Online Estate Agents - Any reccomendations?

[HopBopPop]

I'm finding it hard to choose between all the Online Estate Agents because many of them seems to offer a very similar service, and pretty similar prices.

Can anyone offer any personal experience from my narrowed down list so far?

I think I've narrowed it down to either:

Emoove
Hatched
House Network
Housesimple
I am the Agent
Tepilo
Urban Sales and Letting

I'm going to ring them all to get a feel, but any personal experience from anyone would be great! It's so hard!

TIA

[Bearbehind]

I think they are all pretty similar.

You have to weigh up the reduced costs against the potential reduced sale price.

We bought through a On line agent and I'm convinced we got a bargain as their 'negotiaters' have never seen the property and really couldn't care less- they just pass on messages.

I appreciate traditional EA's have a bad reputation but, unless your property is highly desirable and could be sold at your desired price to a queue of people tomorrow I'd think very carefully about going with an Internet agent.

My sceptical radar thinks this is some kind of research thread as that 'narrowed down' list includes just about every on line agency

[snowspider]

we had a great experience with Housenetwork

interviewed 3 High Street agents and Housenetwork

picked the latter to see if it worked with some trepidation

They were excellent in all respects, really speedy, great communication, great photos and floorplan and most of all effective in processing our sale when our buyer discovered 10 days after offering that he had to pay stamp duty. They were fab at liaising a complicated negotiation. From our initial meeting to completion was less than 4 weeks, exactly 3 weeks from offer to completion last week ahead of stamp duty changes. They really kept things on track and worked with both sides solicitors and our buyer and ourselves to resolve the difficulties as we didn't want to move so quickly. Negotiated our permission to stay in house for 8 weeks after sale.

All for the upfront sum of £699

[snowspider]

also their guesstimate of sale price was nearest to our own heavily researched figure which I thought we could get if we were lucky, bang in the middle of the other agents figures which were 100k apart

sorry sounds like a spammy ad

[WhimsicalWinnifred]

Absolutely DO NOT use tepilo . Never have I seen such a bunch of useless idiots in one place. They are not estate agents, they are administrators and call centre workers who 1. Know nothing about how house sales work 2. Cannot take accurate notes yet have have a system that relies on the taking of accurate notes 3. String a sentence together. Avoid. At all costs.

[HopBopPop]

Thanks. We've been viewers through Housesimple and Hatched, and I liked the housesimple online system and hatched seemed reaonably switched on in their call centre.

Oh and Bear I have already ruled out - Easyproperty / Purplebricks / Sellmyhome / Yopa / 121 move.

[Bearbehind]

Fair enough OP but it really does depend on whether you are selling a 'quirky' property in the back end of nowhere or a 'fly off the shelf' property in London.

The former needs someone who knows the area, the latter could be sold by a monkey.

[traceyed1]

We used Housenetwork and they were excellent. Pushed the sale through and felt with our nightmare buyers

[possum18]

Had great experience of purple bricks but you've ruled them out so can't help with the others.

As pp said, it depends on your property, it it has high demand it'll sell no matter who sticks it online for you.
Also as with any estate agent (I work for a traditional estate agent, DH works for an online one) it depends who from the agency you get sent - every company will have agents who couldn't care less, and others who will go above and beyond. Have a few agents out (3 is good) and meet the individual who you'll be working with, not just the company.

[WhimsicalWinnifred]

With tepilo you have to do your own write up and show people around. They only put it online for you. It was the seller of the house we bought that used them so I don't know if there is a better package but you're basically doing everything and he paid quite a bit. We paid oriordan bond a flat fee of 2k and although they weren't great they were ten times better than tepilo. Who refuse to take our for sale sign away.

[snowspider]

Housenetwork do everything a high street agent does (except show people round the house) but ime much better. They also don't have the tricksiness of regular estate agents. We chose them on the strength of their photos and the attitude of the representative who came to the house

In fact ime they do a lot more than a regular estate agent and are more efficient. There methodology seemed to work really well (and I have experience from other agents in the last three years and there was no comparison in the level of professionalism)

I was worried that they wouldn't process our sale as they had already been paid but in fact they excelled in that area and had a lot to accomplish as it wasn't straightforward

[dynevoran]

Our vendor is using emoov and quite unimpressed with the level of knowledge of the agents. They can't seem to explain the process to the vendor and so she keeps expecting things which aren't reasonable. So I'd say it depends on the property and your own level of knowledge and expectations.

[PippaFawcett]

We considered using an online agent but have just decided to use a traditional one instead. We decided that they are best placed to get us the best possible price - hopefully - and that is worth spending the fees on. It is our biggest asset! Our property will also be promoted through their mailing lists as well which will be helpful as they have a huge presence where we live.

[ChopOrNot]

Look on here for checked/verified reviews - I found it very useful //rateragent.co.uk - bit like amazon reviews. May give you some things to watch out for.

[Allisgood1]

We used Tepilo based on recommendations. They saved us around £5k. We had a friend so our showings and another friend handled the negotiations. We do need to ring (often more than once) if we want something chased up but we paid next to nothing so it's what I expected. When they do chase they are good at it.

[WhimsicalWinnifred]

Would your buyers say the same thing though, allis good? They saved us money on the solicitors and surveys but you don't have to be buying/selling with them to get that price.