Morning All

Has anyone in the STW massive sold a house using an online estate agent?

Their fees are considerably less than a high street agent so from a financial perspective the online option looks more attractive.

Ta in advance.

I’ve never used an estate agent. Always just stuck a sign up and relied on the fact that other houses in that are up with agents will bring the passing trade to your door.
My point being, all an agent really does is get you the exposure to the market. It these days of t’interweb, I’m surprised there are any high street agents left!
Not having an overpriced agent involved would also be a major benefit for me if I was buying. They just get in the way and stop the buyer and seller communicating/negotiating.
The less involvement they have, the better. Online has got to be a good thing IMO.

Look back in my history, had a great experience with HouseNetwork – I have a discount code if you need it too. A friend of mine just sold their house fast and easily with them too after my recommendation.

Am on the verge of selling our cottage (in the biking hotspot of Rossendale) and buying our dream property (knackered old mill).
Have managed to get the seller to sack the estate agents off from his end and have struck a good deal, just need to sell our house now hence if anyone else had experience with online estate agents.
In the meantime im having a look at Housenetwork as per Robdob’s recommendation

Also used House Network, very impressed with the photos which were a lot better than some of the local agents. I work from home so showing people around no issue, but as it turned out all viewing requests were for the weekend. Very easy to change the listing, photos etc., had half a dozen viewings in 3 weeks but now temporarily taken it off the market for various reasons but can get it back on Rightmove at the click of a button whenever I want.

The only downside vs a high street agent is the feedback you get after viewings isn’t that great and they don’t have the same financial incentive to sell. I get the impression that when a viewer expresses any concerns or objections as to why they may not want to proceed they just make a note of this in the feedback notes rather than trying to overcome these objections which is where a high street agent scores.

As someone who has moved fairly frequently, the value in a good estate agent has been post-sale when you have someone to chase everyone else in the chain, which has been essential in our last two moves (same guy too, Howard in Ely: you’re a legend).

used: http://www.housesimple.co.uk/ about 3ish years ago (plenty other similar deals available)

for £195 + VAT I got – basic advert constructed(inc good photos and floor layout, EPC is extra – but it is with std EE as well), I then added/updated sale description text, this ad then goes on ‘usual house websites[rm/zoo etc]’ for 6 months, they field initial calls and give callers your no (*so you have to arrange and do all viewings and deal with all enquiries, set the advertised price, deal with price negotiations etc etc, need solicitor as before)

sold ok, amazingly (to me) all people who booked a viewing turned up,and I’d say only 1 were ‘tourists’ – and they were open about it (just wanted to see what you got for X in this area), rest seemed all genuine enough, including standard delusionists (we’re cash buyers, well ours is defintely sold, well the bloke is really keen to buy and move in and has the funds sorted, ? has it been surveyed yet ? – no, have you had letters from his solicitor ? – no …ahhhhhh). To be honest it probably helps if your bullsheet detector is pretty good.

I just thought 195+VAT was worth a try and it worked out fine for me – esp when the alternative was at least 3k more

As a seller, yes.

£200 instead of £2000, and the service was superb.

They arranged photos, found a buyer in a couple of days and negotiated on our behalf. We had to do viewings ourselves, which was fine.

We just found the cheapest online estate agent that would get our property on rightmove which AFAIK is the definitive house advert site.

I will never use a ‘normal’ estate agent again. The online folk weren’t just “as good” they were better.

The exception, I would have thought, would be unique houses of uncertain value or which require specific marketing beyond rightmove. (Mind you, would you trust any estate agent with that?)

I’d happily do it, just sold a house with no agent and the only real problem was that it was a day’s drive away so I (and other family members) had to spend much of the summer living there (advertising by word of mouth worked well but it was an unusual situation and I’d think a proper web presence on rm etc would normally be worth paying for). A good agent might bring some useful skills but a bad one is definitely worse than useless – when trying to buy, they were basically an obstruction in most cases.

We had the local Purple Bricks guy to give us a valuation, he was brilliant,very helpful and gave us advise which could put another £30k in our pockets.
The other three valuations we had were from local estate agents, there was £165k difference between two of them and we don’t live in a mansion.

we’ve had all the local agents out to value it so have a figure in mind, we wanted to do the viewings ourselves as we are passionate about the area and our house, the only reason for selling was that we bought it to be a family home and it didnt happen for us but would be great for another young couple/family.

The estate agent was absolutely useless from the sellers (of our new place) point as its a victorian mill thats used by an engineering company. EA turned up in an Audi and a swish suit whereas I had my workboots and gear on and was like a pig in shit inside amongst the swarf and machinery!
Couldn’t answer a single question about the place and massively over valued it hence why it hadnt sold in 18 months. Struck a deal with the vendor face to face and he sacked the EA off.

Online it is!

anyone used an online estate agency for a transaction in Scotland?

I’ve never used an estate agent. Always just stuck a sign up and relied on the fact that other houses in that are up with agents will bring the passing trade to your door.

Someone did this round ours. Sat on the market for a year as all the other houses sold pretty quickly. It might have been that they were asking a cheeky price for theirs but funnily enough a local estate agents board popped up recently and then pretty soon afterwards a sold sign appeared.

Possibly there is a particular niche where self selling works better?

Spurred on by this thread, I’ve just booked Purple Bricks to give us a valuation on Monday! We’ve been on the market since late July and had 4 viewings! The agent suggested we drop the price but failed to give a coherent reason for doing so – price didn’t feature in any of the feedback from the viewers….they also failed to keep in touch with the two viewers who were interested but couldn’t proceed at the time for various reasons until I poked them with a stick yesterday and they haven’t got back to me yet. PB won’t need to try very hard to outperform the incumbent agent!

I used Scot House Move earlier this year – service was very poor and I wouldn’t recommend. They ‘lost’ pictures of a couple of rooms in the house which I ended up supplying myself, communication was awful, plus their general service was just a bit haphazard. Put me off using an online agent again.