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Join our Property forum for renovation, DIY, and house selling advice.

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Join our Property forum for renovation, DIY, and house selling advice.

Property/DIY

Selling up!! High Street or Online? Anyone?

27 replies

Nonose · 01/09/2016 18:46

Putting my house on the market in the next couple of weeks. Anyone have an experience with the online agents? I'm reluctant to pay massive fees but unsure about going down the less traditional route.

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wowfudge · 01/09/2016 18:51

Whereabouts are you and roughly how much do you think your house is worth? Lots of poor experiences with online agents reported on here. Our buyers were using an online agent and our EA did quite a bit of stuff their agent should have done to keep the chain together.

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StepAwayFromTheThesaurus · 01/09/2016 18:53

As a viewer I found the big online agents horrendous to deal with. You phone a call centre and it's just as awful as phoning a call centre always is.

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Nonose · 01/09/2016 19:07

I live in Chester. My house is worth around £225 - £230,000. I did have it up for sale 2010 (sale fell through and I decided to stay put) and wasn't impressed with the agents I used back then - I'm getting a few valuations over the weekend.

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PippaFawcett · 01/09/2016 21:04

Please, please, please use a decent high street agent. Our vendor used Tepilo and it was AWFUL. I basically feel like they saved £££ at our expense, we had to get our solicitor to deal with stuff the EA should have. If any alternative house had come on the market that would have done us, we would have pulled out.

No-one likes dealing with call centres who do not have a clue.

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PurpleDaisies · 01/09/2016 21:05

We used a local agent who was great. Our friends had nothing but trouble with purple bricks.

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Runningupthathill82 · 01/09/2016 21:12

Decent high street agent every time.

We made the error of trying to save money on EA fees and, not only did we end up selling our house for far less than we could've done, but the whole chain very nearly collapsed on completion day - in no small part down to the EA's horrendous lack of communication with our buyer.

Pay the extra cash and use someone reputable, for sure.

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wowfudge · 01/09/2016 23:35

Use the local estate agent you feel will do the best job actually selling your house. We sold our house in the NW in the same price bracket through a local agent. Shaky start on the sales particulars and some of the photos, but they got viewings and the woman who did the sales progression was excellent. Our buyers used a not very impressive online agent.

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MsShopper · 01/09/2016 23:51

Naive first-time buyer over here... Just curious - what do local EAs do that online EAs don't? We're buying from vendors who are using an online EA (Purple Bricks if I'm allowed to say!) and so far so good from our perspective. But we're very early on in the process (just had the offer accepted a week ago) so I'm wondering what pitfalls I should look out for!

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PurpleDaisies · 02/09/2016 00:07

msshopper if you've had an offer accepted it's quite possible that you won't have much else to do with the estate agent. The majority of your dealings will be through solicitors now, although the estate agent will still need to facilitate access for surveys etc.

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MsShopper · 02/09/2016 00:12

Ah okay, good to know - thanks!

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PurpleDaisies · 02/09/2016 00:17

Saying that, if things do get complicated (are you in a chain), a good estate agent can be really helpful with trouble shooting. The depends a bit in your circumstances. We haven't spoken to our EA in ages, but our sellers have hired the world's shittest solicitors so we're stuck waiting for them to answer the simplest of questions. I hope everything goes smoothly for you.

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MsShopper · 02/09/2016 00:53

Thanks, me too! We're in a short chain and our vendors have been lovely so far, so fingers crossed. Good luck with sorting things with that solicitor.

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sacbina · 02/09/2016 08:19

My mum has just sold thru Tepilo and had a very good experience. Great communication, feedback from viewings, immediate response to enquiries. She would definitely recommend.

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RebeccaCloud9 · 02/09/2016 08:39

House Network are AMAZING! We phoned them on the Thursday, they took photos on Friday, online by Saturday, then they'd helped us negotiate a great offer by the Tuesday. They are so easy to get hold of, have a fab online site that is easy to keep track of everything, and you can make any changes to your ad whenever you want.

Only £700, and so much better in my opinion than a high street agent.

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YelloDraw · 02/09/2016 10:48

Saying that, if things do get complicated (are you in a chain), a good estate agent can be really helpful with trouble shooting.

Agreed. They can also provide a bit of a 'voice of reason' when buyers/vendors are being difficult.

If you have a straight forward sale/purchase with rational individuals with no issues and a short/no chain - prob don't need 'real' EAs.

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PippaFawcett · 02/09/2016 12:37

I think there are so many hidden issues that group up during the chain that online agents - in my experience - are just not equipped to deal with. They do not have the knowledge or expertise to help, you can hear them looking up the house when you ring to discuss something with them.

