Online Estate Agents

Jorgan_2

Richard_Webster wrote: »

I'd be interested to see what Jorgan says, but I'm always concerned that people who use online estate agents or advertise their own properties directly on the net forget that it isn't just case of finding a buyer who will pay a price that you are happy with, but making sure that the buyer CAN proceed (he's not a time waster with a load of CCJs and no chance of a mortgage) and DOES proceed.

I've always felt that good estate agents are worth their money because they have an interest in making sure the deal dos go through and their experience should mean that they will know what questions to ask.

Thanks Richard, yes a good agent will do everything to ensure a sale goes through as quiclky & smoothly as possible. They will check a chain out, check out the buyers financial state & inform their vendor accordingly.

My advice to anybody looking to use an online agent is to check out exactly what you are getting for your money. Where will the property be advertised? I use Rightmove, our own site and a few smaller sites that our web provider puts us on. This month I have had a total of 25 buyer leads from all the sites, not good when I am advertising 72 properties. If I had to rely on the net as the only source for leads, business would be non-existent.

Gonzo

I think that's true.

I also think that there are quite a lot of Estate Agents who don't do very much for their money.

The one I went with is kind of a half way house, as they advertise in the local papers etc as well, but I don't think they have a shop.

We were going to give it a go, and see what happened. We ended up getting the sale we wanted and saving 1k ish.

I wouldn't say we had a flood of viewers so I think using a traditional estate agent might have been a bit quicker, but I reckon it mainly comes down to price at the end of the day. As to whether they make the chain smoother, well my fingers are crossed that it all goes through, so I guess we'll find out. They encouraged us to keep the buyer updated with any 'news' and we've spoken to them since and everything seems to be going swimmingly. I'm hoping if we keep the communication lines open we should avoid some of the possible pitfalls.

Who knows, but it would appear to work at least some of the time, and could be worth a go if money's tight!