Selling your house online, the estate agent alternatives
Here’s the dilemma – you want to sell a house online simply because you don’t want to pay huge estate agency fees, right? Maybe that’s how you arrived here, typing into Google something like ‘property private sale’ or ‘online estate agents‘. Well the fact is that many home sellers just like you are avoiding traditional estate agents and marketing their houses online in a bid to save saving thousands of pounds. But is this a false economy?
Granted, many high street agents fees are between 1.5% and 2% whereas the online equivalent fees may typically be around £250 to £1,000. But to save money, you need to actually get a sale at the price your property is worth and within a reasonable timescale.
Getting a Sale and Choosing an Online Estate Agent
To start with you need people to view your home, therefore choosing an online agent could in itself be confusing. Many of them have an array of ‘add ons’ or ‘menu items’ build your package and before you know it, it may have been cheaper to use a conventional estate agent! The most important aspect is to ensure that the properties are advertised on all major portals, i.e. Rightmove and Zoopla among others. Without this, you just simply won’t get the exposure necessary to sell your house. Before approaching an online estate agent, find out your property value, use our fee property valuation tool and combine this with sold house prices data in tyour street from Land Registry and get some ideas as to how much is my house worth?
Doing the Estate Agent’s Job
Selling online usually means that you have to carry out the viewings yourself and also deal with the negotiations, something which a traditional estate agent may do better than you as they have years of experience and do just this on a daily basis.
Sound Advice From an Estate Agent
Alan Simpson of online estate agent House Tree based in South Yorkshire says “everyone thinks that an estate agent just simply advertises a property, conducts a viewing and hey presto, the property is sold and we can all go home, this is simply not the case.” Alan continues, “negotiations can take months, back and forth between buyer and seller, their solicitors, valuers and so on, it’s never a simple process, and we tend to get more from the buyer than if the vendor deals directly”.
House Tree has been forced to move with the times, as well as having a traditional estate agency, Alan says ‘yes we’ve had to adapt to the market and now have a slimmed down service whereby vendors have to do their own viewings, but we do all the negotiations when a buyer is found’. This service Alan says costs just £695 for any property, a bargain when you consider properties are listed on all major portals.
Selling Your Home Online – Don’t Forget the Basics !
Naturally selling your house yourself does mean that you should still follow some basic rules on housekeeping, ie tidying up and presenting your home in it’s best possible light for any viewings. Follow these handy tips for selling your house.
Sell a house online, Is it worth it?
It really depends on whether you are a good negotiator, marketer, photographer (the list goes on), and can deal with what is probably a very stressful process, particularly so as you will be emotionally involved in the house sale process. If an estate agent can get you more money simply by doing their job thoroughly and professionally, negotiating a higher price, then surely this covers any increased fees that you’ve had to pay? Or try us, Flying Homes, again this may be a little more expensive, but consider a fast sale of your home within an agreed timescale, stress and hassle free and you may think it’s worth selling your house fast as opposed to selling online!
Call Flying homes now, or complete the enquiry form for an instant quote and see what we can do for you! 0800 669 6784
