Would you buy from an online estate agent?

deeboy12

I know the reasons why I wouldn't sell using an online agent (my selling agent has been worth their weight in gold in keeping things moving with my sale), but should I be worried about buying a house through one?

A house has come up and in this case the agent is Yopa (I've already googled and seen some of their horrendous reviews). At this point (exchanged and moving into rented accommodation next week) I have little tolerance for unnecessary delays both for cost and convenience reasons.

As a very motivated buyer, would you be put off making an offer on a house through an online agent, and why/ why not?

Any views welcome, thanks

Thrugelmir

As a buyer. No particular interest in who the EA is.  Not least that contact with them is pretty minimal. The property is what matters. 

hazyjo

Delays are hard to label in property buying. Average purchase at the moment is likely to take 3-4 months. Are you expecting that sort of timescale?

Yes I would buy through them if the house was right. I'd buy via a demented rabbit if I thought the house was the one for me and the sale would go through eventually. Not me paying their bill!

deeboy12

hazyjo said:

Delays are hard to label in property buying. Average purchase at the moment is likely to take 3-4 months. Are you expecting that sort of timescale?

Yes I would buy through them if the house was right. I'd buy via a demented rabbit if I thought the house was the one for me and the sale would go through eventually. Not me paying their bill!

Yes, I am expecting a timescale of 3-6 months.

I guess my concern is that they'd be slow to follow up on anything, so it would be down to me to do a lot of proactive chasing, via my conveyancer and hassling the vendor via the agent.

Your reference to the demented rabbit made me laugh way too much

lookstraightahead

No I wouldn't. 

Not that I think EAs are brilliant, but too many people think they can do any job themselves. Jobs that other people are trained in. I don't want my vendors training on the job.

I wouldn't go to get my car fixed by them either.

eddddy

deeboy12 said:

I guess my concern is that they'd be slow to follow up on anything, so it would be down to me to do a lot of proactive chasing, via my conveyancer and hassling the vendor via the agent.

Your conveyancer's role is to do the legal stuff, not to do any chasing. If they're waiting for something, at best, they'll probably just send a 'reminder email' every 7 to 14 days.

Generally, it's the Estate Agent that does the 'sales progression' i.e. Chasing. hassling, guiding and negotiating  with both buyer and seller.

I don't know if Yopa do that, or whether you'll be left to do that directly with the seller yourself.

That gets tricky if problems emerge - for example,

• there are delays and each party blames the other party
• the survey shows up problems and you want to re-negotiate the price

.. and stress levels rise.

Having an experienced negotiator sitting between the buyer and seller can help to avoid confrontations etc - and help prevent people walking away from the transaction in a huff.


I guess it's just an extra consideration to take into account, rather than a total 'red flag'.

babyblade41

No I wouldn't .. done it once and never again, painfully slow and made an easy transaction twice as long 
I dismiss any property that use them 

justwhat

EA's don't really do anything once the sale/purchase progresses. 

Once the offers in its over to the solicitors. EA's sometimes liaise with solicitors , but you can do that yourself.

Negotiation can often be done by the buyer/seller via the EA's website eg PB

pinkteapot

justwhat said:

EA's don't really do anything once the sale/purchase progresses. 

Not true. Decent EA's have dedicated 'sales progressors' whose job is to chase everyone in the chain regularly and keep things moving.

We offered on a house through Yopa and it really is a case of DIY. You offer online and that goes straight to the seller, who decides whether to accept/reject. It's the eBay of house-buying. If we'd agreed a deal on that house, further communication would have been direct with the seller and not through Yopa. 

I would never sell through one that doesn't offer sales progression because I don't want to be in direct contact with my buyer/seller. I always avoid exchanging numbers with them. We sold one house once where the deal absolutely would have fallen through if that had happened. My buyer was incredibly demanding, chasing the EA daily to find out what was happening and constantly threatening to pull out. We exchanged in five weeks so it wasn't even particularly slow. I would have lost it with that buyer and told them where to go. Having a calm professional between you can be worth its weight in gold!

To the original question: If I had the choice of a few equally-good houses, I'd use the fact one was with Yopa to rule it out. But if they had the right house for me I guess I'd go for it and hope for the best. It would have to be significantly better than other available properties though, especially if I had a chain below me I was worried about keeping together. 

jusferbrowsing

We bought through Purple Bricks where negotiations were done directly phone to phone, the seller and ourselves keeping the other informed of progress and things went smoothly and rapidly. 

Want2move2021

justwhat said:

EA's don't really do anything once the sale/purchase progresses. 

Once the offers in its over to the solicitors. EA's sometimes liaise with solicitors , but you can do that yourself.

Negotiation can often be done by the buyer/seller via the EA's website eg PB

Having just bought and sold, this really wasn't the case for us-both estate agents were fantastic, chasing solictors, our buyer and vendor. I'd have really struggled on my own, it definitely helped having an objective professional to cushion my frustrations and anxieties.
Anecdotally, a friend is in the process of buying and selling through PB, they're on month 7 of the process now as their vendor is being controlling, slow and difficult- vendors will be vendors whatever the estate agent does, but at least in my situation I didn't have to deal with them directly, which is what they're having to do!