Selling house using agent v's yourself

Lex Luthor

I'd like to hear from anyone who has tried to sell their house themselves without the use of an estate agent? What websites did they use? How did they view out the house? Would they recommend it?

I am putting my place on the market soon and was in touch with the agent today that sold me the house so I know them well. Didn't ask a price from them but what are typical estate agent rates?

Someone told me it could be anywhere from 0.7% up to 2%. Thats a huge gap. I'm just over an hr and a half from the house so I'd have to keep viewings to a specific time at weekends, so I'm limitting myself immediately to showing the house at any time. Would an agent make much more of a difference having the advantage of showing at any time during the week?

gmartin

I'm trying to sell my house myself and by pass the auctioneer and I'm using www.sellityourself.ie

It's going well - I have it on the market over a week now and have had 15 interested parties ringing me and I'm arranging viewings

Ref http://www.sellityourself.ie/cgi-bin...ad&action=view

Lex Luthor

gmartin wrote:

I'm trying to sell my house myself and by pass the auctioneer and I'm using www.sellityourself.ie

It's going well - I have it on the market over a week now and have had 15 interested parties ringing me and I'm arranging viewings

Ref http://www.sellityourself.ie/cgi-bin...ad&action=view

keep me posted on how you get on.

how often do you plan to do viewings? The house I'll be selling will be just over an hr & half away from me so I'll be doing sat morning open house and probably one mid week at night if the interest is string enough.

I was going to use the other web site (stupid.ie) to advertise mine as it seems to get more hits, but you seem to have got a lot of interest already from your ad. How much did they charge for the ad?

Beta Bill

Theres a crowd called www.movehome.ie but I think they are Dublin based. I would say to you that I have seen a few of those sale by owner type signs (similar to the crowd above) and the properties dont seem to shift as quick as those neighbouring properties with regular agents. Perhaps those owners expect to make more than an agent advises worth to be so go it alone, I dunno but thats my observation and you can make your own assessments!

Whatever about an owner selling for themselves beware an offence under statute to sell someone elses property or let someone elses property without an auctioneers licence.

Lex Luthor

I suppose most people buying would rather deal with an agent rather than a person due to the large sums of money involved.

I spoke with my solicitor today and informed her of my intentions and she advised me that the best course of action would be that if I am to weed out the tyre kickers from the serious bidders, than when I get to accepting an offer, to get a holding deposit of approx. €3k in a cheque made payable to my solicitor and to exchange solicitor details with the buyer and let them take it from there.

Once the holding deposit is confirmed, I'll be looking to exchange contracts in a few weeks with a booking deposit of 10% and then move as quickly as possible to close. I'm not in a chain so there should be no delays on my side and the house is one that will probably suit a 1st time buyer or inverstor, so hopefully none on that side.

throwingmuses

I just sold my house myself (having previously tried an estate agent), I just put my property on at the same price as one around the corner (both end of terrace etc.) Within 40 minutes I had a caller, viewing arranged, he paid the asking price straight up. I am flabbergasted at how easy it all was, and shudder when I think of what I was going to pay an EA to sell it.

You can put as many photos as you want on DAFT (and you can take good ones, ea's ones can be rubbish), just get descriptions from other properties in the area and tailor it yourself to suit your own. Certainly try it before using an EA. Careful not to overprice. I put my asking price for exactly what I thought it was worth and I believe my buyer was happy to get this property for exactly what he thought it was worth. It's not rocket science when you know what other properties have recently gone for in the area. My DAFT ad was active for less than 4 days and the best money I ever spent. I had tried to sell using an EA and it was on the market for 3 months with offers way below what he had said he could get me, I still had to pay the incompetant muppet of an estate agent €200 to cover his wasted effort advertising on myhome before I dispensed of his services. Anyway with the internet these days the Estate Agent doesn't have people 'on his books' dieng to buy your house that aren't checking the web every day so you're only paying him to show the property to people. I knew all the benefits of my house and could tell the buyers these directly whereas even though I had listed these all for the Estate Agent I had tried to use originally it became apparent after 3 months that he was not pushing my house or it's plus points on to people. I used selfsell.ie, purely so I could get my hands on a sign for outside the house, but the guy was extremely helpful.

In relation to deposit etc. we told the buyers that as soon as they paid €5,000 to our solicitor we would put 'sale agreed' on the house and not show it to anyone else, which they did the next day. We are closing in a couple of weeks and the whole process will be completed within about 5 weeks of us putting it up for sale. I am aware that we were extremely lucky that it was so easy and got a buyer straight away but what can I say, thank God I had the courage to sell it myself and save an absolute fortune (along with making €30,000 more than my previous attempts to sell through an EA).

Just have viewings at weekends if you are very busy. I'll never use an estate agent again...

ev612337

Hi,

I'm trying everything!

Have my house on youbuyfromme.ie as well as ebay.ie and some smaller localised sites.

Also have a traditional estate agent involved as well as a newby estate agent who offers a very attractive flat fee. So, there's two signs outside the property, it's on daft.ie twice and myhome.ie once as well as the above mentioned sites.

All this is now in place since late October 2007 and so far, few viewings and fewer offers!

Nothing wrong with house, just stagnant market I think.

I'm not advertising here, but given the cheek and arrogance of the average estate agent these days who stands to make nice money if he sells your property, but has the cheek to look for his outlay as well from you, it's worth checking out the flat fee guy I came across. Their web site is http://www.mccanproperty.com and they are in Kells town. Mine's the 5 bed dormer in Ballinlough if you know anyone interested!!! Hopefully this info is of use to other forum users.

Hopefully I get a sale soon too as it's becoming annoying!

astrofool

I'm sure you'd have got the url right if you were pimping: http://www.mccannproperty.com

With the downturn in the market, people are now able to buy closer to where they want, rather than having to settle for a house with a long commute, so you're potential market has been reduced to those who want to live in the countryside, rather than have to due to high property prices.

Good luck with the selling