housenetwork - a review

Davesnave

googler wrote: »

How exact do you need to be? You have the street number, street name, and postcode. What else are you looking for?

Perhaps you haven't looked for much rural property!:rotfl:

In my own postcode there are 17 properties. The distance between the two furthest from each other is the best part of half a mile.

Disregarding the special problems of rural areas, I've just checked a recent Rightmove update, and of the 12 properties listed, only one had a number.


'Presentation' is mainly in the hands of the homeowner. If the homeowner does their work well, all the agent should have to do is turn up, point the camera in the right direction, and click. Whilst it may be appropriate to give some advice to the homeowner, it shouldn't be down to the EA to tidy the owner's home for them ....

I agree, home owners ought to do more, but the advice you speak of is sadly lacking. People do a pretty good job raising awareness on MSE, however.

Just snapping away as if there's nothing that can be done is as professional as a teacher would be if he/she said to themselves,
"Oh well, Mr & Mrs Smith have given me a child who is pretty unprepared for learning, but I'll just stick them at the back of the class and hope for the best."

googler

Davesnave wrote: »

Perhaps you haven't looked for much rural property!

I was looking at it from the town/city perspective, yes, so point taken

I agree, home owners ought to do more, but the advice you speak of is sadly lacking.

You can lead a horse/homeowner to water ....

Just snapping away as if there's nothing that can be done is as professional as a teacher would be if he/she said to themselves, "Oh well, Mr & Mrs Smith have given me a child who is pretty unprepared for learning, but I'll just stick them at the back of the class and hope for the best."

I suspect the teacher would take a different attitude if -a- they weren't being paid by the hour for their efforts, -b- they would only get paid at the conclusion of the child's primary or secondary education, and -c- the parent could withdraw their child from school before the end of the process, and the teacher wouldn't get paid at all. I also suspect the teacher would take a different approach if they were balancing their own expenses against income.

In the EA's case, if they get to the house and find the presentation, despite prior advice, to be seriously lacking, what then? Ask/tell the homeowner to tidy up, and wait around while they tidy? If so, for how long? Should the EA come back another day, thus incurring two sets of travel expenses?

What if they've been given a key, and they arrive at the house on their own, and presentation is lacking? Should they make the most of what they're given, or spend half a day tidying on the owner's behalf? Or report back to the owner, and come back another day?

There'll be no immediate reward for going the extra mile at this stage, and no guarantee of a greater reward in the future, so - if it was your business, with the expenses coming out of your pocket, what would you do?

Do you spend more and more time with this homeowner, or make the most of it, cut your losses, get the photos done as best you can and move on to generating more profitable business elsewhere?

Hoof_Hearted

googler wrote: »

There'll be no immediate reward for going the extra mile at this stage, and no guarantee of a greater reward in the future, so - if it was your business, with the expenses coming out of your pocket, what would you do?

Do you spend more and more time with this homeowner, or make the most of it, cut your losses, get the photos done as best you can and move on to generating more profitable business elsewhere?

So, it's not about a service, it's about making a quick buck.

googler

Hoof_Hearted wrote: »

So, it's not about a service, it's about making a quick buck.

It's about being in business, and balancing expenses against income.

It's noticeable that, in response to a post laden with questions, you choose not to actually answer any, but resort to petty sniping.

Are Housenetwork in this business for charitable reasons, or are they looking to turn a profit as well? I believe it's the latter. How do they do this? They take their money upfront, and keep it regardless of the outcome, whether the sale completes or not. Don't they?

In the current state of financial affairs, it could well take months, not weeks, to get an offer on a house, and, depending on circumstances with the buyers and sellers around that sale, it could well take months to get to completion. So, from starting work for a client, the EA could be looking at half a year before actually being paid. Which part of this is the 'quick' part?

Hoof_Hearted

I think you miss the point that Housenetwork charges a small amount of money for its less comprehensive service, not the thousands that regular EAs demand.

You make it sound like an agent only gets paid every six months. Good agents will have several houses completing each month to give a steady income stream.

Most business have to wait months for payment. It's what's called being self-employed.

I haven't seen any questions directed at me.

crow99

Many of you will have read my post some comments back, in the interests of fairness I think I should update it. Please take into consideration I am still happy with the service I have received.

We had accepted a offer form a FTB couple when I last posted and everything seemed to be going well for a few days until they pulled out for 'personal reasons', the correspondence was done via email when they removed their offer so I still don't know why. House Network called me very quickly to let me know.

On Saturday I rejected a offer based on a viewing we had on Friday night, I informed the agent we would stay by the phone as we were putting in a counter offer - this was at 11:30, later on in the day we checked the House Network website and it looked as though there was a new offer made at 1:30 but no one called so we wasn't sure. Then earlier today we got a call at around 1130 with the offer which had certain conditions based on vacating which we decided to a accept a couple of hours later.

