Anyone used an internet estate agent?

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We are about to put our house on the market and contemplating using an internet estate agent such as housenetwork or emoov or hatched.

Has anyone used one recently and would you recommend them if so? I understand we would need to do our own viewings but we are comfortable with that.

Any advice much appreciated. Thanks

We tried to buy through one and got really frustrated with them. It was house network. There was a 10% difference between our offer and the mortgage valuation. They were incapable of offering any advice and it all fell apart. We didn't have a named person to deal with and they had no local knowledge so were not very helpful.

Also don't forget how valuable local knowledge is kand nowing your client base. We have just had an offer accepted on a house through a local agent. We've viewed quite a few with this agent and as soon as they'd signed the house up they called us up and we viewed it. The vendors had it sold to us without a picture being taken and it being listed anywhere. You wouldn't get that with a internet agent.

Buyers are twice as likely to put in an offer on a viewing done by an EA than by the vendor. They won't give you honest feedback as they will be too polite to, so they just shuffle off and you can't follow up on it like an agent would.

IIWY I would find a new local estate agent who would probably offer you a deal similar to the online agents but with better service. Happy to recommend one if you are in Northants (I work in lettings - just declaring a kind of non interest!)

ThePerfectNegroni we both sold and bought through HouseNetwork and had a dedicated person who dealt with our own sale and a different person who dealt with the purchase. I find it strange that you didn't and we even had direct dial contact with our agent.

The plus side for us was paying about £700 for the sale of our property, they did lots of photos and a floorplan. I was fine doing viewings, I know my house better than an agent does and local knowledge is only relevant if you are moving from outside the area and don't know it well enough. Having relocated personally now I would never buy straight away, I would rent until I knew what the area was like.

I have never signed up with an agent, I rely on the internet to alert me to new properties.

HouseNetwork contacted each viewer we had and asked for feedback which we got.

If you search on here (advanced search in Property/DIY) there are lots of threads asking about on-line agents most of which were very positive.

If you have time to do your own viewings and are comfortable doing that then I can't see a reason not to sell through an internet agent.

I sold my last house through House Network. I did my own photos which imo were much better than a lot of the agent ones I've seen. I had time to set up the rooms and re-take photos where I realised that stuff was in view that shouldn't have been! They also let you upload lots of photos, which buyers like I think, nothing worse than seeing a house on an EA website with just one or two photos to go by.

I don't think there's a disadvantage to not being advertised directly through an EA - serious buyers will be looking on Rightmove obsessively! You can usually have a sign outside your house with the internet agents as well if you want to.

I did about six or seven viewings and sold within a few weeks. When you're selling your own house and know the area well then you're in a better position for giving detailed info than agents a lot of the time. House Network followed up after the viewings and gave feedback.

Ironically I sold my previous house through an agent and ended up doing a lot of the viewings myself anyway as the agents were busy. The buyer that bought that house was one that I did the viewings for (first and second).

Thanks very much for the responses - really interesting to hear different points of view.

I totally agree that a great local agent with good local knowledge and lots of enthusiasm etc etc is going to be better than an internet estate agent. My problem is that I live in a rural area (not Northants unfortunately but thank you for the offer, Smiles ) and the nearest estate agents are a distance away and like purply, I've heard people round here say they have ended up doing their own viewings as the estate agent couldn't/wouldn't come out to do it. Which got me thinking about whether to just cut straight to the online version rather than paying for a service with a local EA that I may not actually get in reality!

Hmmm... a bit more thinking to do... Thanks again for sharing your thoughts and experiences.

We used eMoov, who were excellent. They did the photos, floor plan, organised the viewings and got the feedback etc. We did the viewings which worked well for us as we know the house. We sold in under a week.

Good luck!

We used emoov and also had excellent experience, but I was confident I knew the value and our house was in a fast moving area.