Selling your home privately in the UK

you pay peanuts, you get.........

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Contact: Mr Glenn Drake

We can achieve much the same exposure as an estate agent, we do not have shop fronts, we do not have people on the phones mindlessly bouncing things back and forth between buyer and seller... effectively our overheads are significantly less than estate agents.

We simply use the power of the internet to enable you to sell your own home. You only have to read the papers to realise that this is getting a great deal of coverage and we will inevitably follow the US market where 30% of homes are now sold privately.

It just makes sense why should we pay £1000's to estate agents when all they do is place a few ads and field a few telephone calls??

We can achieve much the same exposure as an estate agent, we do not have shop fronts, we do not have people on the phones mindlessly bouncing things back and forth between buyer and seller... effectively our overheads are significantly less than estate agents.

We simply use the power of the internet to enable you to sell your own home. You only have to read the papers to realise that this is getting a great deal of coverage and we will inevitably follow the US market where 30% of homes are now sold privately.

It just makes sense why should we pay 1000's to estate agents when all they do is place a few ads and field a few telephone calls??

You are very very deluded.

Getting a person to agree to buy is the easy part but making sure they have the money and checking out their chain can be impossible unless an agent is involved. Then getting the sale through can be difficult and you are reliant on the agents experience to sort out the problems that will arise. Few sales run a smooth course.

How can an estate agent make sure that a potential buyer has the money? How can an estate agent know more about a chain than the person selling the house? The truth is they can only go by what the potential buyer has told them.

Once you have a buyer then the matter is referred to a solicitor... like I said before an estate agent has no legal function. If estate agents are so effective at ensuring a sale goes through why do 1 in 3 fail?

logically thats not much of an argument, for all you know, a higher percentage would fall through without them.

I suspect it would make little difference... the point is if you can save 1000's of pounds by taking 30 minutes or so to take some pictures of your property upload them to our site and write a small description... and we can advertise in the same place as the estate agents and provide a board all for £70 then how can anyone argue that this is not good value for money?

I admit that not everyone will have the time or desire to do it this way and there will always be people who will use an estate agent (at least for the foreseable future). But I strongly believe that estate agents will endure a significant reduction in their market share within the next 10 years. All it takes is for a company like Tesco to offer this type of service (something they have already discussed) and that I am sure will mark the beginning of a significant shift in the way people sell their houses in Britain, if you ask me it's about time as well!

It was a pretty silly name, wasn't it.

tim

This is not my experience.

Getting the buyer is most definately the hard part here.

(and I am not saying that I think Mr Monkey's website will achieve this)

tim

MonkeyMove.com will stick in your head wether you like it or not :) That's why we chose the name... purely for branding.

I am selling a house in a relatively large village in the S of England. The

If I can't find any on MM, I wont bother putting the property on MM, I'll go to one of the estate agents (will be on with them in a couple of weeks).

You might be advised to spend some of your marketing money making it free to list for the first x months, just to get a pool of properties.

I also wonder whether if I advertised via MM, the only replies I'd get would be from (a) estate agents trying to get me to sell via them, and (b) people in Brazil and Nigeria telling me they have a cheque which is for more than the value of the amount of the house and all I need do is send them the difference via Western Union, minus of course a reasonable commission for my trouble.

Hi,

There are currently around 350 properties on MonkeyMove.com (we have only been live for 3 months), I admit a drop in the ocean compared to the 300,000 + advertised on RightMove.co.uk, Fish4Homes and propertyFinder.com. But MonkeyMove.com is not a portal and the benefits to our advertisers is not that they will be seen on MonkeyMove.com but that their property will actually appear on portals such as Fish4Homes, HotProperty and over 100 other partner sites this is where 70% of our leads come from (and estate agent leads). Incidentally RightMove will not let us advertise with them as the four majority shareholders for RightMove are estate agents.

