Experiences with YOPA?

[hopefullyTTC2x]

We will be listing our house soon and I was honestly shocked at the price estate agents charge. We were quoted £8,500 to sell with a local agent and I've seen YOPA have fixed fees that would make it under £2,000. You pay the fee whether they sell or not which is the catch I guess but we are definitely planning to sell and move so after any experiences good or bad people have had with YOPA. The price difference is too wild not to consider, especially when right move is what gets people in the door and estate agents don't seem to do much nowadays.

My son wanted to do some viewings via YOPA, never responded despite chasing. The (very overpriced) flat is still on the market. Their process is very web based and impersonal. When called the person who answered knew nothing about the property as they were in a central call centre and their agent never got back to us. We just gave up and went with local agents who knew their stuff.
Perhaps we were unlucky but that was our experience.

I used yopa to sell my house as I liked that you are in control of all the viewings etc. The interested parties can message you at any time on there no faffing through an agent. You could add your availability for viewings on there too.
only negative feedback I had from using yopa was the older interested parties struggled to used the app/website but this wouldn’t be a deal breaker for using them again.

When we were buying we avoided viewing properties on with Yopa or Purple Bricks. We’d heard a lot of bad things and also I absolutely hate doing viewings with the owners there.

And frankly you would be absolutely batshit to agree to pay even a penny without a sale having completed. If something seems too good to be true it usually is.

Standard EA fees are about 1.5% including VAT. I don’t find that particularly shocking. Our local EA actually did a lot of work negotiating our buyer up on price and helped to hold the chain together. You get what you pay for - I doubt they’d bother to do much sales progression work for the sake of just a couple of grand.

I’ve sold with Yopa twice. I suspect (as with all things) it’s as good as the person running the franchise. Both times I used the same agent and honestly I couldn’t fault him. He did have a no sale no fee price which worked out cheaper than other agents. He also did all the viewings for me etc. It was like selling with a high street agent but cheaper. The first house he sold in 5 days, the second sold in 48 hours, then they dropped out, and it was sold again within 5 days of being back on the market. Both times I eventually agreed the sale on a Sunday, which wouldn’t have happened with a high street agent as they wouldn’t have been open. If I was selling again I’d call him back.

We discounted any houses listed with Purple Bricks, Strike or Yopa when looking (especially PB). None of the ones we liked ever responded, and many were overpriced as they lacked the local knowledge.

As a seller, I would also really be wary of any chain with these agents in it as there is noone to keep things together dispassionately.

The agent has no reason to help get the sale over the line if things get difficult- when we sold, ours really earned his commission keeping the chain together. In this current nervy climate, that is worth its weight in gold.

I don't know anyone who has paid over 1.1% plus VAT recently (most c 1%) so it really depends on the value of your property as to whether that £8.5k is good or not.

How motivated will Strike be to sell your property when they get the 2k whether you sell or not? Compare that to a traditional EA who ONLY gets paid anything if the property gets sold and then gets successfully to completion.

Online EAs are a false economy, in my opinion. Your property is probably your biggest asset so selling it is not the time to cut costs.

My DB was trying to buy a property for his DC, my nephew - from a buyers perspective they were awful , no replies, having to constantly chase so gave up on the properties listed with them and Purple Bricks and bought via a traditional EA. Made worse as DB was a cash buyer , no chain so should have been a no brainer - the local EA couldn’t do enough to help him ! From personal experience I prefer viewing without the sellers there , but that’s personal preference

Agree on the false economy. The estate agent knowledge of the local market can be very valuable - particularly in a market like this. You can talk to them about what's sold locally. They'll know genuine sold prices, not just asking, they'll know how many people are out there actively looking at relevant places etc. They'll go round viewings with people and be able to give you useful information about what is/isn't selling your place. You'll get none of that with an online agent - just an expensive advert.

Plus in my experience the bulk of the work an estate agent does tends to be after the offer is made. A good agent will deal with survey queries - protect you from the buyer to some extent, advise you (and the buyer) when/if they start trying to get money off, start making crazy ultimatums etc.
Your agent will also talk to the agent of the property you are buying - and maybe even others in the chain, doing everything they can to keep the chain together and on track when issues arise with yours or other people's chains. That agent is worth every penny.

Thanks all, useful to hear others experience with YOPA. We met the agent and he seemed good, the package we would go for would include them doing all viewings (I definitely don't like the owners being there either and wouldn't want to walk people through my home and hear their opinions like that) and more than just online agent/advert. I hadn't considered buyers being put off using them because of the online appointments aspect or bad experiences in the past. The house we put an offer on is being sold by YOPA (in a different area with different agent) and that's how we heard of them. Also hadn't considered the chasing etc once house had sold. Food for thought....

I tried to view a house with Yopa but they ignored my request, they eventually scheduled another date for more than a week later but by then I'd already had an offer accepted on another house. Have since had emails asking for feedback on my viewing, which I had obviously cancelled. Would not recommend.

