Yopa - a really bad idea if you use 'no sale no fee'?

G_M

You realise if you sign a sole agency contract with them you're tied in for 16 weeks. Long time if it turns out you're unhappy.......

orangecrush

Hi everyone,

Thanks so much for your thoughts! I’ve managed to negotiate the tie in period down, so lower risk...

According to the Yopa agent, he manages the progressions along with an assistant he employs specifically for that purpose. The chain agent also does that, with a progressions company they employ.

I think PasturesNew has identified a really important point that I don’t think Yopa can really do as they’re not super local. But then only two of the agents we’ve had round can do that. It’s the main thing that’s holding me back I think...

I’ve got a month or so to decide so will update!

Very grateful for everyone’s time.

kinger101

My experience with YOPA is they turn up 20 minutes late for an appointment which was a ballache to arrange. You find out the house is tenanted (which wasn't in the advert). Then you can't even look at the property you're no longer interested in because the poor tenants, who had not been notified about the viewing, were asleep after a night shift have quite rightly told the agent the we can both F-off.

The main problem with online agents is that if they're doing the viewings, they're so thin on the ground that they can't really be very flexible with viewing times. If you lose over half your viewings, it will most likely impact your sale price.

NewShadow

Retired_Mortgage_Adviser wrote: »

Interesting post OP. Genuine question, what's the catch in Yopa's no sale no-fee deal? Other than the online part, how's the contract,/TCs different from the brick and mortar EA?

As a buyer who's just spent two days viewing a stack of houses - the YOPA agent was the best of the bunch...

4 agents in total and the YOPA guy had the most time for us; seemed to know the area best; was interested in what I wanted from the property and talked about the advantage and disadvantages of the property/how I could make it work for my needs/ how it compared to other properties in the area, inc knowing the disadvantages of some of the ones I was going to view...

The other three - frankly, they didn't seem to give a damn about selling to me... questions were met with shrugs, smiles, evasions; we were told to just wander around rather than being 'toured'...

Not saying that means YOPA are 'better' - Clay might have been a complete exception to the rule - but, whoever you go with, I don't think it'd be a bad idea to get a friend to book a viewing - maybe on a different property with the same agents before you sign - just to see how they handle the potential buyers...

orangecrush

I thought I'd update this!  We decided against Yopa as where we're buying is in quite a bubble, and we thought the chain-making abilities of the local agents would be useful.  Sadly the one we signed up with were fairly rubbish - they pitched high and failed to meet expectations so we used lockdown as an opportunity to reevaluate, and listed with the cheapest local agent who have turned out to also be fairly good.  There have - as yet - been no benefits to using a local agent as all have preferred to go to best and final on the open market rather than try and create chains of their clients (fair enough, they have a business to run), so I suspect we would have been better off with Yopa.  I think the moral of the story are estate agents are all alike.  Just do your research, read the contracts before signing and if you're buying in a desireable area as we are, you just have to put in the hard work whether or not your agent is local. 

kormacurry

I thought I'd post my recent experience with a local 'bricks and mortar' estate agent.  I chose them as they seem to sell the most properties in my area.  The property market is very bouyant in my area at the moment, so I did not anticipate problems selling. I put the property on sale 2 months ago - had absolutely loads of viewings but not one offer.  Feedback from the estate agent was minimal.  I got a friend to book a viewing and report back. To my shock, I found out that the problem was the young girl doing the showing around.   She clearly had a personal dislike of my home and was pointing out everything she found fault with to him.  To say she was negative was putting it mildly.  She even told my friend that the house was a difficult probate property (it isn't - i'm the owner and very much alive!).   She clearly was getting her facts mixed up with a different property.  I complained to the estate agent director who was apologetic - apparently the agency is so overstretched with viewings that they hired this inexperienced girl to help out.  Unfortunately for me, I got the short straw when she was allocated my home.

The upshot is, even if you think you've got a 'good' estate agent, it's only as good as the person who is dealing directly with you and your potential buyers. I am now considering using an online agent with myself doing the viewings.

Racky_Roo

I agree with not using a local agent. Sold my previous 2 places through an online company (hatched and house network) but thought it might be harder to sell at the min so wanted the so called contacts the local agent had. Didn't get any viewings which didn't come from RM so that was a waste of time. There was little contact from them in the 4 weeks it took me to agree a sale. I also did 2 of the 4 viewings myself as they're really busy and half the staff are still furloughed. Then I did the negotiations on the sale in my back garden on the second viewing with the buyer as they said they had been really hard to get hold of. These are supposed to be really good agents in my area but I am seriously begrudging the 1% i'll be paying them - £3500 plus VAT rather than the £999 I could have paid an online agency. I only hope they progress the sale well and so I feel I got value for money.

One thing I have always done when selling is write a fact sheet of info about my property and leave it on the side as they come in on things like lease length, people in the building, how old the kitchen is, guarantees on appliances etc so the EA who does the visit that day can read it out. Saves questions coming back later.