Co-op gives sound advice re: Private Selling

Whilst researching mortgage options this morning I was surprised to find a page on the Co-operative Bank’s website discussing the pros and cons of selling your house without an estate agent.

Two of the critical ‘cons’ were:

• one of the first places that buyers will look is a local estate agent and you may find it difficult to reach a sufficient number of potential buyers.
• if you’re planning on selling your home yourself online, make sure that you check the website’s area coverage, user statistics, claims and other statistics before you commit yourself. Some websites are better than others.

Thats why we recommend marketing your house alongside your estate agent.  There will always be some contacts and clients that he has that you will not reach otherwise – just ensure that if you find the buyer you are not contractually obliged to pay his fees.

To the second point, we would always recommend using a ‘for Sale by Owner’ website that puts your advert on some of the mainstream property websites like fish4homes.co.uk, Globrix and Googlebase.  Many For Sale by Owner websites feature very few properties and are do not attract the visitor numbers that you need to find a buyer – on the other hand using them to get your advert onto a national property website gives you great exposure without the cost of the estate agents’ bill.