Online Estate Agents....to use or not

Baroness_67

I'm looking to put my house on the market and am considering using an online agent, which is 10 times cheaper than high street agent, saving £1000s. Has anyone sold/bought via an online agent? What was your experience?

roonaldo

Baroness_67 wrote: »

I'm looking to put my house on the market and am considering using an online agent, which is 10 times cheaper than high street agent, saving £1000s. Has anyone sold/bought via an online agent? What was your experience?

It's hit or miss. The problem you wont have an agent pro-actively working for you and all they really do is take enquiries. I had a flat on market for 1 year with one and no viewings, then gave up and used a local estate agent with good reputation and she was really keen to sell it and after a few weeks and a couple of viewings it sold.

If you are under pressure to sell quick then dont bother.

traceyed1

I have just sold my house using housenetwork.co.uk and they have been fantastic. Sold after only 9 days on the market and much cheaper than a high street agent. The photos they took were excellent and you get virtual tours and floor plans included in the price. We also have a dedicated account manager who so far has been brilliant and very proactive chasing things for us. I would highly recommend them.

Jaynorth_2

I sold my flat via an online estate agent last year after being messed around by several high street estate agents and my flat was proving difficult to sell so I used an online estate agent because of the low fees as it gave me scope to reduce the price and not make a loss on my sale.

You will need to be very hands on with your sale if you do decide to use an online estate agent in terms of doing viewings, deciding on sale price and how your property is presented. Then when you do get a buyer you will most likely need to chase them up for their survey and mortgage offer and that in my opinion is the really tricky part because depending how long your chain is you may find it difficult to make a clear decision if and when your buyer starts telling you stories about the mortgage decision being delayed slightly for this or that or their solicitor being off on holiday only to discover that the person was never instructed by them in the first place!

Hoof_Hearted

Googler must be on holiday....

Davesnave

Using the search facility will get you plenty of info...... and resurrect googler.

googler

Davesnave wrote: »

Using the search facility will get you plenty of info......

I was just thinking exactly that.

Davesnave

Davesnave wrote: »

Using the search facility will get you plenty of info...... and resurrect googler.

It worked! :rotfl:

Prothet_of_Doom

Pre-internet, what did the Estate agent do, that you couldn't do yourself ?

I can take better photo's, I can describe the house better, I can negotiate better, I can show people around better, so in the 'old days' it was just the fact that they had a list of potential buyers, that stopped you.

These days, with the internet, and social media, I'm not sure that they are that important.

MobileSaver

Baroness_67 wrote: »

Has anyone sold/bought via an online agent? What was your experience?

I used one a year or so back to sell my main house and saved literally thousands in fees. The whole experience was very positive and the online record/status of the various events throughout the sale was a whole magnitude better than I've ever experienced with a high street estate agent.

However I'm currently selling another house that is over an hour from where I live; I don't have the time or inclination to handle viewings myself and so am using a high street agent and happily paying double what an online agent would charge.

Simon1975_2

We sold recently with Housesimple.co.uk who are online estate agents, they stood out because their photos were really good and they seemed to have the biggest marketing network. Was wary beforehand but they were fantastic, very friendly and professional, a very nice and easy to use website with loads of tools to edit the property whenever you want. Definitely recommend doing this, I in fact feel that many High street agents offer a lesser service (no floorplan, terrible photos etc).