Hi there @hopefullyTTC2x how did you get on in the end? We are buying a house in another town via YOPA and although the agent is a bit too laid back for our liking and not always available, we decided to also sell via YOPA for the same reasons you did. Also, a neighbour is also selling a similar property to ours and is using a fancy high street agent who's not doing a great job, sending her more than 2 dozen viewers who clearly didn't/don't want her house. She's even started dropping the price out of desperation, which is annoying and doesn't help us much. But we've only had a handful of viewings but we consider them more quality viewings as opposed to her agent just sending round literally anyone on their books. Others have pointed to the progression process and we too are worried about that. Exactly what is the YOPA agent's incentive to work hard at that? We're not sure.

Our young agent seemed very motivated at first but we've realised his communication is actually pretty poor, he's more reactive than pro-active, doesn't make the "customer care" calls to us he promised, so we've started keeping in touch with our viewers via the Hub to make sure they have our numbers in case, they too, cannot get hold of him. In fact, we did get an offer, took the house off the market, only for him to go AWOL for 3 days, literally couldn't get hold of him, and during that time the buyers pulled out. We don't know why or whether it was his fault. His cards are now marked!! Anyway, really keen to know whether you got your house sold in the end and how the process went for you. Thanks! x

We used topa to sell and buy and how house is currently on the market with them at the moment. We actually chose the no sale no fee as the market is currently slow where we are right now and we wanted to buy a specific house which has now been sold unfortunately. So we can take our house off the market if we choose to and have only lost out on the home report cost.

No sale no fee is completely standard with estate agents - you shouldn’t be paying for anything unless your sale goes through. (Though it sounds like you’re in Scotland so maybe it’s different there.)

Yes we are in Scotland
I believe we would be paying hourly rates on any work they've done for us plus listing fees, measuring, photos etc

I had yopa to sell my late mums house. Despite booking her to do viewings the only 3 we had were when she was on holiday so we had to do them. She never answered messages or questions. Basically I paid £1400 for a rightmove advert cus that's all they did. House was on for months. I got a local agent who sold after 1 week on his books and charged £1800. I did complete that the agent hadn't done anything to warrant being paid but yopa still wanted the money. Wouldn't touch them with a bargepole .

Complain*

Loobyloo68 ·
Yopa overvalue to get your business and then expect you to reduce the price soon after. Our agent would not do weekend viewings which we did not know at the time. We will lose our £1199 buy now pay later but new estate agent does weekend viewings which I am sure will benefit us. Would avoid Yopa as once they are entitled to the fee, they have no reason to provide a good service.

We sold with purple bricks. We were not in a chain. The price was 10% of what we would have paid with a high street estate agent.

The selling part was easy. We may have put some people off with not having an estate agent to phone but hopefully not many. We gave our buyers what an estate agent could never give them - an hour and a half viewing on a Saturday when they booked it the day before, accurate answers about the house on the spot and an ability to wander the house by themselves.

The next part was harder. You are basically on your own getting the sale through and a person in the middle would have been really helpful to navigate the process. Things were probably slower as a result.

I would do it again if I was selling with no chain and the timings didn’t matter too much. I wouldn’t do it in a chain if it meant I could loose out on a house I really wanted because part of the chain is purple bricks.

So how did it go @hopefullyTTC2x ?

If you are pricing to sell/in an area of high demand it probably makes little difference whether you use an online or traditional agent.

People want houses and if they are in good areas and priced appropriately then they will sell easily.

It's when you want more that the market is willing to easily provide/your house is in an undesirable area/state that things start getting tricky.

Are some buyers daft enough to actively 'avoid' looking at a property if it's marketed by a non-traditional EA? Wearing my buyer's hat, I think I would view a house regardless of the name on the EA board.

We had the worst experience ever with Yopa. Diabolical experience from start to finish. I’m not the first to note the shocking incompetence of David Rothwell at Yopa who was assigned to market and sell our Preston (Lancashire) property and I have no doubt I won’t be the last. Extremely poor communication from the moment you sign up and boy, do I wish I hadn’t! Doesn’t answer calls/voicemails/texts… nothing for literally weeks at a time… the longest response time was 6 WHOLE WEEKS!! Zero feedback from viewings, mainly because he wasn’t completing the viewings but was still marking them as ‘complete’ or ‘cancelled on the system! Our property was vacant so David was supposed to be conducting all of the viewings. I took it upon myself to contact all of the people on The Hub to ask for feedback- some said they were rejected for a viewing because they’d been told by the agent we had taken it off the market, some who were marked as ‘complete’ never even had a viewing because David himself was a no-show, one lady who was very keen to buy said she tried numerous times to get a viewing but the appointment kept getting cancelled by the agent! On the advert, the virtual tour didn’t upload properly and was of poor quality, listing went live prior to approval and our requested changes were never actioned. No For Sale sign for 3 months.THREE VIEWINGS IN 98 DAYS. Tried to make me go to auction which was absolutely ridiculous and unnecessary!! I had no choice but to switch estate agents and still had to pay for the pleasure of doing so. Whole experience was utterly bizarre and dodgy. Complaint filed. Ombudsman contacted. Moved to Guildhall who were great and sold our property within 2 weeks of switching!