Tips please

[bagnally]

We're selling our house privately in order to save money but it's frustrating. It costs so much money to put an ad in the local paper for a week that it's ridiculous! (£78.00).

I've put in on an internet site, home.co.uk which cost £100 odd. Done an ad in the Guardian but that is due to finish soon and can't keep putting money into adverts that are so small and at the back of a newspaper.

Printed off and put ads in local shops and emailed friends etc and done the facebook thing. Any tips on how on earth the estate agents do it and get so much coverage?

I know they have control over a lot of the major internet sites so selling privately is limited. We don't have much money to spend on advertising so our options are limited.

Any ideas as well how long it take a property to sell on average?

[brian]

Well...estate agents are expected to have experience with marketing as an integral part of their business and be able to advertise widely, not least via property portals.

Now you're finding out that you're having to learn how to do marketing yourself.

How much money are you actually going to end up saving?? Surely there are reasonable fixed-fee estate agents near where you live??

[IFA]

Sounds as if you are finding out the hard way that an estate agency fee is in fact good value for money.

Estate agents can often get advertising space more cheaply than members of the public because their business is a valuable regular income stream for newspapers etc, but even so most estate agents will spend thousands of pounds per month on advertising their clients' properties for sale.

Putting an advert in the classifieds page of a newspaper as you have done is not likely to be nearly as effective at generating interest in your property as an estate agent's advert in a pull-out property supplement where homebuyers will be concentrating their search efforts, and the bigger and more effective property portals don't offer their services direct to the public fro advertsiing individual properties.

So, using an estate agent will get you better, more targetted, more specialised marketing, and with most companies you only have to pay if & when you sell, and in addition to providing better advertising a good estate agent will help you in all sorts of other ways throughout the selling / buying process too.

[Adam Long]

If you talk to most estate agents 90% of their leads now come from Right Move so be sure that any property portals you use advertise on Right Move.


As to what an estate agent adds to the equation, as with any professional some are better than others. If you can find a good one who will proactively ring a large list of potential buyers who are already on their books then they earn their fee. On the flip side there are too many estate agents who feel that their only input needs to be putting the property on Right Move and picking up their fee. Always choose an estate agent by recommendation not just by the one who gives you the highest (made up) valuation.


In my view newspapers are dead or dying for advertising properties, if you were to compare prices for advertising space now and 10 years ago the difference in costs alone would tell you that.


If you want to sell your house quickly there is only one sure way to do so and that is price it accordingly, under your competitors price.


Where did you get your valuation from, is it from a single estate agent who could have flattered you, comparing asking prices in the area (remember asking prices are NOT selling prices) or pricing it to get what you need out of a sale. To see what is really achievable you need to look at selling prices via the land registry and a free way to do this is looking at ourproperty which will show all selling prices in a street.


The final question would have to be what area is your property in ? Some areas are just not selling right now no matter what the asking price is.


Good luck

[jtrader]

Agreed getting into a big property portal (rightmove, fish4homes) is a good place to start and with most websites it will be an unlimited advert- buying 1 month Ads will build up on cost!

[Rachelpropertylady]

Type in gumtree or search free online listing to get some free exposure. You can also use Ebay nowadays too!
Hope this helps,
Rachel.

[twitter@salispropnews]

that seems a shame as you need rightmove to get the widest appeal and therefore best price.

agents also have the negotiating skills to maximise a buyers budget, where you may cave in slightly earlier....and so they pay their own way.

do you really want to do your own viewings, goodness knows who you are letting in to your house

and a buyer may think, if you are saving money on selling your most expensive asset, where else have you saved money

good luck though

[beckistar]

you do need to get professional help, there's no substitute for it

[glen_jai]

I've used an internet based Estate Agents who are really good value compared to conventional high street agents.

I think I was charged £250 to advertise with them, then another £250+vat when I completed the sale. The company was called "House Network". Search for it on google.
I can't post you the link because I haven't earnt the priviledge to do that yet.

My property was well over £200k, so I saved £1000's. Most agents wanted to charge me 2% of the sale price, which would've been about £5500. So with "House Network" I saved nearly £5000.

They also advertise on Rightmove just like a high street Estate Agent.

Have a look and see what you think.

Cheers,
Glen

[brian]

Originally Posted by glen_jai

I've used an internet based Estate Agents who are really good value compared to conventional high street agents.

I think I was charged £250 to advertise with them, then another £250+vat when I completed the sale. The company was called "House Network". Search for it on google.
I can't post you the link because I haven't earnt the priviledge to do that yet.

My property was well over £200k, so I saved £1000's. Most agents wanted to charge me 2% of the sale price, which would've been about £5500. So with "House Network" I saved nearly £5000.

They also advertise on Rightmove just like a high street Estate Agent.

Have a look and see what you think.

Cheers,
Glen

If an estate agent is ridiculous enough to charge 2%, you deserve to try a different estate agent.