Estate agents.

OldCarlos

OldCarlos

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Anyone sold their property via these online sites? (Tepilo, Purple bricks .........etc)

Are local bricks & mortar estate agents still worth using these days? (at a larger cost of course) as everything tends to be on Right Move.
 
I know a few people who've sold through Purple Bricks and been happy with them. Like you say everyone just searches online now anyway.

When we were looking for a house a couple of years ago, the searches that the Estate Agents came up for me, generally didn't fill a single criteria I'd given them.
 
Apart from a local estate agent accompanying viewings of potential purchasers if the seller is out at work, what are the benefits of still using them these days, as opposed to `on line`?
 
OldCarlos said:
Apart from a local estate agent accompanying viewings of potential purchasers if the seller is out at work, what are the benefits of still using them these days, as opposed to `on line`?
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I dunno tbh.

They say they negotiate on your behalf, but that's a load of rubbish, since all it involves is them being the middle man in the conversation of:

"I offer £x"
"No"
"Ok, how about £x?"
"yeah go on then"
 
It's not in an estate agent's interest to pass on offers - they usually work on a percentage of the selling price. When I bought this place, I dealt with the sellers rather than the agents.
 
I know you can barter with their % fees & even agree a sliding scale with some, but not really sure what the benefit of using a local agency would be these days, apart from a few photo's in a shop window?
 
OldCarlos said:
but not really sure what the benefit of using a local agency would be these days, apart from a few photo's in a shop window?
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The big advantage as I see it, they can form relationships with their buyers, so know whats about to come up for sale and let them know. Maybe a bigger deal in London then elsewhere
 
boyfalldown said:
The big advantage as I see it, they can form relationships with their buyers, so know whats about to come up for sale and let them know. Maybe a bigger deal in London then elsewhere
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Indeed, and no just that. A good one should be able to reduce the amount of time wasters, saving you time and effort to deal with them. And along the process of the actual purchase. I agree the power of advertising has gone a little, depending on what market you are in, but you are basically paying them to close the deal on your behalf and handle all the stuff where your own time is more valuable.

In addition I think it should still not be underestimate the marketing, presentation, the wording required to make/get a sale (again it varies by market segment). Not many people are good at presenting that and it could take a lot longer. Then there is setting the price as well.

Yes a lot can be done online, and for those confident enough to deal with it themselves there is some money to be saved.
 
Nod said:
It's not in an estate agent's interest to pass on offers - they usually work on a percentage of the selling price. When I bought this place, I dealt with the sellers rather than the agents.
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It's illegal for them not to inform the vendor of an offer.
 
dejongj said:
Indeed, and no just that. A good one should be able to reduce the amount of time wasters, saving you time and effort to deal with them. And along the process of the actual purchase. I agree the power of advertising has gone a little, depending on what market you are in, but you are basically paying them to close the deal on your behalf and handle all the stuff where your own time is more valuable.

In addition I think it should still not be underestimate the marketing, presentation, the wording required to make/get a sale (again it varies by market segment). Not many people are good at presenting that and it could take a lot longer. Then there is setting the price as well.

Yes a lot can be done online, and for those confident enough to deal with it themselves there is some money to be saved.
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Unfortunately a lot of their attempts to reduce time wasters, just puts the buyers backs up. When we bought the house that we live in, the Estate Agent threatened to not pass on our offer unless we made an appointment with their mortgage advisor first. They soon changed their mind when I told them that in that case, I'd pop over to the house and make the offer in person, whilst letting the vendors know that their estate agents were acting illegally.
 
Nod said:
It's not in an estate agent's interest to pass on offers - they usually work on a percentage of the selling price. When I bought this place, I dealt with the sellers rather than the agents.
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It is an estate agent's legal obligation to pass any and all offers to the vendor.

KitsuneAndy said:
It's illegal for them not to inform the vendor of an offer.
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Oh b****r...too slow Ruth :D
 
KitsuneAndy said:
Unfortunately a lot of their attempts to reduce time wasters, just puts the buyers backs up. When we bought the house that we live in, the Estate Agent threatened to not pass on our offer unless we made an appointment with their mortgage advisor first. They soon changed their mind when I told them that in that case, I'd pop over to the house and make the offer in person, whilst letting the vendors know that their estate agents were acting illegally.
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Unfortunately just like in any place of work there are always rotten apples who don't quite understand it and try and blag their way through their job.
 
dejongj said:
Unfortunately just like in any place of work there are always rotten apples who don't quite understand it and try and blag their way through their job.
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It's the risk of any commission based enterprise, as I'd imagine they'd get a cut from anyone who used their, rather expensive, in house advisors.
 
