Tesco's EA charging £199

Phirefly

I'm Freelance and my time is my own so

lynzpower

sites looking good today innit!

After all the fanfare- its just fish4homes in a new wrapper !

narnia2000

Whew, just to add my tuppenceworth.
Perhaps branding comes into estate agencies too, therefore prospective buyers might actually be put off by supermarket branding?
I have bought lots of shirts in Turkey over the past few years, super quality, fabrics etc. However my daughter lives and works in Dubai, luckily her bf is a project manager and earns 60k tax free, she teaches on 18k per year, the cost of living is high and therefore most low paid workers are migrant and have to live in another emirate, she wouldn't have been allowed to live there on her own.

eglons

courtjester wrote: »

Housenetwork are part of the 'new breed' of "online estate agents" that have sprung up especially in the last 12 months - hybrids between the pure private sale sites and traditional high street estate agents, taking advantage of a loophole which permits them to list private sellers on Rightmove, because they are technically classed as 'agencies' under the law.

However, Rightmove have in the past taken a commercial view of this to protect the businesses of their true agent owners (Halifax, Connells and Countrywide) and subscribers. They closed access to private sale websites in 2004 and are currently considering their terms as they have become concerned at the number of services masquerading as 'online agents' who are really offering no more than private sale services with Rightmove listing included.

It's anticipated that Rightmove will move to further restrict access to their site and "online only" agents such as Housenetwork face having their contracts ended, which will leave them and the many other companies around the country that have launched with this 'innovative' approach in severe difficulties as Rightmove is central to their market.

People considering using an online agent claiming to list on Rightmove (and some of the other agent-only portals like Findaproperty) should be wary that this might be short-lived.

Can I just counter this post. I'm very close to housenetwork having developed the site and consequently I've been involved in a lot of conversations around Estate Agency and "Private Sales". To clarify, "Private Sales" are sales where the vendor lists the property, they take photos and write the details rather than a qualified Estate Agent. Many site exist which do this and Rightmove (rightly in my opinion) will not allow these sites to list with them as they have no adherance to either the Property Misdescriptions Act (PMA) or the NAEA (National Association of Estate Agents). Housenetwork are a fully fledged Estate Agent who use a different business model (and therefore, cost model) to the high street variety. Rightmove are fully on board with them and are happy that they comply with the PMA and are NAEA as they visit every property, take all of the photos and write the particulars (I can vouch for this as I wrote the admin interface where the descriptions are added and vendors do not have access to this part of the site).

I've actually mailed MSE with the facts about Tesco/Private Sales and the differences someone like House Network bring (as I can speak from authority on their business), suggesting he run an article to make things clear. Tesco will do a very good job of private sales but they will never be part of Rightmove and whether people sell on there will be as much down to their own marketing skills as Tesco's site.

Hope this is useful

wecanhelpu

eglons wrote: »

"Private Sales" are sales where the vendor lists the property, they take photos and write the details rather than a qualified Estate Agent.

What's one of those then?

eglons

wecanhelpu wrote: »

What's one of those then?

I know I thought the same before I worked with them. Apparently they have to sit some fairly complicated exams to become NAEA accredited.

http://www.naea.co.uk/qualifications/default.asp

wecanhelpu

eglons wrote: »

I know I thought the same before I worked with them. Apparently they have to sit some fairly complicated exams to become NAEA accredited.

http://www.naea.co.uk/qualifications/default.asp

they don't have to

eglons

wecanhelpu wrote: »

they don't have to

They do to become NAEA accreditted (which Rightmove pay great heed to).

Gorgeous_George

Who really cares about the property misdescriptions act? They can say what they want about the place. I can see what I want when I view and if the properties are not honestly-ish described, the vendor would soon lose credibility.



GG

eglons

Gorgeous_George wrote: »

Who really cares about the property misdescriptions act? They can say what they want about the place. I can see what I want when I view and if the properties are not honestly-ish described, the vendor would soon lose credibility.



GG

Absolutely correct, but wouldn't you rather know that the place you see on the web is the place you are going to see in the flesh. We've all had agents particulars which dissappoint and they are at least trying to be accurate, how tempted will private sellers be to do things like measure to the widest point of a room / garden etc.

Dont get me wrong I'm not against private sales, I was just pointing out the difference. If you can get the whole bundle for £199 or a private sales offering for £199 it seems to make sense to get some protection... but that's purely my view and certainly not once I am forcing anyone to agree with.