Buying/selling a home without an estate agent?

mcast123

mcast123

mcast123

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I don't understand why people still use estate agents these days. Why are dedicated property websites (without estate agents) not more popular?

I've looked online at various "do-it-yourself" home selling sites and they seem straight forward. Take some photos, upload them, put on a price, leave your number for viewings and when you get to the contract point, hire a lawyer.

We buy everything from computers to cars online, yet we're still happy to fork out thousands to an estate agent for doing relatively little.

Why :confused:

(the reason for my rant is the GSPC want £275 quid for me to advertise, but I can ONLY advertise if I'm signed up with an estate agent)
 
Sold my last house without an estate agents, was extremely easy. The solicitors sorted it out between them and it went without a hitch.
 
My parents did this.

We put our house on the market and someone viewed it and liked it. We in turn decided to take a quick look at their house out of curiousity and in the end, we did a straight swap. They paid a bit more obviously as our house was bigger but we worked it all out without estate agents. :)
 
I'd love to do this, as I cannot stand most estate agents. They way they try to butter you up...eurgh!

Keeping them out the loop can only be a good thing.
 
It cost me £975 to sell my old £225,000 house via an estate agent - it was money well spent. I guess it depends how much time you have to dedicate to doing it and how much your time is worth to you. Also a lot of people looking for houses look around estate agents rather than online.

You can't compare it to selling a car because your market is a lot smaller (you can't buy a house online in Newcastle and drive it to London) and people who want to buy a house like yours may not be internet savvy.

We had a particularly difficult buyer and I think without the estate agent the deal would have fallen through with me losing my temper with them rather than the agent.
 
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^I think the reason he called it weird is because it's fairly unlikely that somebody buying your house would also just happen to be selling a suitable property in the area you want to move to. Normally people are selling because they want to move away to a specific location (unlikely buyer just happens to be from there) or if moving locally then your buyer would want to be trading up or down to the same extent as you in the opposite direction.

I think the benefit of estate agents is that if you are not in a position to conduct viewings yourself easily (due to work commitments etc) they can do so on your behalf. Also it gives you access to a broader market.

In the future I can see them perhaps starting to get cutout as the internet empowers us to do more and more for ourselves (or through a streamlined service), in fact the same can be said for many agencies of different types, not just estate agencies.
 
HangTime said:
^I think the reason he called it weird is because it's fairly unlikely that somebody buying your house would also just happen to be selling a suitable property in the area you want to move to. Normally people are selling because they want to move away to a specific location (unlikely buyer just happens to be from there) or if moving locally then your buyer would want to be trading up or down to the same extent as you in the opposite direction.
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Exactly, the likelihood of the person buying your house having a house themselves that you want to move into just seems absurd.

I've heard of people swapping football stickers but never houses :p
 
I don't like estate agents, poncey morons. Never done a hard days work in their life, just poncing around in their tight clothing being ponces, drinking wkds in their rented 1 bed flat.

I'm going to avoid them like the plague for this reason when it comes to buying my first house, buy direct, off plan.
 
I get around said:
I don't like estate agents, poncey morons. Never done a hard days work in their life, just poncing around in their tight clothing being ponces, drinking wkds in their rented 1 bed flat.

I'm going to avoid them like the plague for this reason when it comes to buying my first house, buy direct, off plan.
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jeez someone hates estage agents, you get jilted by one by anychance? lol
 
Estate Agents are necessary evil. Unless you have the time to deal with all the prospective buyers, marketing, showing people round, have experience with buying/selling before and a relatively easy property to sell it would be difficult to know if you are selling your property at the optimum price.
 
I get around said:
I don't like estate agents, poncey morons. Never done a hard days work in their life, just poncing around in their tight clothing being ponces, drinking wkds in their rented 1 bed flat.

I'm going to avoid them like the plague for this reason when it comes to buying my first house, buy direct, off plan.
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buying off plan? estate agents rarely have anything to do with buying directly from builders anyway :s
 
mcast123 said:
(the reason for my rant is the GSPC want £275 quid for me to advertise, but I can ONLY advertise if I'm signed up with an estate agent)
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I think to an extent you've answered your own question here, most estate agents will advertise your house across numerous rags and on the major sites online, in a much more prominent way than you'd be able to afford yourself, even if you spent as much as you're paying the estate agents on advertising. That said, aside from advertising costs, there is nothing an estate agent does that you couldn't, except maybe having the time to chase up the purchaser/their solicitors.
 
I get around said:
I don't like estate agents, poncey morons. Never done a hard days work in their life, just poncing around in their tight clothing being ponces, drinking wkds in their rented 1 bed flat.

I'm going to avoid them like the plague for this reason when it comes to buying my first house, buy direct, off plan.
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Surely buying from a home building firm will be just as bad or even worse?
 
Yep sales consultants for a home builder are going to be even worse to deal with because they have a much more limited array of properties to offer you. In fact you could say that they are even less likely to have 'done a hard days work' because they don't have to deal with vendors as well as buyers. Plus they only work set hours (say 10am-5pm) rather than having to show people round houses in the evening etc. Then the only properties they need to visit with clients are the showhomes right on their doorstep that they know inside out, all dolled up with the latest furnishings and fittings.

I've bought a house via an estate agent and I've bought a new build direct from a builder, so I've dealt with both.

In my experience you get good estate agents and bad ones, just like most walks of life.
 
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SideWinder said:
My parents did this.

We put our house on the market and someone viewed it and liked it. We in turn decided to take a quick look at their house out of curiousity and in the end, we did a straight swap. They paid a bit more obviously as our house was bigger but we worked it all out without estate agents. :)
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happened with my sister too, not a straight swap but the person whose house she bought also bought her house
 
HangTime said:
In my experience you get good estate agents and bad ones, just like most walks of life.
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Seeing the business from the other side this rings very true.

There are plenty of self sell websites/companies out there so if that's what you want to do, use one of them.

People go with agents to get the increased exposure/advertising and are willing to pay someone to take away some of the hassle. As much as we do business on the internet local newspaper advertising is still very popular with agents and buyers, and that isn't that cheap.

Saying that, some of the fees charged do seem relatively high, but if they were too high people wouldn't pay them. But they do, so they can't be too high, right? ;)

I get around said:
I don't like estate agents, poncey morons. Never done a hard days work in their life, just poncing around in their tight clothing being ponces, drinking wkds in their rented 1 bed flat.
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Funniest thing I've read tonight, thanks :) Will show me folks, if they can tear themselves away from drinking their wkd in their 1 bed flat :)
 
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