Should we sell our flat without an estate agent?

[ElleDubloo]

We're planning on selling our flat in London (zone 2). Just got a quote from an estate agent today and it's a massive £12,000. Couldn't believe my ears. Just wondering whether it's worth it? Has anyone had experiences selling by themselves?

I'm guessing this is what we need to do:

• Tidy up and take a few nice photos.
• List property on Rightmove, Zoopla, etc.
• Organise viewings (or open day) and show people around the place.
• Once we have an offer, check their finances.

What extra does an estate agent add? Can they really get a much better price than we can (at least £12000 more)??

Personally, I wouldn't pay that.

There are website you can sell your property of for a much, much smaller fee than that.

Yes! We attempted to sell our flat with an estate agent, no up front fees. Well they didn't sell it, we decided to rent and they charged us £1200 for their time. They put in minimal effort I could have done exactly the same thing (right move ad, schedule etc) for so much less. Try to sell it yourself first. Then use the £12,000 to go on holiday xx

In your position I think I'd use an online EA. We recently put our (rural) house on the market and considered doing it ourselves via an online agent, but as our area is pretty slow-moving and properties can take up to twelve months to sell, we opted to use a high street EA as we felt they would be in a position to find prospective buyers from people already registered with them.

As it was, we received three offers (and accepted one at asking price) within just over a month, but tbh with the benefit of hindsight I think we could have done it ourselves......

In London I definitely think it's at least worth trying an online EA - assuming you have the time and are prepared to make a little extra effort with conducting viewings etc.

you have to use an online estate agent - private individuals can't list on rightmove or the other property search engines.

you'll get quite a few of other other services you need, you just need to do the viewings yourself.

as it is London where people will apparently buy anything, well worth a go. You are only risking about £1000 or less in the event that it doesn't sell.

The major portals are subscription-only, minimum term 3 months, at entry price £1k PCM each. So not likely you'll be able to do that. Transactions are down 55% year on year in central London due to trepidation about the imminent general election and other economic factors. The market generally will be dead between now and mid Jan, because it always is. So maybe choose an independent estate agent, tell them what price you think you can get for your property all by yourself and with none of their expertise, and tell them you'll do all the viewings, they just do the portal listings and handle the bidders, and you'll pay them 10% of anything above your expectations. That way I they achieve nothing for you over what you do yourself, you pay nothing. Chain/agents won't do this - they have no authority to vary contract terms. . Small independents might. If your price expectation is realistic, and not a greedy imaginary number. Good luck!

Go for it. We did: £300, and the house flew off the metaphorical shelves. I did the viewings myself on an open house day.

The only thing is that you'll need to possibly pay your solicitor a small amount more to handle the conveyancing chasing that's often done by the agent. But it still won't approach the fees claimed by some spotty school leaver in a George suit who does nothing for his money.

This assumes you're in a mobile market. We're in London too, and it was fine.

We used Property Eagle, for info.