I sold my home for basically nothing

I recently sold my home.

I had Blundell's Haybrook and a few others come over.

I didn't like the sound of what they were offering.

 

- I wanted to sell my home.

- I was happy to show people around myself.

- I didn't want them to take the photographs, I'm a well known professional photographer, and although taking photos of property is not my speciality. I would take a guess that I would be taking better quality photographs myself. I don't think the estate agents have £5k cameras and would take the care I wanted adjusting the lighting, composition and levels of the photos.

- I didn't want a floorplan. Again I wanted to make my own. The ones I see on RM made by estate agents look pretty rubbish to me. There are plenty of online tools available to make nice ones for free.

- I wanted to be listed on RM

 

The average price for this was £2800. I would get a for sale board and printed brochures to hand out to viewers. I didn't want either of those things either really. I think people search for homes online these days, I didn't really want a board. Same with the brochures. It's online already. Save the print, just go and look online again

 

I didn't fancy forking out the best part of 3 grand for essentially ... nothing.

So I investigated, and found that there are ways to get listed on Rightmove for as little as £50.

 

I did just that. Sold my house in 3 days for £1.5k over asking price.

It makes me wonder why people use them. Unless you are not there to show people around.

I must admit I didn`t know you could put your house on Rightmove without using an Estate Agent, that`s very interesting. You don`t need to spend thousands to sell your house using an Estate Agent (to get it on Rightmove) though, in fact I have already concluded that most people don`t need to use "a full service" estate agent, just use the cheapest method of getting it on Rightmove, there`s thread about it here. I paid £2100 to sell my house and the Estate Agents basically didn`t have to do much for that huge sum which was maddening......

---------- Post added 15-10-2016 at 14:32 ----------

Some people do like the more traditional route, but nowadays bad news travels fast.

 

There are plenty of people out there with a similar story to the OP, estate agent charging big fee's and offering jack-all in return, whereas online solutions offer the same basic service for next-to-nothing.

You can use a local Estate Agent (like Pink Homes or United Homes) for not much more than an Online EA. Personally I`d prefer to do that. It`s not just because I`d prefer to keep the money in Sheffield, it`s because I`d rather have someone I could actually go and see if necessary !

I'm selling my house currently through an estate agent. It's much easier to let them do all the legwork.

I work full time, and have a second job. I also don't have my own car, so co-ordinating viewings would be tricky if I had to do them myself. It's a lot less stressful leaving it in their hands, they just contact me if they have viewings or offers.

So far I've had 2 offers, but they were both much lower than the asking price

Yea coming up to xmas the market is abit less active, buyers too are somewhat more reserved and risk-adverse since the brexit vote.

You might have to wait a while to get the price you want.

Spend the inbetween time getting the house saleable.

Yep, I think your ways the future !