Should you use Online Agents?
Should you use an online estate agent?
Q: If you sell privately, what is the key in selling your home?
A: Buyers.
There are many other factors involved in selling, such as finding top tips to sell your home, or you may need to find a company that provides online conveyancing, or you may need to investigate what a (HIP) Home Information Pack actually is before you buy one online.
However, the one thing that you will need to address is finding buyers for your home.
The question now should be:
Where can I get a buyer for my home, through a local estate agent or with one of these new online estate agencies?
One thing is for certain…. the buyers are mostly coming through the internet.
It is estimated that there is in the region of 14 million visitors a month going to the top property web sites that host properties marketed by estate agents only. Fish4homes, Primelocation, Rightmove, Findaproperty and propertyfinder are just some of these sites.
The problem is this though. If these online property sites are only available to estate agents, how can you advertise on them directly? You can´t, it´s that simple. However, if you´d like to avoid paying the local estate agency fee for them just putting your property on one of these sites and sending that buyer straight to you, then you may like to consider marketing your home with one of a new breed of online-only estate agents.
When you market with an online estate agent, you are still likely to be charged a fee for selling plus an up-front marketing fee. The advantage is that you will still pay a much lower amount than you are likely to pay a high street estate agent. Most of these online agencies will put your home on the largest property portals and you will benefit from their bulk buying of the advertising.
Is there any other way?
A new breed of online estate agent is on the way, where you need only pay a modest advertising fee. That´s where the cost ends. These agents will place your property for sale on their site, and a whole host of other property web sites, and will allow you to deal with the buyers direct. Advice, and additional estate agency services, will be available, but at extra cost.
You choose. In most cases, you will end up showing the buyer around. But in the online case, you´ll perhaps save several thousand pounds.
To view an example of an International, worldwide, for sale by owner site, go to BuyMyVilla. There are properties for sale worldwide, and each property is advertised privately or by carefully selected online agents.
Other articles on this subject : sell your property online
Gatehouse Estates