut and pasted from details I gave, very difficult to communicate with them and get a human response, I posed as a viewer and left an out of hours answerphone message requesting a viewing, they didn't get back to me and when I later asked them if anyone had phoned about viewing they said no, I said that a "woman I met at playgroup" had definately left a message, they said they hadn't got a message but they would "check the server". I rang again during office hours and managed to arrange a viewing but they twice updated our page to say they had contacted the viewer for feedback, this was just not true, nooone contact me. There's much more but you get the drift.

I've emailed to complain twice, the first time the manager apologised for the poor service and said he had spoken to those concerned and it wouldn't happen again. However on looking back at my records one of the people responsible for the problems was him which he didn't mention, makes me think he took no action at all just gave some platitudes. Over the next couple of days there were more problems, mainly to do with appalling communication so I emailed again to ask for a refund. He immediately replied (within hours) to refer me to the refund policy which as far as I can see says that once they have taken pictures and put them on rightmove it's too late to get any money back at all. In the same email he said he would look into the problems but that was a couple of weeks ago and I've heard nothing back.

I'm starting to think that housenetwork is a fully automated service which at times can work, if you are in when the potential viewers call for example and manage to make an appointment, but in the most part make no attempt to do what they say on their website (what a normal estate agent would do only not on the high street). I don't believe the two managers I've dealt with have made any attempt to work on the problems I've pointed out and have just fobbed me off.

I'm very frustrated and have no idea what to do next, I feel we've been conned. Any suggestions?

Good morning: no suggestions but..we've used HN for 3 sales with no problems and saved thousands of pounds. Viewings were arranged with us by mobile phone and confirmed by email. We never had a problem contacting HN by phone or email...however we did experience many problems with traditional estate agents hence our use of HN since 2005.;)

Canucklehead

pilotj

Overnight I've thought of a few more of the problems we've had with HN. I said before that I tried to phone as a viewer and they said they hadn't had a phonecall, well two of my friends also tried and left messages on their answerphone which they didn't return and didn't inform me as the vendor that they had had any viewing requests. Also, they have a form to fill in with house details which they clearly state is for their information only but when I posed as a viewer and got through to them they said something like (in a voice that's clearly reading)... oh, hold on, the vendors say that at certain times of day it's really hard to park because they're next to the station, they don't want to make viewings for that time of day. Clearly not a good sales pitch and makes me think noone is using common sense. We've also given them lots of numbers to communicate with us because my husband can't use his mobile when he's at work, on numerous occassions they've only used his mobile and by the time we've got the message it's been too late and we've missed the potential viewer.

To me there's a difference between being a bit inefficient and just not doing your job, to me they're not doing their job which is why I think we're due some sort of refund.