How to Sell Your House Online Online Sites Offer Virtually All the Services Of
How to sell your house online Online sites offer virtually all the services of a traditional estate agent – and their fees can be thousands of pounds lower Sunday 7 July 2013 Online seller Ron Houston: 'They did everything I would expect from a traditional estate agent, with the exception that I had to conduct viewings myself, but I actually enjoyed that side of it.' Photograph: Antonio Olmos for the Observer As the housing market gathers momentum, one group of people hoping to rake in the cash will be estate agents. But a growing number of house sellers are shunning the traditional approach and marketing their properties online, saving thousands of pounds in the process. While high-street estate agents charge between 1.5% and 2% of the sale price, or up to a whopping £6,000 on a £300,000 property, online rivals offer a flat fee of between £250 and £1,000. This breed of private-sale sites and low-cost online agents now accounts for around 5% of completed sales, according to the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. The biggest sites all report a rising number of property listings and sales, and the ability to save sellers a chunk of cash, as the sites do not need to fund a chain of offices and company cars. For example, eMoov, which sold 520 properties worth a combined £170m in 2012, has 850 properties for sale, says founder Russell Quirk. "We will sell your property for a flat fee of £395 plus VAT," he says, adding that eMoov saved its average customer £3,846 last year.
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