online estate agents

Hoof_Hearted

Ivana_Tinkle wrote: »

Nobody ever checked us out financially, nobody ever asked what our budget was and the price negotiation was a joke - we put in a very cheeky offer and they practically bit our hand off. We loved the house, there was nothing else on the market we liked and we'd have happily paid 10% more.

Housenetwork didn't bite your hand off as they would have passed your offer on to the vendors and it is up to them whether to accept or not. If the vendors were stupid enough not to value their house properly, then you did well out of their lack of research.

A local agent undervalued our house and we got much more through Housenetwork.

googler

Hoof_Hearted wrote: »

Housenetwork didn't bite your hand off as they would have passed your offer on to the vendors and it is up to them whether to accept or not. If the vendors were stupid enough not to value their house properly, then you did well out of their lack of research.

Doesn't this imply that HN, operating from their distant location, and with nobody 'on the ground' in the area, were equally in the dark about the value of the property?

In their role as 'estate agents', shouldn't they have been better informed than this?

Doesn't the above also imply that HN made little or no effort on behalf of the sellers to get the best price for them?

Ivana_Tinkle

It was a completely one-sided negotiation. (In fact, there was no negotiation at all, HN just passed on messages between us and the vendor - it was like leaving a message on an answerphone.) We'd chatted to the vendors at the viewing and knew that, for various reasons, they were very keen to sell. They knew absolutely nothing about us, our budget, how keen we were to move, or anything else, because neither they nor HN ever asked. HN were far, far more interested in trying to get us to sign up to sell our house through them (it was already under offer - but of course they never even bothered to check that vital bit of info!) than in looking out for our vendors' interests.

If the vendors had been more savvy and had done all the checking themselves it wouldn't have mattered and they genuinely would have saved themselves lots of money. I just don't think you get the full picture by asking for stories of people who've used these services as they don't necessarily know the full story - as I said above, our vendors are probably very pleased with themselves and HN.

Hoof_Hearted

I think that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of how online agents work. They charge a small percentage of what a high street agent would charge and you obviously don't get the same service. You don't get the lying, cheating, phantom offers, "see my mortage bloke" stuff as well.

To use an online agent you need to make sure you know the value of your house. Plenty of local agents will help with this for free. You need to conduct your own viewings and it is then that you find out about the potential buyer's position. The online agent merely passes on offers and gives feedback on viewings. The vendor is in control. It's not for everybody, but it is for money savers.

In Ivana's case, I guess if the house was truly undervalued then there would have been a lot of offers to choose from, but I doubt this was the case if they jumped at the first one.

BertieUK

Hoof_Hearted wrote: »

I think that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of how online agents work. They charge a small percentage of what a high street agent would charge and you obviously don't get the same service. You don't get the lying, cheating, phantom offers, "see my mortage bloke" stuff as well.

To use an online agent you need to make sure you know the value of your house. Plenty of local agents will help with this for free. You need to conduct your own viewings and it is then that you find out about the potential buyer's position. The online agent merely passes on offers and gives feedback on viewings. The vendor is in control. It's not for everybody, but it is for money savers.

In Ivana's case, I guess if the house was truly undervalued then there would have been a lot of offers to choose from, but I doubt this was the case if they jumped at the first one.

All very positive issues covered, we are looking to put our property upon the maket within the next couple of months, say around the latter part of February.

We are first of all looking to see what similar properties on our street sold for over the last year or so in order to find a realistic price to achieve.

Also condition plays an important part in attracting vendors to view your property, last thing they want to see when approaching the front door are steemed up double glazing, as our front windows had this problem before we had them replaced recently.

We realise that we would have to do all the viewings, my wife says that she would be very happy to do this as she said the 'she can talk for England, and know when to stop, in her words.

Local Estate Agents certainly know their area, or should do, like the back of their hand, this could give confidence to a prospective vendor, especially the elderly.

On Line agencies do not have these same atributes but never the less do reach a vast number of interested property hunters. Our present property was sourced from an online agent, the right move for us to be sure.

We will be watching this thread with interest, as many other will be doing.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post and have a very Happy Festive.

richards123

online agents - don't like them at all from past experience. Admittedly I don't have experience of them as a seller but do as a prospective buyer. Scant listing descriptions which don;t include room sizes are a big frustration. I'd rather deal with an agent who is based locally and who is familiar with the property.

Another thing - what type of seller do online agents attract?? I've been trying to get a viewing on a property for over a week now with an online agent but no joy - how motivated is the seller I wonder if he can't be arsed to answer his phone? or is the agent completely useless...

BertieUK

richards123 wrote: »

online agents - don't like them at all from past experience. Admittedly I don't have experience of them as a seller but do as a prospective buyer. Scant listing descriptions which don;t include room sizes are a big frustration. I'd rather deal with an agent who is based locally and who is familiar with the property.

Another thing - what type of seller do online agents attract?? I've been trying to get a viewing on a property for over a week now with an online agent but no joy - how motivated is the seller I wonder if he can't be arsed to answer his phone? or is the agent completely useless...

I certainly have noticed that many of the on-line agencies do not include room sizes, or Floor Plans, some High Street Agencies dont include a Floor Plan either, but I have the feeling that this may be part of your overall fee whether to include the FP at an extra cost with either of them.

Only an opinion of course.

UsernameAlreadyExists

The EA that visited my property said he'd be able to do a Floor plan for an additional £50. It was certainly not included in their fee. Neither was the EPC (which he quoted £99 for - lol).

He doesn't like them as he said he prefers to get people to see the place and walk around it before dismissing it on the FP alone. I, on the otherhand, don't want to waste time viewing properties that I would dismiss from the FP alone! The sceptic in me thinks this is a situation where the EA could try to encourage the sale - and by that I mean make people consider and think harder about places they don't really want.

tim123456789

UsernameAlreadyExists wrote: »

The EA that visited my property said he'd be able to do a Floor plan for an additional £50. It was certainly not included in their fee. Neither was the EPC (which he quoted £99 for - lol).

.

I think that charging for a floor plan is TTP

But you alwasy have to pay extra for the EPC, though you don't have to take their offer. You can pay the guy direct and it will cost you about half that

googler

Hoof_Hearted wrote: »

I think that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of how online agents work.

No there isn't. Don't be so condescending, we understand perfectly well what's going on

They charge a small percentage of what a high street agent would charge

No they don't. The top package at Housenetwork is £995. According to the BBC, the average house price in the UK is just under £250k, and according to the OFT, the average EA %age in E&W a couple of years ago was 1.6%, in Scotland 1.1%. Based on those figures, that's around £4000 and £2749 respectively. The HN fee, AS A PERCENTAGE of those figures, is approx 25% and 36% respectively, That's not a 'small percentage' of the high street fees....

...and you obviously don't get the same service.

At least we agree on that.... you get less of a service from the online agent than you do from a high-street agent, is that what you're saying?

To use an online agent you need to make sure you know the value of your house. Plenty of local agents will help with this for free.

So, on one hand, you criticise the high-street EA for charging more, but on the other, you encourage people to badger them for 'free' advice and valuation visits, then not actually use their services. And you wonder why they might be charging more.....?

You need to conduct your own viewings and it is then that you find out about the potential buyer's position. The online agent merely passes on offers and gives feedback on viewings.

So you're paying them to shuffle a few phone calls around; not to interact with the viewers, not to actively promote properties to the viewers, not to find out what the viewers and buyers actually want....?

What value is there in the online EA giving feedback which is gathered over the phone, when they don't actually meet the viewer? What value is there in paying them to make the call, when you've met the viewer already?