Be Excellent To Each Other

For those of you with subtitles turned off, anyone used one?

Pros/cons I don't really get what happens if they don't sell my property, do I still have to pay them?

Anyway, if anyone wants to make a sympathy post to stop this flying off the top page, please do so.]

Cheers.

I used Purple Bricks to view a house. Seemed like a bit of a weird process, the lady there was essentially someone who opened the door to let you in. Didn't know anything about the property.

So it missed the sales job that a good agent could do. As a buyer this wouldn't have put me off, the property just wasn't right for us.

If I was selling I'd be inclined to use an online agent - the service from estate agents is proven to be so shit, why not go with the cheaper, untried option.

MrsA has done a lot of research on this. You might want to ask her. She seemed positive about them.I'm just arm candy

I've not used an online estate agent to sell, but I did use one to rent my house out about 9 months ago.

It was very straightforward, just signed up, paid them the money (£99+VAT) and added the photos and description of the house. I could have paid more to have things like a "to let" board outside, to have them make an EPC etc. but I didn't see the need for any of that (in the case of the EPC, I already had one from when I bought the house so I just used that instead, and I had a template tenancy agreement already from when I'd rented a house from a private landlord previously)

They didn't do any viewings, it would have been up to me to show people around, but as it happened someone saw the ad on Rightmove or whatever (which went up pretty much immediately) and the house was rented out within 24 hours, which was amazing.

If I'd gone through a traditional agent, I'd have paid a month's rent worth of fees to them and 10% per month if I'd wanted them to manage it. No brainer.

My brother is currently using one to sell his house, so I'll ask him how he's getting on. I think it was pretty positive last time I spoke to him, but he's not finished yet.

I used http://www.tepilo.com/ to make an appointment for viewing, it was nice and easy although it was all dependent on the owner doing more work as in looking at their email and arranging things with me.

Think this one did everything the % based ones do for £1000 all in. This was valuation, Right Move spread with floor plan etc. You had to pay this upfront but there were other options.

Depends where you live really, I live in the South and as long as you don't over price your house then it will sell as there is a shortage, so I would have no issue paying the £1000 upfront as my house is worth @500,000 so I would be looking at 5,000 or more on the % model to sell it.

On top of that % estate agents are stupid lazy tossers in the south at least and I can't believe that most of them haven't been driven out of business by this model yet. They do fuck all for the money they get these days

Yeah, this is my thinking, w live in north London, so think that it should go fairly easily, well hopefully.

Thanks for the answers, all.

THE HOUSE TWO DOORS DOWN IS FOR SALE BOBBY WE CAN BE NEIGHBOURS

Upsizing? Have you considered South East London?

NO I SAID IT FIRST

Aren't you moving?

Although, I think the commute from Bradford might actually be easier than from south east London!

Given quite how damn awkward estate agents can be, the inability to go and nag them in person to get on with things that needs to be done just seems like it might be a problem.

Not moving for a while due to second child syndrome... Fast train from Bradford to kings cross is two and a bit hours.

If memory serves they list it on Rightmove then tell you when people want to looksee so you can be in.

Aaah, I thought you were moving, /because/ of second child syndrome.

Well, as far as I am aware we are not. I keep scanning the market mind you. We'll need to move because of schools though. I think an LS postcode is preferable to a BD one, but I'll chat with the teachers we know tomorrow.

As always, read the fine print and the break clause. If the online estate prices utter dogshit and you want to go elsewhere are they going to charge you? Memory serves that many will want their fee still and those fees ain't cheap.

Yeah, I started an online chat to ask about that. Coincidentally the chat broke.

Think with many of them you pay up front and don't get a refund if you don't sell



They do nothing though! When we were looking 70% of the time they were never there for viewings, I see houses on Right Move, with no floor plans, wrong floor plans (in once case there was another room when we viewed the house!) Even when we sold I had to drive the chain along myself and in that case it was stupid lawyers holding things up.

Indeed, it was after the offer was accepted that estate agents and solicitors required plenty of kicking up t'arse to get it done.

It is extraordinary to me that estate agents don't have to do the chasing of solicitors etc to make a sale go through. It seems such an obvious market failure.

It seems cynically obvious to me that they don't. The actual customers in question are the ones that care the most about the deal going through so they're not going to sit back and let the process fail even if the estate agent doesn't bother their arse. Very quickly this trains the estate agents that you can happily fuck that off while lining up the next sale up and it'll still get sorted out (i.e. they'll still get paid).