Our chain would have fallen apart if we hadn't been so keen on the house, and in fact, it did fall apart several times as we only bought it when it popped back up again on RightMove. I also don't know what an online agent adds that uploading our own properties directly to Rightmove wouldn't achieve which, I suspect, in time we will be able to do.

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PippaFawcett · 02/09/2016 12:37

crop up not group up.

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Nonose · 05/09/2016 09:10

Bathrooms were both painted at the weekend and I'm wanting to get the house on asap - unreal how much clutter I have!!! I think for me, I've had experiences with high street agents where they weren't on top of their game anyway - I think they all need a push! I'm going to get a few valuations and decide. Liking the look of YOPA atm - but will look up House Network as not heard of them!

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evrybuddy · 05/09/2016 14:21

We've used both high street and online agents.

Used Housenetwork several times and would recommend wholeheartedly.

The speed of progress and quality of the photos (as many as you wanted) and floorplans was beyond anything we've ever had from a high street agent.
Virtual tours were included and ability to edit details ourselves in real time as opposed to trying to explain the importance of apostrophes and difference between 'sort after' and 'sought after' to high street agent, while questioning why they'd included a photo of next door's child bouncing over the fence on a trampoline...

If you're a dynamic, interested and motivated seller who likes to take responsibility, be in control and get things done for themselves - an online agent will suit you.

That would be my deciding factor, if you're a bit of a control freak with perfectionist tendencies then an online agent will probably work better for you - it did for me.

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roslet · 05/09/2016 15:36

I viewed a house through EMoov and found it easy to book a viewing. I also like being shown around by the owner. So I thought I'd give them a try as I haven't enjoyed using traditional agents to sell previously. I was very clear on how much I wanted to sell for from comparing my home with near identical properties on "Rightmove Sold". Within a month we had 3 great offers. We saved about £30,000 which is obviously great, but I also preferred using them to a high street one as I felt more in control and was able to just do Saturday and Sunday viewings. For some properties I'm sure that traditional agents are best, but if you know yours will be easy to sell and you are confident to do the viewings yourself (you basically just need to smile and not say much apart from answering questions) then I would recommend giving them a go. We paid about £500 upfront. We did make sure we had a very good solicitor though, I think that's worth paying for.

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Jellyshoeshurtmyfeet · 06/09/2016 08:48

We put our house on the market just under two weeks ago with Purplebricks and haven't had a single viewing despite being in a very desirable area. I have a high street agent coming out tomorrow and will ditch Purplebricks. We still have to pay them £800 though! The agent who came out from purplebricks was lovely but nothing has happened and she is doing nothing to make anything happen.

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blinkowl · 06/09/2016 08:56

We used housenetwork.co.uk after being recommended here and I would never go back to using a high street agent. If you're in an area where people use the Web to house hunt (ie most areas) using a high street agent is chucking away money IMO.

The pictures were great and we sold in 3 weeks.

In fact I've recommended them so many times here to pass the favour on that last time mumnet hid my post as they their system though I was advertising! (A quick email askung they check my posting history to see I've been here ages and they put it back).

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Domino45 · 06/09/2016 09:14

House network were involved in a previous house sale and as a buyer it was a nightmare after the sale went to the sales progression team. There were ongoing discussions regarding price following a survey and every time we rang we spoke to someone different who always had to check the system to find out what was going on. They also never got back to us when we wanted to contact the vendor and we had to chase them up to see if there was any responses.

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Runningupthathill82 · 06/09/2016 09:26

I think the point lots of people are missing is that it's not all about how fast a house sells. It's after the sale, with the sales progression stuff, that a good EA can be worth their weight in gold.

Our house sold within 48hours for well above asking price. Great, you'd think.

But it was after that that it turned into a nightmare. The EA then put loads of pressure on us to drop our price when the buyer asked to, following the survey, meaning that we ended up selling for less than we'd wanted to.
They didn't pass various pieces of info on to our buyer that they should have, and they lied to us about all sorts of things which meant the whole chain almost collapsed on completion day.

Communication is the most important thing when you're buying and selling, particularly in a chain, and this is where a good EA is worth the money. Actually agreeing a sale is just the beginning of a long process.

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gonzo155 · 17/09/2016 07:37

High street.

We contacted an online EA to view a property of theirs which we know has not had much interest. Our first phone call we got told they'd sort a viewing in a few days time as the vendor was showing the place, then it was the beginning of the next week as they had to sort out getting the keys(!) along with a long apologetic e-mail to say that they were keen to show us the property and would get in touch as soon as they had the keys. It took 3 weeks for them eventually to get back in touch by which point we'd put an offer in somewhere else.

No wonder it's still on the market.