Question for Buyers and Sellers - Agent vs no-Agent

lbpman1

So I've recently been researching about how to sell your own home (without an agent) yourself and there seems to be a limited amount of sites that offer this, ranging from an online estate agent to sites which only let you post an advert. I have only found ONE website which allows private sellers to list their home without an agent, but this too has fees. So I wanted the views of buyers and sellers themselves, say if there was a specialised service/app which lets you sell/buy your own home and it was completely free, would you actually go for it, or would you not be bothered:

So Sellers: you do the listing/viewings and everything else. Of course you save agent fees (in thousands) which can be a lot but then you also have to give viewings. But who is better to show the house than yourself?

And buyers: would you take a non-agency seller seriously? would you feel comfortable negotiating with them?

Let me know your views.
Thanks.

Sedge123

Personally I'd rather have the agent doing the viewings for me whilst I'm out. As a buyer I much prefer to be shown round a property by the agent- I don't feel as though I have to be polite and can say how I feel.

skintpaul

Not done it myself, but can save ££ going alone.. maybe set times for all viewings- in one day / weekend? Or a mass visit, with offers requested at the end!

Hoploz

I believe an agent can be worth their weight in gold if they do their job in overseeing the sale to get it to exchange. It's very easy to say you can put your own photos online and show people round, but the real work is after that. It starts with the initial agreement of sale - the agent has an idea of the buyers budget and will be aware whether they are able to be pushed a little upwards from a first offer, know whether they have a house to sell, mortgage in place etc. Obviously you can ask these questions yourself but it would be a very awkward conversation and in reality you probably wouldn't have the balls to do things like phoning their mortgage adviser to get confirmation what they've said is true etc.

Then theres all the set backs and hiccups along the process where things can be misunderstood or problems can arise and a third party in the middle can oversee the chain and locate the root of the problem, be a go-between to get a resolution etc. Dealing directly is fraught with problems as your emotions are involved and you know what happens when people get hot under the collar under stress. Things get blown out of proportion and chains can break.

Definitely get a good agent. Play them off against each other and negotiate like hell so you pay the minimum fee you can get away with!

googler

The trouble with any non-agent site is that they have to compete with established sites which - currently - dominate the market.

There's no value in going on a free site which nobody looks at.

jackomdj

We bought from people who used an online agent.

They just paid a fixed fee, less than £500, but for this their house went on right move. We arranged the appointment via the agent, they did the viewing and negotiations were via the agent.

The key bit though was right move, which was the only place we looked.

Errata

Use an EA and there's a reasonable chance they'll weed out the creeps, cranks and tire kickers. DIY and weed them out yourself. If you're smart enough.

Bart1

As a seller I would consider going without an EA, if I did use one it would be a cheap online one.

As a buyer, I couldn't care less

lbpman1

Thanks for your replies guys, I'm actually in the early stages of building such a product. Please answer honestly: would you guys actually use such a service, in short, this will be a free service to allow anyone to list and search for houses, it will be designed nicely.

Red-Squirrel_2

If your house isn't listed on Rightmove, you're instantly at a huge disadvantage. For many buyers its the only place they look, they don't even bother to check Zoopla too.

My place has sold in a week through an agent, not sure I'd have managed that solo.

googler

lbpman1 wrote: »

Thanks for your replies guys, I'm actually in the early stages of building such a product. Please answer honestly: would you guys actually use such a service, in short, this will be a free service to allow anyone to list and search for houses, it will be designed nicely.

Save yourself the time, money, and effort.

You're just one more of a list of folk who've tried to do this.