Page 3 | How useful are traditional estate agents? Thinking of going online

QueenFool · 2021-11-30T17:31:13+00:00

We're thinking of selling, had a few valuers round. One online and the rest traditional local EA. We have a pretty standard house which would appeal to first time buyers mainly I'm swaying towards online. Cost is one factor, but probably the main factor is cutting out the crap and middle man. I would conduct viewings myself anyway. The photo/floorplan/online listing is all included. I'm a bit torn. Anyone got experience with online agents?

ThreeFeetTall · 02/12/2021 13:49

@cherrywhite Thanks!

Seems like a good idea as long as everything goes smoothly. When we bought our house we sorted everything between us and the sellers so it seemed a bit unfair that estate agents should get £££ for basically being an introduction agency

HP79 · 06/12/2021 02:50

We listed our house in the spring through a traditional high street agency. We had a terrible time with them (caught them lying several times, amongst other things) and had to cancel our vendors and sack the agents. After the notice period we re-listed with an online agency, paid a one-off fee of £200 and did EVERYTHING ourselves (floor plan, photos, description, viewings, negotiation, sale progression). It's been a much smoother process this time and the people above and below us have been really pleased that they can contact us directly and get honest answers. Just about to exchange and we've saved about £10k in fees. We would never use a traditional estate agency again, though you do have to be prepared to do most of the legwork this way.

MyOtherProfile · 06/12/2021 05:18

@HP79 I'm curious to know what the house is worth that you sold, that it would have run up £10k in fees. We sold a house this year for £300k and paid just under £2k fees. Our EA did everything.

MimiDaisy11 · 06/12/2021 05:30

Interesting discussion. I hadn’t considered an online agent.

I wonder if online is better for those who don’t have chains? Since a few have mentioned traditional EA being good at dealing with issues to do with that.

HP79 · 06/12/2021 09:15

@MyOtherProfile £825k with estate agent fees of 1% plus VAT (which is the standard rate in our area... SE, near London, of course!).

lashy · 06/12/2021 14:52

Purple Bricks essentially lost a vendor I really wanted to buy from, a few thousand pounds. Their 'notifications' weren't working - I didn't get notified that the vendor had asked me a question (in the meantime I phoned the PB agent, it went to voicemail and later she told me she "hadn't realised she'd had a missed call").
By the time they got back to me, the vendor had verbally accepted an offer from someone else for a few thousand less than the offer I had been trying to put forward.
Essentially potential buyer (me( and the vendor (who was clearly paying them c.£1k for their help), we're let down.
I'd like to think that doesn't happen very often, but it's a shame when it does.

MyOtherProfile · 07/12/2021 06:44

That's so rubbish @lashy
We were looking for a larger house close to where we were living. One came up that looked ideal but was in with PB. I contacted and tried to arrange a viewing. Never got a reply. Something else came up with a proper EA so we went for that instead and are very happy in that house.

ISaidDontLickTheBin · 07/12/2021 12:11

@OrangeSnorkel

We looked around two houses where the seller did the viewing. It was awful. One was a flat out no for us anyway but the other house could have been good, it would need a little work or rearranging of rooms but it was so awkward having her showing us around. We couldn't discuss how we would change it. She was really pushy and over excited about her (in our opinion awfully designed) renovations. We just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible!

Agreed, I hate it when the seller conducts the viewings.

traka · 07/12/2021 12:24

Friends are selling two properties using Strike and have advised us not to use them when we sell next year

They said they're okay until there's a problem. The problem is that they've already got their money and aren't having to work for it

A traditional EA gets it at the end and it's in their interest to progress the sale ASAP

countrygirl99 · 07/12/2021 12:24

I suspect that if you have a fairly standard house and everyone in the chain is sensible and doesn't have unexpected problems an online agent is fine. Change any aspect of that and you are usually better with a trsd agent.

Twiglets1 · 07/12/2021 12:29

People tend to assume their sale or purchase will be fairly straightforward- until the problems hit further down the line.
We are paying our estate agents a lot of £££ (central London sale where commission is 2%) but they have been excellent. I won’t begrudge them their commission when it’s time to pay it.

fellrunner85 · 07/12/2021 13:35

I suspect that if you have a fairly standard house and everyone in the chain is sensible and doesn't have unexpected problems an online agent is fine

Absolutely.. but the problem is that often you have no idea whether this will be the case or not until weeks, months, into your transaction.

Both my last sales almost fell through and both were very ordinary houses, being sold to very ordinary and apparently sensible buyers. Problem was when both buyers apparently had personality transplants on the eve of exchange. One purchase would have definitely fallen through (cocking up a chain of five) and the other would most likely have fallen through, had it not been for the motivated EA pulling everyone together, calming a panicked FTB, ringing EAs up and down the chain, and so on, until it was resolved.

It panics me when I read statements like "oh, I have no chain and a FTB, I'll be fine." FTBs can be the worst. Cash buyers can often not be cash buyers. Chain free vendors can suddenly reveal a chain at the 11th hour. You never know until you're well into it, at which point it's weeks since an offer was accepted and well past any opportunity to bring a decent EA in.

countrygirl99 · 07/12/2021 14:16

fellrunner our last move nearly came apart at the last minute after 4 months when it turned out we had someonewith zero common sense in the chain. The estate agent certainly earned every penny. It depends if you think they money saving is worth the risk but how often do we see threads on MN where someone in the chain is either an idiot or a barstard.

Twiglets1 · 07/12/2021 15:23

@fellrunner85

I suspect that if you have a fairly standard house and everyone in the chain is sensible and doesn't have unexpected problems an online agent is fine

Absolutely.. but the problem is that often you have no idea whether this will be the case or not until weeks, months, into your transaction.

Both my last sales almost fell through and both were very ordinary houses, being sold to very ordinary and apparently sensible buyers. Problem was when both buyers apparently had personality transplants on the eve of exchange. One purchase would have definitely fallen through (cocking up a chain of five) and the other would most likely have fallen through, had it not been for the motivated EA pulling everyone together, calming a panicked FTB, ringing EAs up and down the chain, and so on, until it was resolved.

It panics me when I read statements like "oh, I have no chain and a FTB, I'll be fine." FTBs can be the worst. Cash buyers can often not be cash buyers. Chain free vendors can suddenly reveal a chain at the 11th hour. You never know until you're well into it, at which point it's weeks since an offer was accepted and well past any opportunity to bring a decent EA in.

Totally agree - our cash buyer has turned out to need a mortgage after all. And we would have turned down their offer because they seemed uncommitted had our estate agent not intervened to get a 10k non refundable deposit out of them to prove they were serious