Estate agents vs online agents

[Stokey]

Am selling my flat and am tempted just to go for a online agent like house network which will save around £5000 in estate agency fees.

I guess the advantage of the estate agent is that they do the marketing and selling for you, but I suspect that most people use right move and such like to find property anyway.

The market seems to be moving pretty quickly in my area with not much available and my flat is bigger than the average 2-bed set over two floors. So i suspect it will sell itself.

But it does have a shortish lease on it, whch could put off first time buyers (although we are in negotiations to extend) and maybe an estate agent could reassure them about this.

But an extra £5000 seems like a lot to pay for reassurance and having someone show people round your house.

What do you think? Does anyone have experience of using an online agent exclusively and how did it go?

I would like to sell quite quickly and am slightly worried that if we go online only you will lose that first buzz that an estate agent generates (and in my most optimistic dreams the bidding war that ensues when they see how many others are interested...)

I thought about using an online agent but we both work full time so no way we could have done the viewings. Also I was a bit worried about the security aspect.

However if you don't have these issues I think it would be worthwhile giving it a try. Especially if you think the place will sell itself. Make sure you use an online agent whose ads show up on rightmove etc.

We are currently using House Network and I am really impressed. I thought becuase the moeny was up front they would be a bit less interested, but far from it. We are having issues with our buyers and our EA has been fab at chasing, nagging and generally being on the ball. They send you weekly stats to show the click throughs on your property on rightmove, and how it compares to other properties on the market, you can change the price as and when you see fit and they deal with all viewings and text/email you all details. You can have a board if you like. Only downside is you have to do the viewings (but as we had a hound we were having to do that anyway).
I'd use them again

We've sold two properties through Housenetwork and several others using traditional agents.
Would definitely use Housenetwork again and recommend heartily.
Have never found a conventional agent that generates a 'buzz' yet!
Last trad estate agent didn't even bother phoning the list of clients they supposedly had on their books - I don't believe any agents really have lists of clients anymore - everyone uses Rightmove - people don't need to register with agents anymore until they actually want to view.
When we've been buying, I don't care what kind of agent people use but I defintely don't want pushy agents sending me irrelevant details or pressuring me to see unsuitable houses - and experience has shown you don't get that sort of nonsense when you use Housenetowrk.

We also sold through House Network. We didn't have many viewings but the advantage of this was motivated viewers rather than people who'd been 'sent' be a local EA trying to keep viewing figures up.

It's hard work 'showing' your house - you don't want time wasters sent by local EAs.

We recommended to our best friends, who also sold through HN last year. It took us 9 weeks to sell.

We also sold through House Network. We didn't have many viewings but the advantage of this was motivated viewers rather than people who'd been 'sent' be a local EA trying to keep viewing figures up.

It's hard work 'showing' your house - you don't want time wasters sent by local EAs.

We recommended to our best friends, who also sold through HN last year. It took us 9 weeks to sell.

Also, in terms of costing the time you would have to give to conduct viewings - especially if you're confident your property will 'sell itself' - you'll have to put in a lot of time cleaning/prepping your place whether you or the agent does the viewings.
But if it took, at most, say 20 viewings to sell, each one maybe half an hour long at most.
What's £5000 over 20 viewings? - £250 per viewing/30 mins which comes out at a £500 hourly rate for the agent - very generous indeed!!!