Selling property onlineOnline estate agents

Online-only estate agents are slashing the cost of selling property

A new generation of online-only estate agents, such as Halfapercent and Housenetwork, is slashing the cost of selling property. These agents offer most of the services of high-street estate agents, such as providing a for sale board outside your home, but cut overheads by working out of a single office and asking sellers to conduct viewings themselves.

As the name suggests, Halfapercent's commission starts at 0.5% plus VAT. Housenetwork's is even lower: 0.25% and capped at £199 plus VAT. With high-street agents charging anything from 1%-2% with VAT on top, that's a saving of as much as £3,900 on the average UK house - valued at £186,000.

Unlike high-street agents, both these services charge £250 upfront (although Halfapercent will waive this in return for sales commission of 0.75%) to send a photographer to your home to take digital photographs, produce floor plans and create virtual tours. This fee also pays for the particulars of your home to be written up. 

Potential buyers can then see the particulars and take a virtual tour, both on the agent's website and on the big estate-agent only portals such as Rightmove and Find a Property.

Bear in mind, though, that this upfront fee is non-refundable, so you will lose out if your online agent is unable to sell your home.

Another potential downside of online agents, that operate nationally is a lack of local knowledge when valuing properties. It's always best to get your property valued by at least three local agents to ensure you get the right price.