Unfortunately the buyer claims that as they hadn't heard back and were in a hurry they made a offer on a similar property this morning which was accepted straight away, they also called me personally to apologise.

It's a strange one as I wonder why a buyer would make simultaneous offers without hearing back but am disappointed house network didn't communicate back to us timely which may or may not have solved the issue. We will never know but it's the first time I've been aware of their closure at 3pm on Saturday and not opening Sunday impact our sale, obviously a traditional EA might have better options but similarly might not have the same pictures, listing etc...

Interestingly enough of the 6 viewings we have had 3 'kind of' offers which all seem to have gone wrong due to buyer status / position.

I've asked House Network to explain why the offer wasn't communicated timely and will let you know how the sale progresses!

urbanmyth

Interesting reading, thanks. House Network was our second choice. We put in an enquiry with Emoov but it took them a week to call back so they obviously didn't want our business.

So far, so good with HM. Their photographer came round late last week and we're really happy with the photos. Listing went live on their site today and Zoopla, RM, etc by tomorrow. Our place should (fingers crossed) be an easy sale because of where we are in London. I certainly wasn't going to pay a local EA 2% plus VAT after having been unfortunate enough to deal with some of them as a buyer.

Will update on our progress soon, I hope!

Davesnave

googler wrote: »

I suspect the teacher would take a different attitude if -a- they weren't being paid by the hour for their efforts,

In the EA's case, if they get to the house and find the presentation, despite prior advice, to be seriously lacking, what then? Ask/tell the homeowner to tidy up, and wait around while they tidy? If so, for how long? Should the EA come back another day, thus incurring two sets of travel expenses?

What if they've been given a key, and they arrive at the house on their own, and presentation is lacking? Should they make the most of what they're given, or spend half a day tidying on the owner's behalf? Or report back to the owner, and come back another day?

There'll be no immediate reward for going the extra mile at this stage, and no guarantee of a greater reward in the future, so - if it was your business, with the expenses coming out of your pocket, what would you do?

Do you spend more and more time with this homeowner, or make the most of it, cut your losses, get the photos done as best you can and move on to generating more profitable business elsewhere?

Well I learn something new every day! I taught for well over 30 years and never realised I was being paid by the hour! Sometimes my weeks were 45-50 hours and sometimes 70, so I don't know why the difference wasn't reflected in my pay packet.

You take a job and you do what you have to do, hopefully with pride. My daughter is one of three or four staff in a customer-facing position, generating sales well in excess of the usual £7 or £8k a week, but it's simply a matter of personal esteem whether any of them can bust £10k a week regularly. There's no massive incentives, and those awarded go to all staff. So far as I know, none of these young ladies has a long term interest in remaining with the firm; it's just how they are. Work effick, innit?;)

No, I wouldn't suggest the EA should spend half a day sorting out someone's house, but nor should he/she put stuff on his web site that's second rate. Ten minutes sorting is all most places would need to avoid the typical faux pas. We are not talking decluttering.

When you run a business, going the extra mile really does matter in the long term, though there might be no immediate gain. I was partner in a business for 11 years, and during the first five of those we often seemed to be attending events just to break even. However, if we hadn't done that apparently 'fruitless' work, we'd not have made the contacts with those who made the latter years more pleasant and profitable.

This thread has become livelier and more informative. Thanks for the update crow99.:)

Patr100

Looking at the HN website , of those who have used it, did you opt for Basic, Esssential or contract?
If you went for the Basic, did the absence of a single person to deal with , an "account manager" seem to affect the quality of service you got?

Hoof_Hearted

Davesnave wrote: »

Well I learn something new every day! I taught for well over 30 years and never realised I was being paid by the hour! Sometimes my weeks were 45-50 hours and sometimes 70, so I don't know why the difference wasn't reflected in my pay packet.

You take a job and you do what you have to do, hopefully with pride. My daughter is one of three or four staff in a customer-facing position, generating sales well in excess of the usual £7 or £8k a week, but it's simply a matter of personal esteem whether any of them can bust £10k a week regularly. There's no massive incentives, and those awarded go to all staff. So far as I know, none of these young ladies has a long term interest in remaining with the firm; it's just how they are. Work effick, innit?;)

No, I wouldn't suggest the EA should spend half a day sorting out someone's house, but nor should he/she put stuff on his web site that's second rate. Ten minutes sorting is all most places would need to avoid the typical faux pas. We are not talking decluttering.

When you run a business, going the extra mile really does matter in the long term, though there might be no immediate gain. I was partner in a business for 11 years, and during the first five of those we often seemed to be attending events just to break even. However, if we hadn't done that apparently 'fruitless' work, we'd not have made the contacts with those who made the latter years more pleasant and profitable.

This thread has become livelier and more informative. Thanks for the update crow99.:)

I couldn't agree more with this. One works to make a living but sometimes one just does things for personal pride and satisfaction, knowing the reward will be minimal.