I would avoid Tepilo though.
Just can't abide that Sarah Beeny woman!
 
KitsuneAndy said:
It's the risk of any commission based enterprise, as I'd imagine they'd get a cut from anyone who used their, rather expensive, in house advisors.
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Indeed, I think part of the problem is when businesses make more money outside their corebusiness from sideline services. That is where in my opinion it all goes wrong. I mean if they can't make enough money selling their products it is not value add to offer something else, it is time to reconsider what the business is truly about.
 
dejongj said:
Then there is setting the price as well.
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Yeah I can understand that. They obviously know the local market & smaller areas within that & are better placed to advise on realistic asking prices etc.

If I was to use an online agency, I would still get a couple of locals round first.
 
KitsuneAndy said:
It's illegal for them not to inform the vendor of an offer.
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Was it 27 or so years ago? When I bought, I made the offer through the agents and when they didn't phone me back when they said they would, I spoke to the vendors who hadn't been contacted despite the wife having been in all day. The agents seemed quite put out that I'd taken matters into my own hands.
 
Online and High St Agents have roughly the same internet marketing tools available to them. The difference is the processing of the sale from offer accepted to exchange/completion.

Most of the online companies claim they process their link of the chain as a part of their fee, but they don't. A close friend of mine runs an agency and has done for about 35 years. According to him in order for a chain, that includes an online agent, to be properly processed the traditional agents end up having to take up the slack that's left by the lack of any effort by the onliner. I suppose you could argue that that's great if you're using the online agent, at least you know that someone is pushing it along.

A lot of the better quality High St agents will employ someone in-house specifically to process their sales. Invariably they will have a pretty solid knowledge of the whole conveyancing process and will be able to sense if anything is awry and take the appropriate action.

Regarding being forced to have an appointment to see the mortgage adviser of the agent you're offering through, the agent has a duty of care to their vendor to check that their potential buyers finances are suitably robust. However, that check doesn't always guarantee there will be no problems. In my mates experience, more than once an old, forgotten CCJ can scupper a deal further on down the line.........
 
Gupster said:
Online and High St Agents have roughly the same internet marketing tools available to them. The difference is the processing of the sale from offer accepted to exchange/completion.

Most of the online companies claim they process their link of the chain as a part of their fee, but they don't. A close friend of mine runs an agency and has done for about 35 years. According to him in order for a chain, that includes an online agent, to be properly processed the traditional agents end up having to take up the slack that's left by the lack of any effort by the onliner. I suppose you could argue that that's great if you're using the online agent, at least you know that someone is pushing it along.

A lot of the better quality High St agents will employ someone in-house specifically to process their sales. Invariably they will have a pretty solid knowledge of the whole conveyancing process and will be able to sense if anything is awry and take the appropriate action.

Regarding being forced to have an appointment to see the mortgage adviser of the agent you're offering through, the agent has a duty of care to their vendor to check that their potential buyers finances are suitably robust. However, that check doesn't always guarantee there will be no problems. In my mates experience, more than once an old, forgotten CCJ can scupper a deal further on down the line.........
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There is a duty of care after a fashion (though not laid down it must happen), but they cannot insist on any financial consultation, and they can't hold up the process because of it.
They simply count on people being intimidated.
 
When we sold my Wifes mothers Bungalow the Estate agent seemed to do the least amount of work possible for their Money, in fact their Plan of the Bungalow was so bad that I told it was a load of "crap" and to do it again and it then sold immediately
 
Working as I do (at present) for an Estate Agent as a viewing guide I am perhaps biased.
But, we do work hard at pointing out all the plus points of a property gained by local knowledge which online agents probably don't, in addition we post our stuff into Rightmove etc, so no local agent then maybe limited online data. In addition our negotiators and solicitor do try and make the whole process as stress free for both parties as possible. We do try and match applicants to properties but sometimes people buy a property that wasn't matching their original criteria, I certainly fell into that category.
As often is the case someone else's job looks easy from the outside and recent events have caused some anxiety to both purchasers and sellers, our guys have been trying very hard to keep people informed of the market without causing panic or over inflating prices.
So, yes from an outside point of view I would still favour an established Agent over an online method.
Matt
 
I used an online agent when I moved six years ago. Cost me £800 vs the £4k-ish I was being quoted by the high street agents in the town I was living. I used them for two things - the board outside the house and the listing on Rightmove. The house sold for what I wanted and I negotiated with my buyers.

I don't know what "processing the sale" is, but I talked to the people I was buying from and their agent, and the people who were buying for me when I needed to, which was very rarely. My time is valuable, but the amount I expended on the house sale that an agent would have done was not worth £3,000!

