Online agent stories please

kiely27

I literally woke up in a sweat last night at the thought of paying for an online agent and still not selling my house!

Background - put house on end of July. 22 viewings, 3 2nd viewings and no offers. Took house off this week as I can't be !!!!!d over Xmas. Will put back on next year.

Had planned to use an online agent, possibly emoov. I found the high street EA wasted our time with people who were not really interested in our property and that we had to work to their opening hours - which really didn't suit us.

Please I would love to hear stories of online agents - good or bad! Xx

aneary

As someone who was looking to buy I found purple bricks a nightmare.

I gave feedback to the agent (once I finally got a viewing) and I was still chased up several times for more feedback.

As such if a house is being marketed by purple bricks I skip past it, but that's only my opinion.

Scotbot

I have recently bought. With online agents you book the viewings yourself so if a person wants to have a look just for a nosey they will. And I did, looked at a house way over my budget just to get an indication of what that amount bought. You will have zero control over who views only when they view.

Car1980

If you’ve had 3 second viewings you’ve done well. Probably price, as always, which has prevented an offer.

Going online won’t make any difference. In fact, I got a lot more viewings with a high street agent after trying online first and eventually sold.

You’ll always get timewasters. But so what? Just keep the viewings coming - there’s no point filtering them.

antilles

We've used House Network (recommended to us by a few people on here) to sell 2 houses now. No problems at all, can't recommend them highly enough. We'll definitely be using them if we sell again. Found local agents to be far more expensive, and of course they have limited opening hours. Personally we found that you're getting nothing more from local agents despite the much higher cost.

Usually the reason your house isn't selling is price, rather than anything the agency have done (unless you have something daft in the photos or description).

You also get people who view, never come back, and ignore requests for feedback. Not necessarily time waster, just probably viewing lots of houses and yours wasn't the right one. Pretty normal when selling a house, don't get discouraged by it.

kiely27

For us, the second viewings haven't resulted in an offer for two reasons. Two were because they still needed to sell - one has now but found a different property in the meantime. The other decided not having a drive was a deal breaker. In fact probably 15 of the 22 decided that the fact we can't have a drive was a deal breaker. Not a lot I can do about it but it was reflected in the price being 15-20k under competition with a drive.

Scotbot

Do the photos make it clear you don't have a drive? That will solve your problem with half your wasted viewings. If there is something that is likely to be a deal breaker be up front about it.

kiely27

Yes the photos did show no drive. Maybe people thought that they could put one in but cannot because there is lay by parking in front of the property.

Can anyone suggest a way of wording it on the new listing??

Facts are - no drive, lay by parking for approx 16 cars along the front of the properties and a car park at each end for approx another 16 in one and 10 in the other. Only residents and their visitors park here - no reason for public to want/need to. We have 2 cars and we have never had to park more than 60 seconds walk away.

How do I wrap that up in a positive way???

Lulu0110

I used purple bricks and found it pretty easy to use as you manage it online yourself, emails come confirming viewings etc, there is also an option where you can put your sale "on hold" but if you take it off the market you will have to pay. In the end this is what we had to do but they did do exactly what they said they would, the fact our buyer pulled out wasn't their fault. You need to be able to manage yourself as apart from a monthly phonecall there is little actual contact. You need to highlight the driveway significantly to save wasted time on viewings and maybe the price needs adjustment.

RedfordML

Tbf our agents we have sold with done 1:6 viewings we had, thankfully we agreed a .5% fee NO vat so pretty much an online agency price but I think if you have an expensive house, I'd go online?