Selling Without an Estate Agent

[googler]

...and...

Lots of agents are leaving Rightmove.

Rightmove isn't the leader in all areas of the country.

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'negotiate hard on the fee' - where's this gonna get you? Is it going to motivate the agent to do a good job for you? If you negotiate a fee of 0.5%, and the agent is getting paid 1.5% for (say) Jeremy & Jemimah's house a few doors along from yours, which one will get the most selling effort from him/her?

You get what you pay for, and you don't get what you don't pay for.

[googler]

Just had a look at your site, self-sale, and IMHO you need an urgent revision/enhancement.

I searched for 'Scotland' - location not found!, it says.
Searched for East Lothian - same result

NOTE - it's not saying it can't find any properties in the area, it's saying it doesn't even recognise the placename ...

Searched for Edinburgh, and the site showed me half a dozen properties in Lancashire......

Some work needed here, methinks.....

Again, why would I, or anyone else, place their property for sale on a site like this that promises to 'sell' their property at considerable discount against other methods, when
(a) the site is so immature that it hardly has any properties listed,
(b) the webmaster can't, or hasn't bothered to get, a decent search facility.....

Oh, yes - it feeds into Rightmove. Yippee.

So do the websites that have more properties, and the websites that have decent search facilities.

[bassboy76]

Further to Googler "And lots of estate agents are leaving Rightmove"...I'm not sure what point you're trying to make with that statement however I can tell you that agents are not leaving Rightmove, agents are going out of business.

A very different scenario I think you'll agree!?

I haven't substantiated that point but if you doubt it, may I suggest you mozy over to EstateAgencyNews and read some of Bob North's excellent analysis of the portal market.

[googler]

Either estateagencytoday or estateagencynews, something like that - front page and blogs suggest agents leaving in droves 'cos Rightmove putting prices up.... google the words 'leaving rightmove' and search result no. 1 has the title "Three quarters of agents threaten to quit Rightmove" ... from estateagenttoday.

Previous poster sez 'list with an agent who uses Rightmove', and 'most buyers search with Rightmove' - my point is

Why do that when Rightmove is apparently having less and less influence on the market due to three quarters of its agents leaving it?

Also, why place your home on Rightmove when, although it might have high traffic for the UK generally, it doesn't hold sway in certain areas of the country (especially those North of Englandshire). I'd suggest in my neck of the woods that 'most people' start searching elsewhere.

[james198]

I used a great website instead of little house company. They only posy on fish4 and cost arounf £130. I use urbansalesandlettings instread, it cost me £99.95 , the use rightmove, findaproperty, primelocation and fish4 AND were really helpful in getting the sale through once we had an offer... Iwoudl check them out.. worth the 100 quid..

[james198]

I used a great website instead of the little house company, they only post on fish4 and cost around £130. I use urbansalesandlettings instead, it cost me £99.95 , they use rightmove, findaproperty, primelocation and fish4 AND were really helpful in getting the sale through once we had an offer... I would check them out.. worth the 100 quid..

[Homeseller]

Having read this thread with interest, it strikes me that it's a flawed argument to say that an online estate agent is only going to be succesful if they have properties for sale in your area. As a seller, who cares? So long as the property is marketed successfully then the buyers will come and make an offer. Marketing these days is all about the internet, making high street estate agents and their expensive overheads (i.e. the traditional business model) somewhat obsolete. As a buyer, who cares (again)? Most people use the portals to find property firstly even if they are moving locally because they aggregate all the local agents' property in one or two places. Much easier than trawling the high street. So providing that the online estate agents are registered with one or two of the portals then they will reach the buyers.

I think there's a place for online estate agents and private sales sites. I'm not saying there isn't a place for traditional estate agents (that would be foolhardy given they occupy most of the market!) but given the different pricing models there is surely a place for all. Different levels of service for different price structures. You pays your money and you takes your choice. I would say its foolhardy, to say the least, that traditional estate agency in it's current form is the ONLY way forward.

Hope someone reads this. This forum seems a little quiet.