Gupster said:
Regarding being forced to have an appointment to see the mortgage adviser of the agent you're offering through, the agent has a duty of care to their vendor to check that their potential buyers finances are suitably robust. However, that check doesn't always guarantee there will be no problems. In my mates experience, more than once an old, forgotten CCJ can scupper a deal further on down the line.........
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My solicitor checked that my buyer was in a financial position to proceed, I thought they all did, not the estate agents.
 
The people round the corner from us used Housesimple to sell their place. Having read the reviews on Trustpilot though, I don't know why anyone would touch them with a bargepole. o_O
 
OldCarlos said:
Apart from a local estate agent accompanying viewings of potential purchasers if the seller is out at work, what are the benefits of still using them these days, as opposed to `on line`?
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Nowt as far as I can tell.
 
House buying and selling 100% racket. It should be able to be done for next to nothing with today's technology. There are far to many so called professionals with vested interest. It's not like you can steel a house!
 
shapeshifter said:
House buying and selling 100% racket. It should be able to be done for next to nothing with today's technology. There are far to many so called professionals with vested interest. It's not like you can steel a house!
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I am afraid you can and it has happened, but that is down to the solicitor. Please also don't forget that an Estate Agent has a duty to ensure the sale isn't part of money laundering, do online Agents do that? If not would be liable?
Matt
 
shapeshifter said:
House buying and selling 100% racket. It should be able to be done for next to nothing with today's technology. There are far to many so called professionals with vested interest. It's not like you can steel a house!
Click to expand...

Some could say the same about photography... all you need is a £200 camera and away you go... why pay £2k for a wedding?

A good estate agent is like a good accountant, and should pay for itself.
 
There are that few properties for sale a good local agent will have a list of pre approved clients waiting to view a property as soon as it comes on the market, we had 3 agents out for my late fathers house, 2 national chains and a local guy, of the 3 the local guy gave us the best vibe as well as the highest valuation, we instructed on the friday, saturday afternoon I was working in the garden when the first viewers came round, then 2 more in the next 30 minutes, by 5pm we had an offer £500 under asking from a first time buyer

The first valuation was 10k under what it sold for , if we'd put it on the internet ourselves we could have sold it for 10K less or been inundated with offers from people who hadn't even got a mortgage offer in place

well worth £1000 + VAT
 
I'm trying to buy a house ATM. The 2 I like, one is with PurpleBricks and one Tepilo. If either had been with a traditional estate agent I'd probably have bought it by now....

A good estate agent will advise you on how to respond to offers, how to negotiate and generally act as an emotionless filter between the 2 parties. With PurpleBricks the vendor has put it on at an ambitious price and would only accept a very close offer in order to "remove it from the market". A week later he told us it was back on the market but if we wanted to buy it later at the same price then we could. Since I quite like the house I didn't explain just how ridiculous this is but it's unlikely we'll buy it. Also, due to the way the s/w works, 6 weeks later I know he's only had one other viewing ;)
 
JonathanRyan said:
I'm trying to buy a house ATM. The 2 I like, one is with PurpleBricks and one Tepilo. If either had been with a traditional estate agent I'd probably have bought it by now....

A good estate agent will advise you on how to respond to offers, how to negotiate and generally act as an emotionless filter between the 2 parties. With PurpleBricks the vendor has put it on at an ambitious price and would only accept a very close offer in order to "remove it from the market". A week later he told us it was back on the market but if we wanted to buy it later at the same price then we could. Since I quite like the house I didn't explain just how ridiculous this is but it's unlikely we'll buy it. Also, due to the way the s/w works, 6 weeks later I know he's only had one other viewing ;)
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they sound like greedy people who've watched to much Phil & Kirstie, the advice given to us was never remove it from the market until exchange of contracts so he just took names in order of who could complete first

More than ever I'm convinced using an estate agent is the right thing to do, our buyers were eastern european, he managed to keep them on track even after Brexit , was 100% convinced they wanted it from the start but they tried to save some money using an online solicitor who was utterly useless , it dragged out for 3 months until he advised us he had other buyers lining up to buy it so give the buyers solicitors a deadline or it's back on the market , it worked,, they guy hassled them that much we completed today , he even drove 150 miles to go and bang on their door

had I been doing the negotiating with the emotion of losing a parent and selling a house I'm sure it would have fallen apart
 
There's an old adage - ' you get what you pay for' . A good local Estate Agent are worth their weight in gold - they know the local market and they will usually have buyers lined up waiting for property to come on the market. They can also advise what is achievable price wise and what is unrealistic. They also smooth the process as I certainly don't want to have to negotiate with a purchaser and vet them I'd rather let someone else take the strain and have the hassle and that to me is worth the money and as previously said they will normally pay for themselves.
 
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