Who has sold a property using an online estate agent?

lessonlearned

[QUOTE=Lit Up;60032413 .

Feel free to scrutinise me for minor mistakes of grammar, it will help you practice for those A levels you never took :rotfl::T[/QUOTE]

Tut tut - another lazy assumption here. You know nothing about my academic career or my professional qualifications.

I only drew attention to your poor grammar and writing skills because you said that you could do a better job at writing your own property descriptions. From reading your posts so far I don't think you can.

Now I agree with you that there are a lot of property descriptions that are sometimes not very informative and that they do have a tendency to be formulaic. This is a direct result of the "Property Misdescriptions Act". It does mean that the writing has to be rather standardised, which is why it has become something of a joke, relying on cliches and trite phrases.

I also agree that some of the EA's literature also displays a distinct lack of writing skills, often littered with spelling errors and instances of appalling grammar - rather like your own writing.

I think there is often an over-reliance on Spell-checking programmes rather than the writer's lack of intelligence.

However, you are the one who believes himself to have a far superior intellect to that of the average EA, and you include Google and myself in your rather sweeping generalisations. Apparently in your eyes we are just "Barrow boys", completely uneducated morons incapable of joined up thinking.

No I am not going to hazard a guess as to your background, academic ability, professional qualifications or anything else about you. However, you have demonstrated on this thread that you are an intemperate, arrogant, ill-mannered bore, completely lacking in social skills.

Who knows what the future will hold for most of our service industries, EA's included. Most service industries in the UK need to sharpen up their acts.

The level of service in the UK does leave a great deal to be desired, however, this is partly down to the consumer. The average consumer does not complain enough.

However, complaining is only effective if done in a calm, rational and reasonable manner - not the way you whinge and whine.

Your foul mouthed, blustering raving rants are not how you uphold a successful complaint. Loosen up a little and take a tip from someone who you wrongly perceive to be your mortal enemy.

As a highly skilled and hugely successful negotiator I know how to complain, how to resolve disputes and how to get a desired result.

And - before you get all snooty - yes I am blowing my own trumpet. I am not afraid to stand up and say I was damn good at my job.

My employers did not pay me double, sometimes triple commission and generous bonuses for nothing. I delivered the goods and they rewarded me fairly. I earned a fortune in sales for them and they were generous in return.

Anyhoo - back to my point about effective complaints.

Learn how to complain properly, learn how to do it with charm, grace, style and wit and you will get much further. Losing your temper and foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog will not give you the results you need.

Lit_Up

googler wrote: »

This is your prediction of what will/should happen, not a reason for Rightmove and their ilk to go this way.

Again, why would they want to do this? What's the appeal to them to deal with every seller in the country, with all the extra admin and work that entails, when they're currently dealing with the agents who filter out the public dealings, and just send them an automated data feed for each property?

Remember, they're a listed company. When they stand up and tell the shareholders they're planning on spending £X million on hiring staff and setting up new systems to deal with the general public, as opposed to EAs, what do you think the shareholder's reaction will be?

As I've said, it will happen when you go out of business and they can no longer rely on high street EAs for their database. Either Rightmove or someone else will popularise a website which is a portal that deals direct with sellers - perhaps one of these online agents will invest in a heavy marketing campaign and morph their business to become the next big national portal. At that point either Rightmove will ape their game, or they won't, but regardless this model will occur somehow. As for hiring staff and setting up online mechanisms, it happens with airbnb.com. That website has a big yellow button that says "list your place", and the rest is history. I've never met anybody from that company. I earn a lot of money from it. No agent or commission in sight. Basically, you don't need someone with a high street office to let or sell property. You can do it all yourself and by getting your property the right exposure.

googler

Still a prediction from your point of view, and not a convincing argument for the portals to move this way.

When they've got a captive client base (EAs) who send them automated data from the EA's own software systems, how would the public upload? Manually?

What happens when the client isn't happy with how the property looks? Currently, they tell the EA, take up the EA's time, and a corrected feed goes to RM, who don't do any work.

In your scenario, RM would have to deal with the public, and the numbers required to provide a Cust Serv Centre for the whole of the UK would be horrendous. Why would they do this, when they don't actually have to? What would their incentive be, from a business point of view?

