Sorry for OT but I was just wondering of anyone here has had an success (or failure!) at selling their house on the web - rather than via an estate agent? I see there are a few sites around that will list/advertise a property for a cut of the proceeds on sale via any contact supplied by themselves. I appreciate the risks that are possible with this and that's why I thought I'd ask for any persoanl experiences with this.
I suppose I could put up my own site and advertise the proprety there - but the problem then is (as I see it) how do potential buyers find it.
We used Houseweb - It was on for about 5 weeks without much interest and just as we got the bloke round from Taylors (we we're in a hurry) we had two people phone in two days.
I think we paid about 120 for permanent advertising on all the usual websites (you just need to renew for free once a month - by clicking a button) and also got a professional looking sign for the front.
We've saved a mint on the costs (about 1300 quid we were quoted from Taylors). Just get your solicitors to deal with any negotiations with buyers that are required and you don't have to do much work yourself.
If you are not in a hurry you might as well do it yourself and then change to an estate agents if you feel it's not working for you. You can advertise privately and sell through an agent at the same time, just make sure the agents contract states "Sole agent" rather than "Sole seller" - if it is the last they can sting you for a cut even if they do not provide the buyer.
I wouldn't sell a house on eBay, I think you'd have to be nuts TBH!
I cant think of any of the sites you are talking about, so nor will most buyers.
Maybe, if you are very very lucky
For some reason, even though we all hate them, and begrudge them every penny they earn, we still seem to sell most of our houses through estate agents - so if that's where the houses are, that's where the buyers are, so that's where you need to be.
FWIW, I used to be an estate agent, but dont have any particular axe to grind.
If you dont want to use an estate agent, the best thing you can do, IMHO, is put up a For Sale board, with a number you can be contacted on nearly all of the time, (not an answerphone, and probably not a mobile either, although you could divert calls from a landline to your mobile), and have a professional looking brochure which you can send/give to people making enquiries.
Buyers tend to move within their local area, and many drive the streets looking for boards. They dont search out obscure websites.
Be prepared to deal with:
NOBODY
people who will call, then discover it's not what they want
people who cant afford your house, even though they say they can
people who ask a lot of stupid questions, then say they'll let you know,
people who say they'll buy your house, then dont.
People who will try and rip you off.
And so on....
I treat estate agents as a focus for buyers; a call screening centre; a bit of a financial screening centre, a viewing service if I cant, or dont want to be, in, and use them if I think they will save me more money, (my time), than they will cost me.
Actually - property 'auctions' on eBay work differently to other eBay sales....
Due to the wide variety of laws governing the sale of properties in UK and Ireland, eBay property listings are not legally binding offers to buy and sell that property. Instead, they are simply a way for sellers to advertise their property and meet potential buyers. At the close of the auction, the seller should contact the winning bidder to discuss entering into a contract for the real property. However, neither party is obligated to complete the property transaction. This type of transaction is called a Non-binding Auction.
What is a Non-binding auction?
Non-binding auctions of properties do not involve binding commitments by members to buy and sell property. Instead, these "auctions" are simply a way for sellers to advertise their properties within the auction-style environment familiar to eBay's members. At the close of the auction, the seller is expected to contact the high bidder to discuss entering into a contract for the real sale of the property. Neither party is obliged to complete the transaction.
So the business of 'reserves', 'final fees' etc don't come into it - there's a flat listing fee of £35 - which either represents an enormous saving over using an estate agent, or a waste of £35 - depending on whether you're successful or not.
There's probably a good reason why there are only 164 properties advertised on eBay at this moment......
Adrian Suffolk UK ======return email munged================= take out the papers and the trash to reply
When we asked Taylors if they got much response from adverts online they said that 75% of enquiries now came from this source.
I sold my house successfuly using online methods and it saved a lot of cash but I agree with you here, I'll sell through an agent next time as it's a lot of worry I don't need!
Indeed, we bought a new house about a year ago. seeing as it was going to be 150 miles away from our then location the web made things so much easier. (good old Rightmove...) But as you point out these sites have a low profile and while I did try a few their problem is that they list relatively few properties - I don't think we came across any even remotely suitable properties. I suspect there is market niche here, but there needs to be someone with enough muscle to raise the profile.
Indeed, and I suspect that for most people what they get out of it is worth the money in terms of saved hassle, time etc. in the same way as we could all do our own conveyancing but we don't.
Houseweb call themselves a publisher so they put your details on Rightmove, Fish4Homes etc. It's worth checking how much coverage the place you sell with gets before you commit.
The Houseweb site itself didn't seem to have much on it, but they were pretty good at getting it onto the major online house sites.
You can also update your advert whenever you want and it gets updated to the various sites that night. A bit addictive that though!
True, we sold our last place to a friend who just said "I'll buy it" when we mentioned selling up!
Obviously, those buyers not using the net will never find them but anyone looking for property on the net will soon find quite a few sites through Google. It's always my first port of call since the churn rate of Estate Agents is so high and you never know who is still operating, who has been bought out or who is new in a particular area.
Anyone looking at
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would probably assume you still were. Or is that a different RF?
In message , snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com writes
No, that's me! I sold the business a while ago and part of the agreement was that my old web address would guide people to rightmove along with an e.mail address for the new owners.
As I said - I've no axe to grind, and am quite happy to criticise agents constructively.
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