Anyone used Emoov or another online Estate Agent?

[Flossiechops]

Hi all, we are shortly going to be putting our house on the market. I have 3 local agents coming round next week to value the house and obviously talk through their fees. The house is worth around £360k and I suspect the majority of agents charge around 1% - it seems an awful lot of money for a service I'm not sure is worth that. The house is in a popular area and there are very few houses like ours on the market (ie large period). I've seen Emoov advertised and wondered if anybody had any experience of them or of selling privately? I can't help but think that the vast majority of house hunters search online and don't really look at which agents it's being sold through - but then a good agent can keep a difficult chain together. Just after your thoughts. Tia

[Flossiechops]

Bump - nobody?!

[Frozenatchristmas]

I am a traditional EA. I say if you are confident of your house and area there is no harm using them but if there is any doubt you need to use a local agent.

In the town where I am there are a couple of properties using online agents and they are just not selling. They probably would with a local agent who knows the properties as I have sold neighbouring properties to both of these with the online agent. Afterall nothing beats talking to an agent who knows the town, the house, schools etc. these online places are call centres with no local knowledge.

[happylittlevegemites]

We recently sold our house and considered doing it ourselves as houses were selling very quickly in our area.

Our house ended up in a bidding war. No way would we have been able to manage that ourselves. The buyer we chose (not the highest) was someone who had bought through our agent before and our agent was sure he'd be easy to deal with (he was).

Our commission was only .6% (competitive market?).

We didn't particularly like our agent at all, but to be fair couldn't fault the price he sold our house for nor the ease with which it all went through.

[isabelle1977]

Yes! We used an online estate agents and did sell successfully (in 8 weeks). Quite a basic service but then i'm not sure how much more a high street agent would do? We had heard of a few online companies but whittled it down to Housenetwork, Emoov and Housesimple.co.uk (who we chose - Reason we chose Housesimple is they used professional photographers so qualitywise seemed good).

We were happy to show people round, they put the property on loads of websites like Rightmove, Zoopla etc and we got about 8 viewings and 2 offers. So it went well. I know some people may not be confident about doing viewings themselves but other than that they will do everything for you so it is quite efficient. Housesimple had a nothing upfront option if you're concerned, so why not choose that and see how it goes for you?

[Flossiechops]

Thank you all for your opinions it's definitely helpful. I am not sure if the agents fees are negotiable? I would much prefer to put it on with a local agent, in particular the one we actually bought the house through. However, I know that the house will probably sell pretty fast as it's in a very popular location (outstanding schools, great high street, close to huge park and lots of recreational facilities) and I'm loathe to pay out more than we need to. It's not so much the selling of it but more getting the sale through which is where I think a good agent would come into their own. 0.6% sounds good - I am expecting them to say 1% I will see what their prices are when they come round. Many thanks for the opinions