Housenetwork

nicksta27

Hi everyone

I am new to this and it has probably been answered before, but does anyone know if housenetwork are any good and if anyone has used them have they been quick?

I have a 2 bed house to sell and need some advice.

Thanks!

Canucklehead

Good afternoon: Have sold through Housenetwork twice now in two parts of the UK....professional service provided throughout the process...how quickly you sell depends on a number of factors including the standard of work in the property and appropriate pricing.

HTH

Canucklehead

Doozergirl

I sold quickly too.

It's really important to be at the right price so that when you hit those websites you're grabbing attention.

Ask three agents for realistic valuations and do not ever give them an idea of what you think it's worth yourself as many agents will just agree with you. They'll even do it once they've appeared to have given you a price. 'Well, its' between this and this' and wait for you to settle on what you like. If they do that, ask them "what asking price would you feel comfortable marketing at?"

nicksta27

Hi

We have decided to go with housenetwork.

How long did you have to wait for your first viewing?

Doozergirl

Few days? Not long!

Canucklehead

Good afternoon: We waited 1 week for first property (August) and 2 weeks for the second property (November).

HTH

Canucklehead

David1345

Hi
Just wanted to post my experience of Housenetwork - I chose them based on posts here so thanks in advance...

Basically, anyone selling a house would be deranged not to at least try using them. We received valuations from three local estate agents (one for 455k, one for 485k and one for 500k, all of whom wanted hefty commission) so decided to put the flat on the market via Housenetwork instead. We priced it at 525k just to see what would happen - and it sold for 525k to the second person to view it. We saved thousands in estate agent fees.

So... PROS:
a) You save a fortune and really annoy the estate agents.
b) Don't have to deal with estate agents apart from the valuation stage.
c) Simpler, easier process and your property appears on all the same websites that any conventional estate agent would use (Rightmove etc).
d) Set your own asking price, write your own blurb and adjust it any time you want if necessary.
e) Their photographers / video people are very good.

CONS:
a) You conduct the viewings - although I quite enjoyed it...
b) While the photography and viewings booking bit went very smoothly, everything else was a bit unprofessional. They spelt stuff wrong, used the wrong photos or duplicated them, and once we agreed the sale, we didn't hear from them again apart from to receive an invoice. None of that matters all that much, though, as you're in charge of the process yourself and can edit your own website, but it could be a lot slicker, even at such a cheap price.
b) That's it.

Wish you luck with it. The feeling of sticking it to the estate agents is brilliant! If I was an agent I'd be bloody worried right now... The whole process showed how totally redundant they are.

Anyway thanks again to everyone else here for pointing us in HN's direction!

cuteusmaximus

We put our house on the market with Housenetwork in June, and it hasn't sold yet. We had a couple of low offers at the end of July which we probably should have accepted, but we hadn't found a place we liked yet and therefoe wanted a little bit more.

I like the complete control that you have over the website - the ability to spike photos you don't like and to add/delete comments and change the price yourself.

One thing I didn't like is that there's no agent dedicated to your property - it's a team of office workers. Thus if you tell one person something, it may not get passed on. Also there were a couple of times where we had offers but the agent left voice mails (which we rarely check) instead of phoning our mobiles or emailing us (as I specifically requested).

We're going to go with a high street agent now (a low commission rate 0.75%) as we have finally found a place we like and think our listing has gone stale. Our place will be listed with both agents as Housenetwork don't have a sole agency clause (and we got the agreement of the high street agent to allow it).
CM

nicksta27

Hi everyone

Thanks for all of your replies. We have been on with them for nearly a week now. Still no viewings booked, but I think the market is pretty slow at the minute with all this Northern Rock business!!

Am hoping to get someone ring up for a viewing this week. The trouble is we have found a hosue we really like, but until we have sold ours they wont take it off the market!! Think will give it another week or so and then see about using other estate agents (really dont want to do this!!)

Doozergirl

Gotta link nicksta?

nicksta27

Hi

Yes I hope this works! The link is:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-15863890.rsp?pa_n=2&tr_t=buy