How to sell a house Estate agent alternatives
An online estate agent could save you thousands
Foregoing a traditional estate agent and selling your own property by advertising online or in the local press, or using an online estate agent could save you thousands of pounds. However, you'll need to be prepared to put in time and effort, as you'll have to do more of the work yourself, especially if you are selling privately.
House sale websites
Private property sale websites, such as HouseWeb, Property Broker and Thehousesale.co.uk are equivalent to the classified ads pages of your local paper - except they allow you to reach a much wider audience.
A one-off charge of as little as £47 will buy you a basic advert with a photo and a description of your property on HouseWeb's website until it is sold. But a higher fee will get you much more exposure.
Property Broker charges £134 to advertise, which includes a for-sale board, and Thehousesale.co.uk charges from £49.
If you're selling privately, incorrect statements could leave you open to being sued for misrepresentation so be careful to market your home accurately.
Recent Office of Fair Trading guidelines on what constitutes estate-agency work mean that private sales sites can't do anything except advertise your property.
You have to do everything else yourself, from writing the description of your property and taking photos to handling enquiries, conducting viewings and negotiating with potential buyers. But if you've got the time and are happy to do this, there are huge savings to be made.
Online estate agents
Online estate agents provide many of the same services as high-street estate agents. In some cases, this can even include handling price negotiations and helping to progress the sale to completion.
Like high-street agents, they must be members of one of the two redress schemes approved by the Office of Fair Trading - the Property Ombudsman or Ombudsman Services: Property.
A website is likely to be classified as an estate agent if it receives or fields queries from potential buyers, passes on details, sends out property details or arranges viewings.
Even where online estate agents arrange viewings, you still have to conduct the viewings yourself.
Take care to choose the best-value sales package, which should include a for-sale board, advertising on the web, the option of professional photographs and a dedicated phone number and/or email to keep your personal information confidential.
If you sell your property through an online estate agent and you also have a sole-agency agreement with another high-street estate agent, you'll have to pay its commission, too.
Property websites
Around three quarters of home buyers now search for properties online and many begin at a property portal (search engine).
The biggest, Rightmove, lists more than 800,000 properties for sale in the UK. Other property portals include FindaProperty.com, Fish4homes, Globrix, Primelocation.com and Zoopla. They all list property from online estate agents but not all list property from private sale websites.
Whether you're selling via a high-street or online estate agent or a private-sale site, check which portals your home will appear on to make sure you're making the most of the internet's huge marketing potential.