How many listings are on your holiday site? How many on RM?

drussmonkey

A very entertaining thread.

I would agree with the general point that Estate Agents represent money for old rope. Consider their basic skillset:

1) Taking some point-and-click pictures with a low-quality digital camera.
2) Using a tape measure.
3) Writing some basic blurb about a room ('12'x9', south facing aspect, nicely presented). It's not exactly Dostoevsky.
4) Very basic webpage containing the above.
5) Taking phone calls (Minimum-wage admin work).
6) Conducting viewings, repeating the information in the brochure, having far less knowledge about the property that the owner has.

These are not services commensurate with 1% of the value of a property. If I gave you £200 for the above I'd expect you to consider yourself lucky.

The whole array of services and extras that they try to pack in when selling your property do not represent value for money. They are basic services, requiring no specific qualifications (I could declare myself an estate agent and set up shop tomorrow), and could be done by anyone.

The thing I've always said about estate agents, which is reinforced to me whenever I have to deal with them, is that if they knew anything, they wouldn't be estate agents.

googler

drussmonkey wrote: »

A very entertaining thread.

I would agree with the general point that Estate Agents represent money for old rope. Consider their basic skillset:

1) Taking some point-and-click pictures with a low-quality digital camera.

etc etc

It's not a question of the selective matters you quote; it's a question of the risk that the EA takes that they'll have you, or others, as customer(s) and not get paid at the end of it unless the house sells - and that it may not sell because of matters outwith the EA's control. No sale, no fee, remember.

The successful sales have to pay the ongoing expenses for those that don't sell, in the same way that good drivers' insurance premiums fund the repairs of the bad.

Look for any of my previous posts with 'risk profile' within them.

Lit_Up

googler wrote: »

What happens when the client isn't happy with how the property looks? Currently, they tell the EA, take up the EA's time, and a corrected feed goes to RM, who don't do any work.

In your scenario, RM would have to deal with the public, and the numbers required to provide a Cust Serv Centre for the whole of the UK would be horrendous. Why would they do this, when they don't actually have to? What would their incentive be, from a business point of view?

How many listings are on your holiday site? How many on RM?

Actually on airbnb you manage your entire listing. You can take your own photographs if you want, and if you don't like them you can upload new ones obviously. Also, airbnb offer free photography services from a professional photographer, which I was impressed with. Something that an estate agent would never do. You edit your description to say whatever you want. So there is basically no admin in terms of listing things. Yes, they have a call centre somewhere. The incentive is always profit. What a stupid question. Airbnb has many thousands of listings. It's international.

Hoof_Hearted

googler wrote: »

The successful sales have to pay the ongoing expenses for those that don't sell....

This is just like any other service. Builders quote for ten jobs and perhaps get one. Nine are a waste of his time. That's business.

However, it just isn't worth paying £7,500 & Vat to sell a £500K house for what EA's offer in return. Historically, it was a pretty closed market but the internet has changed things rapidly. Greed is killing the goose, I'm afraid.

googler

Hoof_Hearted wrote: »

This is just like any other service. Builders quote for ten jobs and perhaps get one. Nine are a waste of his time. That's business.

However, it just isn't worth paying £7,500 & Vat to sell a £500K house for what EA's offer in return. Historically, it was a pretty closed market but the internet has changed things rapidly. Greed is killing the goose, I'm afraid.

No, no, no. Not the same.

Builders quote for ten jobs and work on one. They don't work on nine of the jobs and then find that they're not getting paid for them.

EA could take on ten clients, spend 6 or 8 months on each and all of them, and only get five sales at the end of the day, losing out on three perhaps through no fault of their own. They haven't just 'quoted' for the three that didn't achieve a sale.....

Fizzymartini

Quick question from the other side: if interested, who should the buyer approach to make an offer - the vendor, or the online agent?

Confused about this, especially if the only initial contact was with the online estate agent, and all else after is discussed with the seller...

Lit_Up

I would discuss with the vendor, they are selling the place after all... if you have any specific questions about the buying process, direct those to your solicitor