Bbc Article - Why Estate Agents?

[Self Employed Youth]

http://www.bbc.co.uk...siness-22123316

For thousands of people the start of spring means the beginning of the house-hunting season.It is also time to ponder one of life's unanswered questions: How do estate agents have the cheek to charge a king's ransom for selling a house?

If that is your view, have you thought of trying to sell it yourself?

This year that should become easier, as the government is changing the rules on selling houses over the internet.

Private sale websites that help you find a buyer for your property will be given new freedom to operate.

As a result, sellers could save thousands of pounds. But is it really a good idea, or could you end up wasting, rather than saving, money?

How does it work?Selling your house DIY style means exactly that.

When you sign up with a private sale website, they will send you a "For Sale" sign with your phone number on it to erect outside your house.

Get used to the graft of banging the sign into the ground, because from now on the task is only going to get harder.

You take the photographs, you show potential buyers round the property, you organise Energy Performance Certificates (EPC's), and above all, you negotiate on price with any potential buyer.

In return for the website posting your photos, and matching you with buyers, you will pay anything from £300 to £600.[/quote]

£300 seems excessive.

And the charges estate agents currently charge are absurd.

Good for HPC - the amount sellers save can be used to reduce prices?

Edited April 13, 2013 by Self Employed Youth

[AvoidDebt]

Good for HPC - the amount sellers save can be used to reduce prices?

You obviously know nothing about British homeowners

Fixed above for you.

Good for HPI - the amount sellers save can be used to book a cruise.

[Ash4781]

the last time google and i think Tesco tried to muscle on the estate agent sector the lobby groups went into overdrive. I have just heard an estate agent on 5live stating the things that they do! :-)

also when they tried to regulate them again the dolls were thrown out of the pram!

[the gardener]

Estate agents. What do they do?

Show people around your property and sell it to them? Well our one showed eleven potential buyers around ours. No sale. We showed one buyer around. We got the sale straight away.

Negotiate with buyers? No. We had to do that too.

The house we bought, the vendor showed us round too.

Screen potential buyers? Nope. Never happened to us.

Screen potential vendors? Now that would have been useful in our case. Didn't happen.

Liaise with each other and between buyers and vendors? Hardly any of that. I ended up communicating directly with our buyer and vendor directly. It would have been really helpful to have someone talk some sense to the vendor and explain reality to them but again I had to do that too.

Put up a for sale sign. Again I had to do that.

Bring some professionalism to the house buying and selling process? Nope. Our vendor's EA did nothing except play games, eg lying, not returning calls etc. Our own EA encouraged us to play games, e.g. book viewings with the vendor's agent to show we were serious about walking away from our vendor who was mucking about. No matter that it would mean wasting my time and putting innocent vendors to a lot of trouble cleaning and tidying their houses all on a false pretence.

The only thing I can say that the EA did was advertise our house on Rightmove. At least we only paid 0.5% commission.

Honestly, if Rightmove ever let private sellers advertise on their site then it would be the end of the Estate Agent.

[Travisher]

Friends in the Buffalo USA didn't use an agent. They wrote their own advert saying how they had loved living in the house and how great it was to have raised a family in it but now it was too big for them. Every word the truth. They advertised it and sold it in a week for the asking price.

Tell truth, make your potential customers feel good about the place and earn their trust. How can an EA compete with that?

[porca misèria]

There's a make-or-break for cutting out the agent. Who's going to advertise?

If Rightmove and/or Zoopla takes up that baton then great. They have some issues to face: the agents who pay their fees won't be happy, and it would mean a lowering of standards for them. Agents are constrained by law, but a free-for-all site would surely see rapid inflation of inaccurate and exaggerated claims. This issue of law and accuracy is what's deterred some of the big names (Google and Tesco spring to mind) from flogging UK property online in the past.

If not then how are potential buyers going to hear of a place? The grapevine may work in one-off cases but won't scale if 'everyone' tries it.

The acid test will be what the likes of Rightmove, Zoopla, Google and Tesco do.

