Great Hunt: Have you sold your home using an online estate agent?

colmac71

Recently sold my property through myhouseadvert.co.uk and it's been the best experience ever. I've saved £1900 through using it and my property sold with 5 days.

Excellent service - Signed up on the Monday and by Friday morning it was on rightmove and other online property websites.

Would thoroughly recommend them and would certainly use them again.

Customer care excellent - usually get back with any queries within a few hours during day or first thing the following day if I've emailed them at night.

TighterThanTwoCoatsOfPain

Another vote for house network. Conveyancing was useless (actually a reseller if premier property lawyers I think just branded), but the agency side of things was amazing. Saved for 3k

TighterThanTwoCoatsOfPain

Oh, and a tip.. You dint need a new EPC if there is a valid one for a previous sale/ purchase. Search the EPC register. I found one from 2007 that the previous occupants has done which was acceptable to all.

Hoof_Hearted

We also saved a fortune with Housenetwork. No complaints at all and none of the traditional EA chicanery.

I wouldn't bother with premium listing. Sale boards are useful if you have a lot of passing traffic, otherwise I wouldn't bother. The main thing is to get on the property websites.

buglawton

A sale board should be free as its a perfect advert for your online EA

anandp

Money_Man_Steve wrote: »

I *really* wanted MyOnlineEstateAgent to work for my Central London 1-bed flat sale in Oct 2013 and was keen to try it out. I only received three viewings via MOEA, which resulted in one (low) offer. MOEA appeared to think I should take the low offer 'in case another didn't materialise.' I persevered and paid extra for a MOEA 'for sale' sign and Rightmove premium, which didn't seem to help. They could only suggest one other thing, and that was to reduce the asking price.

In the meantime, I used the online agent deal to negotiate a lower-than-usual commission deal with a local agent who seemed very keen, and they arranged 20+ viewings within the first few weeks. Their floor plan also had a different (larger) total floor area to My Online Estate Agent's plan, which I felt was important as similar properties in my area were achieving £1000 per sq ft. Despite me raising this with MOEA on several occasions and requesting them to do a new floor plan, they did not arrange for a re-measure.

My local agent's marketing work resulted in three offers, one of which proceeded to the sale of the property at over 98% of the asking price. Even after the agent's commission had been accounted for, I was still over £13,000 up on the best offer obtained via My Online Estate Agent. My local agent also helped to progress the deal through to completion.

Overall I would like to say: great idea, if you think it will work for you, but a good local agent can do a much better job, and you might end up with more money for the sale, even after you have paid the agent's fees.

This may just be MyOnlineEstateAgent though. I called them when I wanted to sell a house and despite leaving 3 voicemails, not one call was returned. I then tweeted about this to be told I'd get a call back within 24 hours, but alas, no calls received.

emoov and myhouseadvert were not at all like this. I eventually ended up selling completely myself, which was largely due to the ridiculous demand in the area, but I'd go with either of those if I were going again.

darymave

We used a company called HouseHop, and they were brilliant, it cost us £476 but we added a bold listing so it would stick out online, at an extra cost of £100. they sold our house in 57 Days saving us £1600 at hight street prices.
We had a professional Photographer call to do the pictures and a sign erected, all in the price.
the photographs were great and showed the house to its best potential.The online listing looked great on all the main portals.
When you think about it ! when you decide to buy a property, the first place you look is on the internet, am I right or am I right !!
Doing ones own viewings should not be a problem as who else knows your home better than you,and of course information on your local area straight from the horses mouth so to speak.
High Street Estate Agents Have had their day and have over charged for their so called services for years, get real and don't be afraid to use online agents.

nadmaj

there are a lot of newbies coming on saying they have sold via an online agent...... genuine?????

tonybaloney

We sold our house using Property Eagle. It was posted at 1200 and had a full asking price at 1600. Even the estate agents were sceptical, but we ended up selling to her. The service and communication were excellent, but the only downside was a lack of local knowledge, which even they acknowledged. It just meant that we had to answer a couple of extra questions, but it was worth it to save £1500 on sale prices. The cost was about £280 without a sale board- there wasn't time to get one put up before it sold.
My advice would be- If, like us you've got a house that sells itself- ie a terraced house in first time buyer land, then an online estate agent is a no brainer. If it requires a bit of local knowledge, then I'd compare it to a local agent and weigh up the options.

lollipopsarah

We used an online estate agent just over 3 years ago and moved around 4 months later having had the first viewings within a week.
Good service all round although we had to settle for less than the asking price for a quick sale.
xx