Selling property via the web

[RogerS]

Does anyone know of any *good* websites?

The obvious ones like rightmove and primelocation are only windows for estate agents and don't deal with private sellers.

Houseweb has pretty poor stock levels on its site. For example, searching for any flat between £250,000 and £350,000 in City of Westminster produces just one flat. So by my reckoning, if the volume isn't there then potential buyers aren't going to be exactly thick on the ground.

 

[Jake]

Don't they put the details up on the proper sites like Rightmove as well, though? I thought that was the point of Houseweb.

Could try Halfapercent for a bit more frilly service.

 

[RogerS]

Don't they put the details up on the proper sites like Rightmove as well, though? I thought that was the point of Houseweb.

Could try Halfapercent for a bit more frilly service.

Don't think so. I can't see Houseweb on Rightmove as an 'agent' and when you think about it they compete with each other I think. I'll look at Halfapercent.

EDIT ...Hmmm..just looked at Halfapercent. They have precisely 6 properties in Central London. Guess I'll take a punt with Houseweb

 

[Jake]

1/2% definitely do put them up on Rightmove, etc, though. I've seen them there.

 

[tibbs]

Hi Roger

About 3 years ago we managed to sell a fairly large house in Cornwall - we tried a number of free & low-cost companies but the one that we sold the house through & the one that generated far more enquiries than the rest put together was The Little House Company.

At the time they had a partnership deal with one of the bigger websites that carry estate agents ads (I think it was Asserta Homes) which undoubtedly generated a lot more hits than just their own site by itself. It looks as though Asserta has now become propertyfinder.com & Little House still have a listing agreement with them but they charge a bit more for inclusion on it (around £135 insteadof £89) - still well worth it though.

SWMBO spent some time taking digipics of all the rooms in the house & preparing a lot of supporting text to make up a Word document to use as a set of 'details' - it didnt look too bad printed out on a colour inkjet - I turned it into a website as well which was linked-to from the Little House website advert page. Because of all the detail that we put in the website/printed details we found that we had very few, if any, time wasters amongst the people that viewed the property & also didnt have to spend ages telling people all the details over the phone or in emails - we found it well worth the effort to over-do it once at the outset preparing the details rather than have to trot out the same stuff over & over to people that ultimately werent really interested.

We also found that not everybody that enquired about the house was net-savvy but they all had friends/children/grand-children that were, & had told them about it & given them the contact details.

As an aside, we also tried 4 consecutive Saturday ads in the property pages of the Telegraph which netted 3 or 4 enquiries & no visits - a complete waste of several hundred pounds; and also a free colour ad in Country Living which netted one local enquiry - so I wouldn't recommend going down either of those routes. If I was selling again in England I'd certainly give Little House a go - you could have your website built & the advert up & running before an Estate Agent had managed to come & measure up.

Richard

 

[RogerS]

Richard

Thanks for the suggestion. It looks well worth following up as well. I've already got the flat on with an agent but I keep having to kick them up the backside to do anything. Rather appeals to sell it myself!

 

[Les Mahon]

Fair play to you richard - I wish more sellers were like you!

Roger from a buyers perspective (I've been looking for 12 months!) the most important thing to have on the info is acurate room dimensions, and total floor area - I now assume if these are missing the rooms are not what they pretend to be, and I no longer waste time viewing the houses.
Just my 2c worth! Best of luck getting a buyer

Les

 

[RogerS]

I know what you mean, Les. Before we bought our house we seemed to be spending every weekend driving hundreds of miles around to look at potential properties only to discover just out of shot in the photograph was the glue factory/disused factory site/you name it!

 

[dedee]

Roger,
these days a quick check on google earth (now available for the mac) could help prevent those wasted journeys.

Andy

 

[RogerS]

Roger,
these days a quick check on google earth (now available for the mac) could help prevent those wasted journeys.

Andy

Andy..is there a :lol: missing? Out of curiosity I just tried Google Earth. How far does it actually zoom down to? I put in the co-ordinates for my house and even at 10000 feet all I get is a green screen. Am I being too optimistic?

Cheers :lol:

 

[dedee]

Roger, I'm not at the mac at the moment, I'm at work and we can't get Google Earth thru the proxy/firewall etc, but last night I was able to identify my old car on our drive without any trouble. I am in Greater London so perhaps the resolution is different from "the sticks".

Andy

 

[andrewm]

Roger, I'm not at the mac at the moment, I'm at work and we can't get Google Earth thru the proxy/firewall etc, but last night I was able to identify my old car on our drive without any trouble. I am in Greater London so perhaps the resolution is different from "the sticks".

Andy

It is. Different areas are at different resolutions. London, and I know Cambridge are certainly high enough resolution to identify individual buildings. Out in the sticks is at a much lower resolution and I guess Malvern is pretty much in the sticks. My sister lives in Wales and that is just a green blur.

Andrew

 

[RogerS]

Thought it might be something like that. www.getmapping.com (co.uk?) does the biz though

 

[norman]

Hi ,

I sold my property in lincolnshire through Loot free ads It helped that I also put up a web sit with all details of property and area, schools shopping and so on. also pic`s of workshop and house. I sold and had the most interest from the london area. No fees and nearly £20.000 more than advised by the local agent`s. This was In 2000. I would go the same way again. there were no prob`s by the way.
Regards
Norman