Long story short is that, following my Mum’s death and a lengthy (partly self inflicted) probate, my brother and I are selling my Mum’s house. It’s been a while since I’ve had to use an Estate Agent and I have mostly not had great experiences. Since then, Rightmove (and others) seem to have transformed the market and what used to be a locally run marketing campaign by a bricks and mortar Estate Agent now seems to be, largely, a gateway to Rightmove for the same percentage fee.
There are a large number of online only estate agents which have a range of fixed fee services which can either be paid up front or on a no win, no fee basis. With some flavours in between.
Does anyone have any experience of selling online only? Did it work and would you do it again?
we have recently sold the family house for both sets of deceased parents and in both cases used a local bricks and mortar estate agent. Buyers have questions, and having the estate agent as the first port of call when we were (in both cases) hundreds of miles away is invaluable.
In my experience realtors as they are called here have been pretty helpful. Kind of project managing the buying and selling process from start to finish. Of course you need a good one and they take a hefty fee for what they do. My experience in the UK was pretty mixed. I learnt to not go with the one you like necessarily
I meant physical ones
It’s been four years since I used ‘Purplebricks’ to sell my parents house. I lived nearby wasn’t working at the time and did all the viewings etc myself. I spent much of my career in sales so I was up for the task. It went fairly well except I had to interfere when the photographer allocated had no experience at all so I managed to get it reallocated to a pro who was definately worth the money(part of the package). I thought the ‘agent’ allocated from Purplebricks was ‘playing’ me at times. He started proceedings by seriously undervaluing the house(would he have someone lined up to purchase – who knows?) the value we asked was the value we ended up selling for.
I didn’t realise until later that we could claim estate agent fee’s against our capital gains tax(please check for up to date information/clarification). I actually preferred to keep as much money as possible away from the estate agents.
Everyones circumstances are different so please talk to someone who knows about this process and get sound advice.
PS – I have heard that ‘Purplebricks’ has not been performing as it once did. I’m sure others are available but I have no experience of using them.
Good luck.
Purplebricks was sold to Strike in 2023 for £1.
Yes I vaguely remember hearing this. I hope my comments above can be of help in general. I have no idea who leads that market these days.
As somebody who has bought and sold a few times in recent years i would offer the following insight:
Put aside any frustrations about what the Agent actually does for their money (a Right Move account costs them £000’s per month – that is a big chunk of where your fee goes), and instead look at the things they will do for your own situation.
The local ‘proper’ estate agents will oversee booking and attending your viewings.
The online ones generally expect you to do that yourself.
So, if you have the time and inclination to loiter around for viewers, some of whom will be a no-show, then you can save a few quid for your efforts.
If you want to effectively delegate all that malarkey, then go traditional.
Good luck with the sale – can be a tricky time.
This, living hundreds of miles away and with two full time jobs (lucky we know) we were in no position to do this kind of work.
I should add the day after the sale on my parents house (an old complex one) completed our estate agent rang and said ‘the purchaser has a few more questions’, could you give them a ring.
Absolutely not. The sale has completed, we answered many many questions in the months the sale took to go through, but the completion was exactly that. the purchaser not having your mobile number etc. is worth a chunk of fee in itself. It is a business decision in the end and the more you get directly involved with a purchaser…
For one of our moves, we had a real-world (non-online) estate agent, but there always seemed to be an excuse why nobody was available to show round a prospective buyer. So we had to do it ourselves and still ended up having to pay the agent for their “help” when we finally sold.
I can’t help re online-only agents as I’ve never used one, but if their arrival has made the older type of agents improve their service, then good luck to them.
I sold my mum’s flat with a bricks & mortar agent. I looked at online agents and I expect if you have a highly des res property and glitch free conveyancing its fine but I’m our case the agent progress chaser earned their fee on his own. Everything which could go wrong did go wrong and Tony at the agent was like a terrier in keeping it going. The agent is the only one who can can speak to everyone and there’s value in that.
Another vote for brick and mortar.
I’ve had to use them twice in the last few years – in the first case they sold my dad’s house for a few thousand above the asking price. In the second case, they couldn’t shift my Aunt’s run down bungalow- so it went to auction – all organised by them barring a little paperwork, where it was sold for slightly less than the initial asking price.
Thanks for the advice everyone. It’s been really helpful in getting to decision.