housenetwork - a review

Sheppyd_2

We are just putting our house on the market with them! The pics were only taken today so we have not gone live yet. We did the £199 option because then if it fails to work we havent really lost too much.

I will let you know how we get on! We are in South West London.

My view is that if it works it is easier to save on the selling fees than it will probably be to squeeze the last couple of thousand out of a potential buyer. If we manage both then that will be excellent!

cashndash

Doozergirl wrote: »

Find me any agent that will chase you up to see if you want to even view a house! That really would be a thankless task. How many sets of details do you reject before you decide to view one house?

I do take your point, however I don't want to deal with an agent who just sends bits of paper out, they should earn their money by following people up and selling the benefits of my house and trying very hard to turn an enquiry into a viewing. If someone takes the time to make the call, give their details etc, then they should be prepared to be followed up. The whole point in RM is that people can see so much before making any commitment to contact the agent, that they should only be contacting on things they are really keen on!

I have to admit that the 'real' agent we have chosen (if necessary) only gives out details when people have registered as potential buyers with their agency, they do follow up and I think that shows they are acting for me which is what I would be paying them for!!

thanks for all the great feedback, it does look good.

Doozergirl

Your agent is chatting you up. There is being proactive and suggesting similar properties when you are asking about a particular one; even convincing someone to view when you're in person collecting details; also putting properties forward to you when you are selling with them they know you are def. buying and but I have never, ever been cold called by an agent asking me if I liked the details of a particular house, even when I have been on their 'hot' list. They'd never get any work done at all if they were calling everyone that asked for particulars and most people aren't interested inmost of the brochures they look at.

Half of them don't even call for feedback when you've viewed a house.

WallyBird

Thanks to everyone who gave their opinions of Housenetwork and Housesimple. It is very useful to have that sort of information.

I am just about to sell my large mid-terraced house in Manchester and am trying to decide between these two online agents. Does anyone have any suggestions which might be better?
Thanks, WallyBird.

chickmug

WallyBird wrote: »

Thanks to everyone who gave their opinions of Housenetwork and Housesimple. It is very useful to have that sort of information.

I am just about to sell my large mid-terraced house in Manchester and am trying to decide between these two online agents. Does anyone have any suggestions which might be better?
Thanks, WallyBird.

I have been keeping an eye on this aspect on the forum for ages and these two are the only ones I can see go on Rightmove. There are others includuing the Sarah Beeney one (free) but NO rightmove which to me means NO good. I would use housenetwork if I needed to sell subject to my target market.

WallyBird

Thanks Chickmug. I agree with your analysis - I definitely want to be on Rightmove. I am just trying to decide between Housesimple and Housenetwork. HS is a bit cheaper, but HN is bigger. Do you have a reason for prefering HN over HS?

chickmug

WallyBird wrote: »

Thanks Chickmug. I agree with your analysis - I definitely want to be on Rightmove. I am just trying to decide between Housesimple and Housenetwork. HS is a bit cheaper, but HN is bigger. Do you have a reason for prefering HN over HS?

One major reason is how many times I had seen them praised on this forum. I haven't looked closely for a time but felt that HN seemed to cram more in, on the web site, for the would be buyers.

And see my signature so I am hard to please having been in the business!!

not_loaded

I can’t comment on Housesimple as I went for Housenetwork after a lot of research.

Chickmug is spot on at #5 above, in that you must think about your target market. In our case it’s clear that our buyers have to be PC proficient and thus will be using the portals.

Horses for courses, as my granny always used to say…

becs

I used Housenetwork in 2006 to sell my house and they were fantastic. I got 2 local agents to value the house, both valued at £145k & £150k which I thought was too cheap. I decided to go with Housenetwork and put it on with them at £169k and we sold within 8 weeks for £164k. We had 8 viewings, 3 of which made offers so not lots of time wasting viewings. I think the fact they show photos of every single room of a property sorts the wheat from the chaff! How many times have you sent for details and got them and they have 3 photos on which look great, you then go and view and the rest of the property is awful! By having all pics, viewers know your property before they even come through the door so are going to be more serious.

One thing I would say about local agents following up giving details out etc is from a buyers point of view this drove me INSANE! We asked for details of so many prospective properties but then as you sort through them there are usually very few that you choose to view. If I had phonecalls from agents on all the details we were given it would have been an absoloute nightmare, it was bad enough with just 1 agent doing it. In the end we avoided this agent unless there was a property that we were desperate to have more details on. When you are busy househunting the last thing you want is 50 phonecalls a week following up on the 50 lots of details you have requested.

In my opinion I would never use a high street agent unless I was selling a property where the target market was a generation that weren't using the internet.

My experience of having to buy our current house through a chain estate agent absoloutely confirmed this for me! We had nothing but aggrivation, lies, total deceit and stress from them which resulted in a formal complaint to the ombudsman. High street agents are too interested in all the added extras that they can sell now such as mortgages etc that they often forget who they're acting on behalf. Suffice to say our agent persuaded the vendor of our property to accept an offer £10k below ours because we weren't arranging a mortgage through them. They told the vendor we would not be able to complete quickly as had to arrange mortgage etc and that they would not be able to chase it. We already had a formal offer in place with our exisiting lendor, once solicitors were instructed we completed within 6 weeks. The sale was only saved by us contacting the vendor directly to inform them of what was going on!

WallyBird

Thanks to all three for the helpful information. Ours is a second or third time family buyer house (definitely not a retirement one), so I think they would be computer literate.

I am coming round to thinking that I will give Housenetwork a try. In fact, if I go for the all-in-one option, it even works out cheaper. Also they have more houses on Rightmove, and even have at least one in the Manchester area.

We are just finishing the decorating and tidying up, so I will come back and let you know how I get on.

Thanks again! WallyBird.