Selling house without Estate Agent!!

courtjester

It's an important point - don't confuse conveyancing with estate agency.

Estate agents do not handle any legal aspects of a property sale, this is strictly for solicitors /licensed conveyancers. Private sellers bypass the marketing that estate agents provide, not the solicitors legal work who will still be involved in any private sale.

Although it is possible to undertake conveyancing without a solicitor, the costs savings in comparison with the work and risks involved are not worth it, maybe you can save £3-500 tops by doing conveyancing yourself, whereas agents fees potentially avoidable by marketing a property independently are anything up to £3-4000 on average and there are no legal requirements or special skills involved.

John_Pierpoint

Tesco has recently been kicked somewhere where it hurts by the Office of Fair Trading. Basically it has been ruled to have been acting as an estate agent for a fixed fee, but allowing the sellers to provide all the literature etc.

So step carefully when using a cheepo web service; you might end up being sued by your (other) Estate Agent if you have one.

(In reality, like most High Street shops, the Estate Agents are trying to gang up against efforts to switch the business onto the web, especially if Tesco is involved and so far it is round one to the Hight Street agents).

courtjester

John - "round one to estate agents" - do you think??

Don't believe for one moment that Tesco took anything other than a purely commercial decision to pull their private sales service - they could easily have taken on the OFT (and beaten them), but have chosen instead to relaunch as a full online estate agency in the New year. The OFT have not 'ruled' anything - they can't it's not their job to do so. What the OFT did was provide a view on Tesco's specific service - that's the key here, it's the service activity that is the decider as to agency, not whether a website is advertising property.

Ultimately, it's for a court to decide not the OFT, but don't let that stop the press and media reporting the OFT's comments as a 'ruling', which of course is much more newsworthy than just an 'opinion' ....

Tesco have much larger fish to fry elsewhere in their retail arm and simply didn't want to bother arguing with estate agents (who went mental over the Tesco property website) or the OFT at a time when they are trying to avoid being legislated against following the Competition Commissions investigation into supermarket high street activities.

So all those hysterical estate agents that complained so bitterly about Tesco invading their treasured 'divine-right' space will find themselves responsible for creating a much bigger monster that will take a lot more business away from them and which they can't object to on grounds of 'agency'. More fool them. :cool:

John_Pierpoint

Thanks for your thoughts on this. With sky high house prices and high turnover for the last dozen years, the Agents are not surprisingly fighting to hang onto their slice of a percent or two.

My understanding is that the OFT seems to think that providing a board, a contact service and a forum like this makes you into an agent, even if the whole thing is electronic?

My tip is to watch what your neighbours are selling that is like your place and go round and introduce yourself to them. With a bit of luck, especially when the market is "active", they will get more than one buyer. Their looser can become your buyer, with the added advantage that they now know they were offering too little!

Richard_Webster

If you have bought and sold lots of properties you will know what happens and what to ask.

If you are fairly new to it and it is only your first or second time then you could get caught.

It isn't finding the buyer that could be the problem. It is:

a) making sure the buyer can proceed; and
b) chasing progress up and down any chain.

A good agent should ask questions of the buyer to eliminate the no-hopers who will never be able to afford a mortgage. They will find out about the "cash" buyer who has to remortgage another property or the separated wife who says that her husband has agreed to give her £50K out of the matrimonial home. She has assumed the money will be available straight away but it turns out later that he will have to remortgage and his solicitor won't let him do anything until the court has ratified the "deal" between the divorcing couple. Would the average seller know to ask about that? (Unfortunately I suspect a lot of estate agents wouldn't know that one...)

Once the transaction is under way they need to check progress with other estate agents etc and need to know what questions to ask them to make sure they are not being palmed off with out of date or incomplete information.

Those of us involved in buying and selling know that a good agent is worthwhile - but I agree it is difficult for the average person to know a good agent and there are a lot of very naff ones out there. However, please don't assume that all that's involved is finding a buyer.

BrixMorta

Buyer's love private sales because they think they're going to get a bargain. Their logic is, 'As the seller is saving £tousands this can be passed onto the buyer'. Why not make a for sale board with your myspace address on, where they can access pics and details. As buyers always drive around the areas they are interested in this could pay off.

How about an ad in the local paper again with your myspace address.

John_Pierpoint

Boards sell houses.
Having an agent is like using an architect to instruct your builder, it depends on how much knowledge you have. If only two people are talking to each other there are 4 possibilities (YY NN YN NY), now put a third party into the loop and work out how many possibilities there are for a misunderstanding.
Email makes it so much easier to keep in touch.
You need a bit of a brass neck and a tough streak; to find out what a realistic price is; plus a full understanding to the process.
But if you never give it a go, you will never learn.

Ru55ell

This website is free to list your property, details and photos too www.sellmypropertyonline.co.uk It is my own website but there is only a charge if you want a for sale sign installed at your property.

Poppycat

Which happens to be your web site Ru55ell, not allowed to promote your own business on mse

Browntoa

Russell, you may have missed this

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/....html?t=305655

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