First time seller

BurnsieUK

Hi.

I am thinking of selling my flat in order to move closey to work and to release capital for a uni course next year possibly (moving into a shared accommodation with a friend could have me £500pcm without even considering the savings in petrol and time!).

Anyhow, the market isn't great at the moment, so, currently I am starting my due diligence.

My question relates to who would sell it. If I understand it correctly, an estate agent would take a % of the sale, upon completion. Whereas an upfront company (such as purple bricks) will charge you up front whether you sell it of not (within a specified time period).

May question is, without doing the maths in detail; if I sell my flat for £120k, (due to the low value of my property), wouldn't it be cheaper/safer to go with an agency over someone like Purple Bricks?

Thanks :j

pphillips

When I sold a property, I rang round all the local estate agents for quotes over the phone and most would do this without seeing the property.I needed the viewings doing for me so my only choice was the high street agent. If your leaning more towards an online company then these will differ in price depending on how much work you want them to take on (a very basic package just to get you on Rightmove & Zoopla could be as low as £100). I think the question you need to ask yourself is how much of the work do you want to do yourself.

eddddy

BurnsieUK wrote: »

May question is, without doing the maths in detail; if I sell my flat for £120k, (due to the low value of my property), wouldn't it be cheaper/safer to go with an agency over someone like Purple Bricks?

It will almost always be more expensive to sell with a 'conventional' high street EA - compared to an online EA.

• If you have an 'easy-to-sell' property, a competent buyer, and a problem-free conveyance - an online EA is probably ok.

• If you have a 'harder-to-sell' property, a dozy buyer (e.g. an FTB), and/or a problematic conveyance - a conventional EA is probably better.

The problem is... it's difficult to tell in advance which situation will apply to you.

Gwendo40

As long as you are realistic with the price you should be able to sell the property relatively quickly and easily which ever type of agent you use.

It's only the vendors with greedy, deluded, aspirational, kite flying asking prices that are finding the market to be ''not great'' at the moment.

Sibz

I sold recently - and it was cheaper through a 'standard' estate agent than it would have been through purple bricks etc... but that was primarily down the the value of my house not being high.

That said... when speaking to estate agents I found (even larger ones) quite good to negotiate with - They will bring down their cut to compete. Maybe not quite as cheap as PB and other online ones (though I've heard stories of hidden costs with online EAs) but the high street EAs are not faceless entities - and when local based, will require good feedback locally (or at least be more worried about bad feedback) more than online companies (IMO).

Definitely worth shopping around - if you know anyone that has sold locally ask them what they done and who they used, would they recommend them/what % they charged etc?