High-street Estate Agent or Online?

Danger_Mouse

Hi,

I'm selling a deceased relative's house and undecided whether to use a traditional estate agent or an online one.

The high-street agent has a fee of 0.8%, which would probably mean I end up paying them around £2.5k.

I've used Purple Bricks before to sell my previous house (and the previous owners used them as well) but I wasn't that impressed with the photos they did and thought for the £1k we paid them, they didn't really do much (we hosted the viewings). I know there is a 'free' online estate agent called Strike so Im wondering whether to try them and handle most of the sale myself or do you guys think its worth using a high street agent instead?

JGB1955

Go for the traditional High Street agent.  Many people won't even consider viewing a house sold via an online agent.  I'm with them - if you're trying to cut corners on selling fees, what else are you trying to cut corners on?

Danger_Mouse

JGB1955 said:

Go for the traditional High Street agent.  Many people won't even consider viewing a house sold via an online agent.  I'm with them - if you're trying to cut corners on selling fees, what else are you trying to cut corners on?

Fair enough but when I bought my last house, the Purple Bricks guy was actually pretty good and reliable. I found the high-street agents bad, one didn't even turn up! Just my experience anyway 

fiveacre

They offer different things, which may or may not be suitable depending on your circumstances - 

Online - can be great if you're in an active market and properties are selling easily. Potentially a huge cost saving as the agent costs can be as little as zero. Also good if you want maximum control over the photos, listing, viewings etc. and are able to host viewings yourself.

High street - better if you want someone else to manage the sales process, likely to have better progression following offer acceptance, and local market knowledge might be useful in achieving a higher sale price.

tdawber

If you want lots of hassle go with online, if you want to sell the house and have a agent that is motivated to complete the sale go high street.  

Chop-D

We have used both and I think the high street agent paid for their fees by the negotiation they were able to do on our behalf to reach a higher sale price. The online one was hard work and I had to take any offer I could get in the end just to get it sold! 

jazzyja

I've just bought with yopa. Obviously I cannot comment as a seller, but certainly as a buyer I've found the agent very reliable. Shes on the other end of a text message any time of day and so far the whole process has been very smooth. I've read yopa aren't they best....but I can only go off my personal experience

davilown

I would go high street all the way, unless you are happy to manage the sale yourself.

arrows123

My last house was up with a traditional estate agent for 16weeks, a fair few viewings but no offers, switched to yopa and had two offers two weeks later and sold to one of them. Loved the online portal with Yopa, you get feedback almost instantly, you get alerts with any offers and you can directly message the buyer through the message portal which we found great. Wouldn’t hesitate to sell or buy through yopa again. 

okigen

As a buyer I found Purple Bricks very frustrating. The only good thing about them is it's easy to book appointment. But they cancelled appointments randomly without contacting me first, had multiple people booked on the same slots, and were generally clueless about the properties they were selling. This happens to all agents of course, but seems to be worst with Purple Bricks. They are my least favourite agent (behind Foxtons).

Obviously if the property is great I will still go for it, but the factors above do dampen initial enthusiasm. If you choose Purple Bricks I would suggest doing viewings yourself.

Scotbot

Deceased estates are usually pretty dated decor and clearly in need of some TLC, if this one is then is it worth good photos?