The biggest issue is the laziness of the solicitors because their part is genuinely legally required but they seem to treat the whole business with the same lackadaisical unprofessional ignorance. It's like one of those weirdly protected careers that no matter how awful you are at it and how fucked off your customers are the whole gravy train just keeps rumbling along.

The idea of these sites that let's you do it yourself is brilliant because (hopefully, eventually) it'll put pressure on estate agents to do their fucking job properly, but because people go through this whole process so rarely it's not likely to revolutionise quickly. Sadly.

Plus they seem more likely to just stay lazy, rather than compete - by which I'm only agreeing, but it is still odd. I've a friend who's an estate agent, and very pessimistic - outside work (where he doesn't say such things), he doesn't see any reason why anyone should use him. Fatalistic, though, rather than thinking 'hmm, there are some obvious failings in this whole process, surely we can find a way to make money'?

Conveyancing is process. Important process but dull as shit process. It'll never make make you big money but could lose you money. It pays the bills to give you the opportunity to do interesting stuff that will make you a profit. I spend half my professional life trying to make people not fuck up on our basic compliance stuff and not take it for granted so that I can do the sexy sexy and make us all rich.

TL;DR: If the law was a MMPROG, conveyancing would be the grind

Surely though the kind of assholes we're all dealing with during house-buying shenanigans aren't doing conveyancing as some kind of sidebar to their lawsexy real job; they're all just lazy assholes conveyors?

You employ grinders to do boring shit you can't be arsed with to pay the bills while you so sexy sexy to make some proper money.

As I'm finding out the problem turns out to be making that work whilst doing the grind properly. I could scale back the boring shit to sausage factory stuff and make shed loads but ethically I wont, but it's hard to make it pay.

Huh. In the tech industry I see loads of people doing (relative) grind, but getting paid well because it's still important and commands some level of skill. And I count myself in that. I can only only assume you finance idiots are doing it wrong, but somehow pretending it's a lot harder than it actually is. Y'know, like you always do.

Every client we have there's someone saying they'll do it a quarter of the price. And they will but by year five they'll pick up an enquiry from cutting corners and the cost of dealing with that would be 10x to 20x an annual fee (that someone else will deal with) . I could turn our basic service to compete with that and then fuck off out of that market in three years and make a quick profit but Fuck that.

So, online estate agents: should we use them? Fucking hell, you don't half know how to overcomplicate a question!

"Maybe"

Hmm. I had taken some alcohol.

What I was trying to say was that there are a load of professional services (conveyancing and estate agents) that it is easy to look at and think that they're simple processes and something you could do yourself. And while the 'full rate' may be a rip off, I'd be very hesitant in going for the cheapest option or one where the pros have very limited input.

Seeling a house for example you can get sued for misrepresentation on something that is stated incorrectly. If an estate agent says something incorrect you have recourse - but if you've cut them out the loop, you've got nowhere to go, and your saving could start looking a false economy when the legal letter arrives.

When we sold our house the buyers were renting so new the the process.

I filled out that standard form that asks if you are leaving the fridge etc. One of the questions was on Fencer certs. I made it very clear on the form that there were none when we bought the house, I also said that we had replaced the front and back door and one small window since owning the house and that certs were available for these.

Our buyers solicitors just kept telling them she was waiting for Fencer certs from us for 7 weeks, I only found out when the buyers came round and asked me if I knew what was going on. So I called her and told her to get her act together and things were resolved. I kept on top of the whole chain after that.

Another thing that should be changed is the valuations, that is just a money printing machine, sellers have no legal responsibility to state any problems with the house and these don't come to light until surveys have been done at £300 plus a time, its quite possible to have the same one done multiple times on a house.

The law should be changed to say the seller does a full comprehensive one and has it available to all interested purchasers, then the purchaser should pay for it as part of the house sale.

Sadly will never happen as lenders make a bomb out of the basic lending survey then scare customers into getting more detailed ones.

Full sellers surveys were supported be be a thing ten years ago. Then the timing for full introduction landed at the same time as the bank crash so they got pulled. Shame as they saved massive duplication and repetition of cost and aligned liability to the seller.

As had I so apologies for the unnecessary arsiness and (greater than usual) dimness on my part.

Apparently a significant part of conveyancing is also making sure they're not liable for facilitating stamp duty evasion. Bastards.