Online Agents or High Street Agents?
With the rise in popularity of online estate agents such as Purplebricks and Tepilo they have certainly brought new ways to shake up the estate agency industry. Of course, low fees seem more attractive — moving can cost a considerable amount of money especially when you take into account, legal fees, bank charges and the mortgage to pay!
Before jumping on the cheapest agent — choosing an estate agent should be considered and well researched! A full service agent will usually charge between 1% and 1.5% of the sale fee and a DIY with charge between £600 – £800 flat fee, so by this if you are looking for the cheaper option this would be a no brainier wouldn’t it?
WAIT! Your home is the biggest asset you own, so make sure before making your decision – put your home in the right hands. To help you with your decision – here are some points to consider.
1. ‘DIY’ agents are not ‘online agents’
Every estate agent is ‘online’. Alexanders is online, the difference is we are a full-service agents. Purplebricks are online but they are DIY agents.
So why would someone want to use a DIY estate agent to sell their home? The number one reason homeowners give for using a DIY estate agent to sell their property, is to save on fees. BUT you do get what you pay for.
What is the different in service you receive from a DIY estate agent?
For your cheap fee, you get a visit from one of their ‘Local Property Experts’, a written valuation, a written description, a set of photographs, a floorplan, and your property listed on all the main property portals. If you are someone who is around during the day and feel confident showing them around your home, doing your own viewings then a DIY estate agent could be the fit for you.
However, if you are out of the house during the day and would rather someone with knowledge on property do your viewings for you, then a full service estate agent could be the fit for you. Moving house is one of the most stressful things you can do, by going with a full service estate agent you will get full support, regular communication and a simple guide through the stresses that is selling your home. There are marketing platforms to consider, negotiations and sale progressions that will run as smoothly as possible.
2. Quality of Service
What do you get for your money? When considering which agent to choose, do thorough research — look at reviews. What would you prefer, a real person to speak to on a regular basis or someone in an operated central call centre? With a full service agent, there are multiple ways you can share contact – phone calls, text, Facebook, email etc. The human relationship is fundamental in ensuring the sale process goes as smoothly as possible and there are a lot of parts to consider.
Getting an offer on your home is such an exciting time! But an offer is only the start of the sale process! We take your offer and glide it through every hurdle to avoid the sale falling through. The aim for you is to sell your home and our aim is the same, never letting go until we reach completion. After all, we don’t get paid until the money is in your bank!
DIY agents do not negotiate, it is a process that needs to be dealt with carefully. When a buyer makes an offer on your home they submit it online, which then you can accept or reject with a click of a button. This is not negotiation, this is simply a yes or no answer, how are you meant to negotiate when the buyer has already been scared off with your outright “no”.
3. Quality of Marketing
At alexanders we know our level of marketing gets more viewings from motivated buyers. We spend time on our brochures, giving you the very best photography, personal property descriptions – sharing your homes story, 360 virtual tours and marketing your property in every way possible to make sure you are seen and then sold. With a DIY estate agent, you don’t get a brochure, don’t get the personal touch in the written descriptions that we know that these things are vital parts of successful marketing.
Marketing your property successfully is critical to getting viewers through your door. The higher the quality the more appealing it will be and therefore the more likely a potential buyer to click on your listing, pick up the phone to see it! If you don’t market your property to its full potential it could harm your sale, and put viewers off!
4. Professional Viewings Can Motivate a Higher Offer
With full service estate agents we are trained to encourage viewers to share their thoughts with us, the good and the bad can really help – the constructive feedback can then be put forward to make any adjustments or amendments if necessary.
If you do the viewings your self as you need to do if you instruct a DIY estate agent, you may never hear objections as they will be too polite. You will never have true feedback so you may never know if any adjustments need to be made in order to help it sell!
It is so important to take a professional approach to showing a property. Thorough viewings will result in detailed feedback – we use this feedback to refine the marketing of the property and help make changes if needs be.
5. Sales Progression
Putting your home on the market is just the start of the sale process. There is whole load of more work to do after this point. Getting an offer includes discussions with solicitors, surveyors, the bank and mortgage company. A good estate agent helps you with these and has regular communication to help the sales progression be as quick as possible. It is a delicate time that needs to be dealt with by professionals. Full service agents are very experienced when it comes to this point, they will know the best solicitors, bank and advice to give to both parties involved.
DIY estate agents usually stop their service when an offer is accepted, unless you pay them MORE! This is a service that shouldn’t be overlooked, you don’t want a sale to fall through due to a lack of communication do you? It could mean the difference between you being able to move into your new home or the sale falling through and starting this whole process again.
6. Fees & Costly Extras!
With full service estate agents, you won’t have to pay anything until the home is SOLD! So the determination and motivation is high because they want the house to sell as much as you do.
DIY agents tend to charge upfront, this means regardless of whether a DIY agent sells your home or not you will STILL have to pay! They have money regardless – so where is the motivation for them to sell your home?
Be careful for costly extras, many DIY can charge more for extras such as a floorplan, photography, board etc where has all of the essentials to get your home marketed successfully are included in the fee with full service and you don’t have to pay a thing until you get what you want, a house that is sold and completed. DIY agents charge extra and with their attractive low sale fee that seemed appealing at the start has actually worked out to be quite a lot more expensive.
I hope this has given you plenty of thought. There is a place for DIY agents and full service agents on the market. Selling your home yourself takes a huge amount of time, and it cant cost you much more if you don’t get it right. If you are wondering which route to follow when selling your home. If you want some advice we can talk you through the various options whether a full service agent or DIY is the best fit for you. Not every estate agent is right for the homeowner, not every homeowner is right for a particular agent.
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