We are working with other private ad firms (of which there are over 20) now to pool together all our properties to come up with a credible portal with 1000's of properties. Our biggest barrier to success is not the business model we employ, this is actually our greatest asset, the problem is that in the UK estate agents have a stranglehold on the UK property market and they all work together to protect their margins and keep the small guys out. I urge you to try our free service and if we sell your home then you will have saved a significant sum of money.

Here are a couple of links from credible sources that discuss FSBO in more detail

That's a very misleading claim. You may have saved the seller a hefty estate agent's fee, but because you cannot provide as wide an exposure as the big guys can, is it not likely that (by reaching more potential buyers) they could find a buyer who will offer more than the best buyer you can find? If this offer exceeds yours by more than the estate agent fee, it leaves the seller better off.

There again, they might not, but it would be interesting to run an experiment to put it to the test.

The exposure we can provide is on a par with most estate agents as we advertise on lots of different portals rather than just the one. I have to say... and this is backed up by the gentleman who sold his house in Surrey, a 'For Sale Board' is still a very effective tool to sell your house.

I believe that the home selling market will change significantly in the next 10 years, at present the market is made up of agents with relatively small market share offering local or regional services. The consumer will drive competition and force the estate agents to become more competitive on price, if they cannot achieve this with their existing model then the market is open for newer more innovative businesses who can. These businesses will invariably be run from a central location offering a nationwide service with minimal overheads and much greater buying power, thus reducing the cost to the consumer.

Essentially it will happen through economy of scale. It has happened in so many other markets so I can't see how the home selling market will be exempt. The hardest part with any new business however is changing people's perceptions and the only way we can do that is by providing the best level of service and proving to people that it really works.

There are many services an estate agent offers that you cant. Some people will need, or want, those services. Most of those services require a local presence. So, they aint going away, just like garages, supermarkets, shoe sellers etc havent gone away. Whats more likely is, their prices will come down slightly, and they will add the net to what they do (most already done that as its easy) whereas the other way (you adding services) isnt really possible.

I would be interested to hear what these are, followed by your justification as to how such services could warrant the extra £3000 (typically)?

In article , snipped-for-privacy@core55.co.uk writes

All these arguments were made in the Eighties when US franchising giants insisted they would sweep through the UK. They were repeated when building societies went on a takeover frenzy of estate agencies.

Yet the local agent remains supreme. A few franchises are successful such as Winkworth in London, but they are the exception [and UK-owned]. Merging mortgages and insurance with home sales was a financial disaster

- but not for many agents who bought back their branches for a fraction of the ludicrous prices paid by lenders.

There has been some consolidation producing chains like Countrywide, but they cannot compare with thousands of local firms. The supermarket/corner shop model does not work because buyers rather than sellers drive this market. They don't pay fees, so they look for local knowledge rather than cheaper transaction costs.

Similarly, the 'internet revolution' was touted right through the dotcom boom as the death knell for local firms. I lost track of claims identical to yours that buyers would bypass agents and deal online. It didn't happen. In fact, it strengthened local firms because buyers scan listings for an initial idea of prices and locations and then go to local agents. That means lots of investment is required to ensure you have enough property to attract potential buyers. I could list dozens of attempts to set up listings that failed. The successful ones pooled information from local agents to achieve critical mass.

I'm not saying no-one will deal online. It just won't undermine the traditional industry structure in the way supermarkets wiped out so many local shops.

Think more along the lines of other so-called property revolutions. Ten years ago 'experts' predicted buyers would save millions by doing their own legal paperwork. DIY conveyancing remains insignificant. Now self-build is fashionable, with claims that individuals produce more homes than the largest housebuilder. But that has been the case for more than 20 years. It just gets more publicity as a few internet entrepreneurs rediscover the wheel.

I would be interested to hear what these are, followed by your justification as to how such services could warrant the extra 3000 (typically)?

=========== fielding calls. taking visits. advice. awareness of other buyers. pro-active marketing. taking pictures & writing details up (look at eBay to see how crap most people are at this. having a shop window where locals will look.

They would warrant 3,000 if they could get 3,001 more on the sale thgrough better and more timely local knowledge, or a quicker sale (if that was worth