[googler]

"Having read this thread with interest, it strikes me that it's a flawed argument to say that an online estate agent is only going to be succesful if they have properties for sale in your area. As a seller, who cares?"

Not quite what I said; there's no advantage to these immature online websites or online agencies if they can't have a proper search facility, and if they don't have any properties in the area of sale. As a seller, I would care how much web traffic any chosen website is achieving at present, since that will give me a good idea of how many people will see my property when I place it there. If the website already has a good range of properties in my area, then that also suggests that lots of people will look there when I put mine on it. If it looks as though nobody will be looking at the website, why would I want to advertise my property there?

"So long as the property is marketed successfully then the buyers will come and make an offer. Marketing these days is all about the internet, making high street estate agents and their expensive overheads (i.e. the traditional business model) somewhat obsolete. As a buyer, who cares (again)?"

Successful marketing isn't about throwing the property on a website and wishing people would look at it. It's about placing it on a successful website where people are already looking, and are expecting to find properties in the area of sale. It's also about getting a wide spread of promotional activity, of which the internet exposure is just one part.

Buyers care about the method of exposure because they all look for property in different ways; it's not 'all about the internet' because, believe it or not, there's still people who don't have a computer. There's still people who travel to where they want to live, and look for sale boards, and look in agents' windows. The people without internet access still look at printed property guides and press adverts. People from outside an area phone up the agents in the area and get them to tell them about what they have for sale in the area before travelling to view.

"Most people use the portals to find property firstly even if they are moving locally because they aggregate all the local agents' property in one or two places. Much easier than trawling the high street. So providing that the online estate agents are registered with one or two of the portals then they will reach the buyers."

Most people in my neck of the woods use the websites of the traditional high street agents, because that's where most of the properties are to be found. Portals like Rightmove are filled with new-builds in my area, but the vast majority of the pre-owned houses are on the agents' websites (and in their printed property guides, and in their windows, and in their press adverts)

"I think there's a place for online estate agents and private sales sites. I'm not saying there isn't a place for traditional estate agents (that would be foolhardy given they occupy most of the market!) but given the different pricing models there is surely a place for all. Different levels of service for different price structures. You pays your money and you takes your choice. I would say its foolhardy, to say the least, that traditional estate agency in it's current form is the ONLY way forward."

I'd ask you to define 'traditional', as it's the high-street agents in my area that have the leading websites. There may well be a 'place for all', but all I'm asking is 'Why use the immature online agents' sites when the traditional agents are getting all the web traffic?'. I don't see any reason to pay a miniscule fee just to put my house on a website that nobody will look at.

You pays your money, you takes your choice. I'd say - You get what you pay for, you don't get what you don't pay for.

"Hope someone reads this. This forum seems a little quiet."

One person read it at least. TTFN.

[drhouse]

I agree with Googler on this. There is so much more to marketing than throwing a property on a website. I currently use several free sites but most of them are hardly looked at at all, although I hope Property Live will come through. I am probably wasting my time with these but you never know !
Lots of people start a search on the internet but that doesn't mean they ignore the estate agents. I find they do want to talk to someone who can give them the information that isn't there or call us to see if there is anything else we have that might suit.

[Homeseller]

Interesting stuff.

Googler - what "promotional activity" are you referring to? Is it truly effective? I mean to say : what other pro-active action can an estate agent really do to bring business in other than somehow attract buyers to his door by more passive methods like the internet? Sure, there's advertising, local papers, leaflet distribution etc etc but is any of it really as effective as the internet and the ever more successful property portals?

How do you know that "Most people in my neck of the woods use the websites of the traditional high street agents" ? What evidence is there that this traffic did not come from Rightmove (or equivalent) in the first place? Rightmove is filled with new-builds in your area? I bet it's not! Which area are you talking about?

I hasten to add that in some respects I can see your point (as I said before local estate agents have 99.9% of the market at the moment) but I think that there is a head in the sand attitude here which is exemplified by your comments about Rightmove. Things are changing, I think. Moreover, I genuinely hope you won't take any of this personally because I am hoping that you will defend your argument - I am genuinely interested. By the way, I'm not connected with any estate agent (online or otherwise) nor any portal!