Housenetwork EPC and other houseselling questions

[whostolethesocks]

I need to put my house on the market. I've had three valuations by local estate agents but am now considering using Housenetwork as have seen good reviews and hopefully would save quite a bit of money. Anyone got any opinions??? Also for an additional £95 they do the EPC. Is this worth doing through them or is there another (cheaper) way of getting an EPC done?

you should be able to get an EPC done for £50 or so. They are fairly meaningless but are a legal requirement.

housenetwork will obviously do nothing once the ad is up, but if you have a property that is simple to sell it may well work. Remember that if you get in a chain, you can't speak to the other solicitors so it will be difficult to keep things moving. My EA really proved his worth in keeping a chain together.

And unless your buyers are first-timers and you are buying a probate property, you will almost certainly be in a chain.

Unless your house is huge you should be able to get a EPC for around £50. It's a tick box exercise and fairly meaningless so you don't get any extra value by paying more. So I'd recommend paying the minimum to cover your legal requirement.

We've just paid £60 for an EPC on a 5 bed detached so 95 sounds like a hefty admin charge to me. They're easy to arrange so I'd do it yourself. As wonky says, ours was pointless but it has to be done.

Who do you ask to do them then? (sorry if it's a daft question).

Google EPCs you'll find loads of people who do them nationally or look at the register to find who does them locally
www.epcregister.com/searchAssessor.html
get a few quotes to compare.

I think what estate agents do varies hugely across the country. W've mainly been in London and there it's a competitive market and they are very pro-active ( and obnoxious but hey ho). We sold in London last year and didn't begrudge the guy a penny of his commission as he was great.

We've been looking to buy in West Yorkshire for the last 5 months and up here the estate agents seem to be mainly useless. With one house we were told we couldn't view it because they were too busy with rentals. For 4 weeks they refused to let us see it, and we're cash buyers, then we complained to the vendor. Asking around, I've met plenty of other people here who have been denied access to a house they're interested in. So my impression in W Yorks is that the agents here aren't worth paying. We viewed two houses that were via housenetwork and it was all straightforward. One seller did make sure she had a friend with her which is a sensible safety precaution. The house we are now in the process of buying is also being sold without an agent.

I think many EAs do little except list it on rightmove and it's really not worth paying for that kind of agent.

We've just sold our flat through Housenetwork.

We put it on first with a local agent who tried to pressure us to reduce the price after 2 weeks and 1 viewing.
Dropped them and signed up for cheapest up-front deal with Housenetwork. Had 5/6 viewings over following month. Eventually got an offer £20k below asking.
Discussed with Housenetwork account handler who negotiated with the buyer and got us an extra £11k!!!

Couldn't recommend them highly enough. Would never use a High St estate agent again.

Kindlemum - yes, reflects my experience. Our Surrey agent worked very hard, did all the viewing and was very much worth the money. Here in the West Midlands the agents seem to be glued to their office chairs!