There’s hardly a homeowner in the UK that hasn’t bemoaned the cost of estate agents when it comes to selling your home. It is understandable in a way that the cost is high. Agents have to invest so much time on homes that they don’t sell, or driving buyers around who are really just testing the market and have no real intention of buying. Thus, they need to create a big commission when finally they pull off a sale. The problem for you, the average client, is that you’re generally paying for all the wasted time that an estate agent needs to recoup. Fortunately, the rise of the Internet has given you other choices.
Selling your house privately is much easier than in the past
Estate agents had something that every seller needed – potential buyers. Of course it was always possible for a homeowner to generate their own ads and to try to sell their home word of mouth but, ultimately, they knew that prospective buyers were all registering with local estate agents. As a result, these agents had a database of people that they’d seldom be able to reach.
With the websites now available, attracting a wide reach of buyers is now no longer available only to estate agents – private sellers can reach these same people as well. It is usually necessary to operate through a business that specialises in online house sales, as they’ll be able to ensure that your details are posted on as many sites as possible – sometimes numbering in the hundreds. These same businesses can usually arrange to handle the responses for you and to arrange viewing times, or you can elect to do this yourself if you’d like to save money.
Concluding a sale
Very few people mind showing people around their homes, and they’re almost always able to answer questions better than most estate agents. You know your home and you know the area – you probably can give advice on schools, amenities, and recreation just as well as any local agent. You could agree with an online house selling company as to the service they’d offer. Perhaps you’d like them to conclude the sale and negotiate the price. Maybe you’d even like them to contact a solicitor on your behalf to resolve the legal aspects of the sale. All this can be arranged prior to a sale, which will be handled at thousands of pounds less than you’d pay a high-street estate agent.
