My house is in an area where they sell really easily so I'm thinking of using
All I want is for my house to appear on Rightmove and this seems the cheapest way to achieve that - once I've found interested buyers I can do the rest myself.
A bloke about a mile away from me tried something similar. Nothing happened.
I've seen houses for sale (in decent areas) with just a mobile number on a home made sign. Not sure where they advertised, but they sold as quick as any estate agent ones.
Apart from exposure and showing people around (the latter is eminently DIYable), Estate Agents off nothing else of value.
And the security side of the process (checks, surveys etc) are handled by others and would be done just the same for a non agent advert - so really, if you can get the eyeballs on your house and have the time to show people around and answer the phone, there's no disadvantage.
Depends how easy and cheap it is to advertise on the main websites. I assume the estate agents have discounts. Anyway, what does an estate agent charge nowadays? It might not be worth the bother of avoiding them.
A bloody fortune!
On Tue, 08 Nov 2016 22:47:39 -0000, Tim Watts wro= te:
I've only ever bought a house, and that cost me =A3300 in 2000. I assum= ed selling cost about the same.
One option to consider that will both address the concern about security/safety and will also make arranging viewings easier is to follow the system that has been used in Scotland for decades, namely fixed viewing times:
Viewings are usually fixed at one afternoon/evening during the week (usually Thursday 19:00-21:00), and Sunday 14:00-16:00.
People simply turn up and look around, and you always have the option to accommodate special requests, but it keeps everything much simpler. You obviously keep your options open
While that is a commonly held point of view, I am not convinced that is true...
The real world performance of the various "online only" agents seems to indicate that they have a lower completion rate than the better[1] traditional agents.
While one might argue that an online agent can do the upload to the property portals and some marketing, what they seem poorer at is chain management and sales progression, and its here where the online agents tend to lose sales. They also tend to lack local knowledge and their valuations are likely to be less accurate, which risks you selling to low or too slow (if at all).
[1] accepting that there are some crap and very clueless traditional agents about as well!
Industry average is somewhere between 1 and 1.5% typically. They may do fixed price deals on high end properties.
Some agents will do "open house" type viewings like that as well - especially for places likely to be in high demand... the better ones will schedule 20 min slots for each set of viewers, but with a 5 min overlap. That avoids having a negative viewer putting off other buyers, but still makes each potential buyer "aware" of the other viewers arriving or leaving etc. Helps shift their expectations from "what is the lowest offer they are likely to accept for this place?" to "What will we need to offer to win it from all the other viewers?"
Round here most is done by Remax, which mostly consists of posts stating "another one sold by xxxx!"
Ouch! So 1-1.5K on a 100K house! OMFG I'm amazed anyone pays that.
I seem to remember some weird rules about not being allowed to tell one potential buyer what another has offered. All very strange.
"Open house" - a very good idea.
Estate Agents charge anywhere upto 3.5%. So your £200k flat is costing £7000 in fees which the seller pays.
I guess it depends how hot your property is.
If it's slow, a real agent might a) make proactive calls to buyers on his books; b) ring people and talk up the sale, pressurising them to make an offer before someone else does.
OTOH if you sell a flat in Sutton, London (the less stabby part near the station), the thing will sell itself and you have a Zoopla's worth of real Land Registry sales data from 3+ months ago of identical flats to gauge the selling price.
Rightmove is definately agent-only advertising, no private advertisers accepted. I think Zoopla is similar.
Owain
But you can get on both using an inexpensive online-only self service "agent"
A few value added bits like "online bookings for viewing" and stuff.
I've paid 1% + VAT, after a bit of haggling. Certainly, 2% is easily achieved around here. If the OP's property is worth £100k, say, he might end up paying an agent £2k. But, he only pays that if the property actually sells.
The Visum service he linked to is £110 in the first month and £50 a month thereafter. So, say £250 to £500 to achieve a sale.
I'd say go for it!
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