Should I pick an online EA or a high street one?

[Lostwithinthehills]

I want to sell my house and I'm trying to decide which estate agent to use. I've had visits from two high street agents, one local and one that is part of a chain. I much preferred the local agent despite her stated commission being .25% more expensive than the chain. I know that I should negotiate the commission but realistically I think I'll only manage to get the .25% off which means that I could be paying £5000 or £6000 including vat. Alternatively, I have looked at the online agent Yopa who would cost only £835 and claim to offer full estate agent services.

So I need to choose whether the personal service of the local estate agent would be worth paying up to £5000 more for. This is my first move in over 15 years so I'm very unfamiliar with the whole system.

For what it's worth my house is very well presented but it is slightly niche so it won't necessarily sell itself.

Does anybody have any thoughts or experience that could help me decide?

As a buyer the only thing is to ensure that the local agent's properties appear on Right move otherwise I wouldn't see it. I haven't bought/sold recently so are they all on?

Wow! Foot your house is obviously very desirable! I suspect that my estate agent will have to work a bit harder to sell my house despite it being well presented.

My preferred estate agent brought up vetting buyers, which gave me confidence that they would take it seriously.

I've just double checked they do advertise on Rightmove, but I'm not sure about zoopla.

Lazy I think the prospective buyers experience is a very valid point that I hadn't given any thought to, there's no point managing to snare a buyer if they can't make an offer or get so sick of dealing with the estate agent that they withdraw it.

If your EA fees are going to be £5000 ish I guess the house is £500,000 or so? In that case I'd go for a high-street agent who can really sell it, match it to a good buyer and will probably have a list of buyers at that level in your area to contact.

Our EA was fantastic but round here, everyone does their own viewings as standard.

We sold with purple bricks and had no issues but...as mentioned above:
House was standard layout
Very sellable
In demand
We weren't in a rush
We were happy to do viewings.

Sold for above asking in one week. People booked viewings through the app.

They were involved at all with the next stage though and our buyers estate agent took it upon themselves to do the 'chain' work. We would have done it if required. There were very few problems and we completed in under 10 weeks...

Thanks both, it's all good advice and insights for me.

Lost, I honestly didn't know what to expect really on how long it might take to sell, we are rural Suffolk, small market town, can be an odd market here, but not much on just now so quite limited choice for buyers. There can be a tendency to overprice I think because we're not far from the heritage coast and the very desirable/expensive little villages there, but I think we got the price just right.

I do like the option with HouseSimple to message directly with potential buyers and book the viewings yourself, this is different/better I think than e.g. Purple Bricks. Buyers have to register their own circumstances which you are advised of when their enquiry comes through, assuming they are honest when they do this, but you can message to try to establish this more clearly.

It has suited us well, and we've had a good experience so far but I can see it's not for everyone. It's a very different way of selling and you do have to 'manage' it yourself.

Thanks Foot, I'm sure I've read positive comments about House Simple somewhere on Mumsnet before. I think if I had any experience in buying and selling houses I would give it a go but I've never sold and only bought once. I'm planning to stay in my next house for at least as many years as I've lived in this one, I probably one get the choice between high street and online next time!

House Simple are the bloody nightmare lot I am currently dealing with, don't touch them with a bargepole

We bought our house through Tepilo and it was an utterly awful experience. If there had been an alternative property for us we would have pulled out, it made a stressful experience even worse and I felt that our EA and solicitor had to do all the legwork that should have been split by our vendor's EA. But she is the one who got the £££ saving. It also was indicative of her cutting corners, we keep finding botched jobs around the house so I also don't think using online EAs give the best first impression of your house.

Exactly what Which said.

We've looked really hard to find something that we like instead of the house we've offered on, simply because the agent is making the experience so miserable. If we'd found something else I would have pulled out within the first week because the service has been so shit.

Lazy

I have to admit when I've been browsing on Rightmove I have automatically felt a bit negative when I've noticed that that the estate agent is an online one, I should have realised that people who look at my house would feel the same. I certainly can't afford to give a bad impression.

OP, imagine waiting in a queue for a call centre who you have to explain every last thing about your house sale thus far to each and every time. They promise call backs that never materialise and I ended up having to explain how a sales progression usually works because they all seemed so new to it. In theory 'whacking a house up as for sale on RightMove' should be enough, but finding a buyer is actually the easy bit, keeping one is harder.

Tepilo makes you use their solicitors as well, or you have to pay an extra fee to use your own, and they were awful too.

I went with the local high street one and I'm so glad I did. Personalised service and they kept me updated at every single step of the process. The manager even called me on night after hours just to have a hat about what had been going on re our sale. Unfortunately it did take 12 weeks but they sold the neighbours flat downstairs in 10 days. We had 7 viewers and they told us a bit about each one prior to the viewing and then called us to follow up and then gave us feedback. They made a stressful situation easier (just realised I didn't send a thank you card ).

DH was really keen to save money and go with an online agent. I was not keen at all. We had three local agents round for valuation purposes, managed to wrangle the independent one down to a fixed fee and sold it four days after it went online. The agent was amazing, still feel a bit guilty that we didn't buy from him too!
We have seen so many properties linger for months and months with online agents.

We went with an online agency when we sold out house, all I can say is that our house sold itself, despite their best effort not to sell it... I had paid £300 extra for them do to the viewings but I ended up calling all the poeple who had tried to view it, and booked with them. Then despite asking the local agent to help I ended up negotiating the offers with buyers as well, because although he'd say he had left a message, he never tried to contact them.
Luckily my house was in demand, and it sold for a decent price. Then as a buyer, when I wanted to book a viewing for a house I was interested in, the system wouldn't let me book a slot, pc or app, and I had to find a way round it, I hadn't used the system myself I would have given up.
There there is the lack of post-sale support. You are basically on your own, and if you are in a chain or in a hurry it can be tricky because there is nobody to do the chasing, the good side is that now I understand all the various stages of conveyancing, lol

Recently bought a house through house network. They were fantastic. Avalible 24/7!!

My heart sinks when I see a house I want to view and its with an online agent.

I don't like doing viewings with the owners particularly either. I feel I can't talk about what I would want to change.

loveka, exactly! The owner followed us around the house so closely when we were viewing that we missed some key things that have cost us £££ since we moved in. Just cosmetic things but we felt rushed and bothered by her.

I'd back up a lot of what's been said here. We're selling with Purple Bricks and other than put a board up and put us on Rightmove they've done precious little. We've had to use their solicitor (who appear to be next to useless) who are based about 50 miles away so all communication is by email or over the phone and they don't contact us, we have to keep chasing them
Up. Haven't heard anything off purple bricks for weeks, it's just us trying to contact these illusive solicitors.

I just bought through an online agent (purple bricks) and the process was great. But then, as a buyer I despise estate agents and the sooner they disappear the better.

we sold with house network for 775. house sold for 440000. i spent the 5k we saved on having the shared driveway with neighbours redone. that was the only downside to the house so it made sense.
i was happy to show the house and picked comitted purchasers.
really pleased with the service i have had. i would say though our house was always going to be an easy sale.