[Frank Hovis]

Houseweb offer this service:

The Agent-Free Approach

Did you know that over one-in-twenty properties are sold without an agent? With the advent of the Internet and HouseWeb, selling without an estate agent is now a very real alternative. The average saving of property sold using HouseWeb is over £4,000. It really works! With over 100,000 house hunters visiting HouseWeb each month, we've created the first and largest online marketplace for homeowners to sell direct. Read some of our customer's testimonials if you still need convincing. Sales Packages start at only £47.

Advertise your Home on HouseWeb

HouseWeb offers a comprehensive service section for homeowners wishing to skip the estate agent. We believe this to be the most efficient, affordable and cost-effective way to advertise your house to thousands of people in the UK and throughout the world. You simply enter your property description and HouseWeb instantly creates your advert. You can also display multiple photos with a full description of your property, and link a local map to help prospective buyers.

http://www.houseweb.co.uk/house/sell/diy/diysell.html

[southeast]

There's a make-or-break for cutting out the agent. Who's going to advertise?

If Rightmove and/or Zoopla takes up that baton then great. They have some issues to face: the agents who pay their fees won't be happy, and it would mean a lowering of standards for them. Agents are constrained by law, but a free-for-all site would surely see rapid inflation of inaccurate and exaggerated claims. This issue of law and accuracy is what's deterred some of the big names (Google and Tesco spring to mind) from flogging UK property online in the past.

If not then how are potential buyers going to hear of a place? The grapevine may work in one-off cases but won't scale if 'everyone' tries it.

The acid test will be what the likes of Rightmove, Zoopla, Google and Tesco do.

I think where an agent becomes useful is where a property is truly difficult to sell. They can convince people it is worth a look on the off chance they will fall in love. An online advert can not do this.

Also don't underestimate how stupid people are. I have a friend who is selling at the mo and some people get freaked by the most minor details that are insignificant and need someone to talk them round, his agent has at least appeared to help in this case.

Don't get me wrong i hate dealing with EAs and also the fees when selling. I guess online is a good route though if you have a really desirable property that people would be fighting over. Although without an agent in this case you may not get the desired bidding war.

What the industry really needs though is some sort of binding deposit upfront to stop all the breaking chains and time wasters, but no one is going to do something sensible like that are they oh no.....

[tomwatkins]

Estate agents. What do they do?

Show people around your property and sell it to them? Well our one showed eleven potential buyers around ours. No sale. We showed one buyer around. We got the sale straight away.

Negotiate with buyers? No. We had to do that too.

The house we bought, the vendor showed us round too.

Screen potential buyers? Nope. Never happened to us.

Screen potential vendors? Now that would have been useful in our case. Didn't happen.

Liaise with each other and between buyers and vendors? Hardly any of that. I ended up communicating directly with our buyer and vendor directly. It would have been really helpful to have someone talk some sense to the vendor and explain reality to them but again I had to do that too.

Put up a for sale sign. Again I had to do that.

Bring some professionalism to the house buying and selling process? Nope. Our vendor's EA did nothing except play games, eg lying, not returning calls etc. Our own EA encouraged us to play games, e.g. book viewings with the vendor's agent to show we were serious about walking away from our vendor who was mucking about. No matter that it would mean wasting my time and putting innocent vendors to a lot of trouble cleaning and tidying their houses all on a false pretence.

The only thing I can say that the EA did was advertise our house on Rightmove. At least we only paid 0.5% commission.

Honestly, if Rightmove ever let private sellers advertise on their site then it would be the end of the Estate Agent.

I book my own holidays (flights and hotels) but the majority still use Tommy Cook et al. Most people don't have the confidence and think it's super complicated. As a Chartered Surveyor it sill brasses me off that there are unqualified shysters masquerading as professionals in this field. I am all for Joe Public selling his own. They usually have a better idea that an EA anyway and would eventually lead to realistic prices IMO. once you could see that your over valued (by you) house had no takers you would be inclined to reduce it I would say.

[Spoony]

I thought there was a website set up years ago where one could sell their house without an agent??