Buying and Selling Property OnlineBuying and selling a property can be easier online. CW? shows you howMoving home is one of the most stressful experiences you'll have in your lifetime. So it's not surprising that many people rely on estate agents to help them through the process. However, thousands of consumers complain against agents every year, and a Which? investigation tells a very different story. Fortunately, there are online resources to help you move up or down the property ladder without bursting a blood vessel. If you're selling, check out the recently launched W? campaign to regulate estate agents. It offers loads of practical advice to help you get a fair deal from your agent (see 'On the Campaign Trail', for more details). Alternatively, you could opt to advertise your home privately on the web for less than a hundred quid and avoid using an estate agent altogether. And the web can be just as big a boon for buyers, allowing you to browse for that dream home online without estate agents breathing down your neck. We've created three likely scenarios to show you how it's done. We think you'll find early viewing is essential. |
On the Campaign TrailWhich? is actively campaigning to clean up the estate agency industry. We've written to Patricia Hewitt, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, demanding the Department of Trade and Industry introduces a licensing scheme for estate agents. We're also asking for a training scheme for estate agents and the creation of an industry ombudsman that can impose penalties on estate agents who don't conform. In the meantime, check out our campaign website, to stand the best chance of getting a fair deal when buying or selling your home. It includes a buyers and sellers checklist, links to useful organisations, and a standard, fair contract you can download and insist an agent uses for the sale of your property. We'll also be updating the site with your experiences and giving practical advice for what to do if things go wrong. The site and W? will keep you updated on our campaign's progress. If you've bought or sold property on the high street or online and you'd like to share your experiences, email us at computing@which.co.uk. |
Solo AgentJames and Anna want to avoid using an estate agent to sell their home, but are unsure how to tempt punters through their front door without one. Thousands of online property buyers mean that the web is a great place to advertise. Some websites allow you to advertise your home for under £100, so it's worth a try, particularly as there's nothing to stop you advertising on these sites as well as through a high-street agent. The Little House Company, Homes without agents and use-the-mouse, for instance, all cater to the private seller. For a little extra you can also advertise your home on a property portal (websites that collate property ads from multiple high-street agents), giving you a similar level of exposure as you would get through a high-street agent, barring of course the obligatory local newspaper and agency window ads. |
Prime Real EstateThe cost of advertising your property online varies according to the service you choose. Use-the-mouse and Homes without agents will let you post an advert on their sites for free (although, in the case of use-the-mouse, you're limited to one photograph and a 50-word description of your property). Use-the-mouse also offers a silver and gold service. Silver buys you six photos and as long a description as you like. Upgrade to gold and you'll also get an actual For Sale sign to put up outside your home; the board displays a freephone number, which is manned by use-the-mouse. For £125, TLHC will place your ad on its own site as well as property portals, fish4homes.com, asserta home.co.uk, propertyfinder.co.uk and thisislondon.co.uk. Homes without agents will also put your property on the fish4homes.co.uk portal for three months (£30 plus VAT), six months (£50 plus VAT) or until it's sold (£60 plus VAT). These one-off fees are a fraction of what you'd pay an estate agent - an agent charging two per cent would demand £3,455.78 on the sale of a house worth £172,789 (the average UK house price). VerdictBy advertising online, you could save a lot of money and still reach a similar number of buyers as you would using a professional estate agent - TLHC claims to attract over 65,000 buyers each month. However, choosing to sell your home privately will cost you time and energy. You'll have to do your own measuring up in order to quote the dimensions of the rooms in your house, the length of your garden and so on, as well as prepare the property details, value your property and show potential buyers around. But, as Martin Charlick, managing director of TLHC points out, 'a lot of people who appoint estate agents end up doing the work themselves (anyway). They discover that the agent has taken down the wrong details or they don't like the photographs… and they still end up showing potential buyers around.' |
Relocation, RelocationMoving to a new area can be a daunting prospect but the web can help you research suitable areas and line up potential properties to view before you even step out the door. 'I use the internet at the beginning of a property search to research the area and get a feel for house prices,' says Phil Spencer, front man for Channel Four's 'Location, Location, Location' and MD of Garrington Home Finders.
 www.switchwithwhich.co.uk
The first step is to see whether you can afford to buy in your preferred area. For example, John and Melanie earn £80,000 and £30,000 per annum respectively. They can work out their available budget using the mortgage calculator on the Switch with Which? website. Based on their current earnings, they can afford to borrow between £275,000 and £290,000. To see how far this will go in their preferred area of Kent (south of the M25 and west of Tunbridge Wells), they can check the Office of National Statistics' website which lists neighbourhood statistics, including details of average house prices by region. Prices in Tunbridge Wells range from £122,735 for a flat up to £326,372 for a detached house. This site can also help them to get the flavour of the neighbourhood, providing a breakdown of local demographics, such as age, religion, marital status and ethnic group. UpMyStreet offers similar information - a postcode search will give you average house prices, local crime rates and a feature called FindMyNearest that details local amenities. You can even compare two postcodes. The Department for Education and Skills lists schools by education authority and provides performance tables. You can play it safe online by assessing insurance risks, too. Check the risk of localised flooding at the Environment Agency's website, then grab an online insurance quote from the AA. John and Melanie's online research has narrowed their search to Westerham - a town just south of the M25 that has plenty of amenities and is close to Toy's Hill for walking in the countryside. It's also handy for mainline stations at Oxted and Sevenoaks - essential for John and Melanie's London commute. They can check commute times and season ticket prices on the National Rail website, www.rail.co.uk. |
Property Portals www.rightmove.co.uk
Once you've identified an area to buy in, property portals that collate information from agents nationwide are a good place to start searching for the perfect home. 'A property portal is very similar to what people have done for years…people tended to look in the local paper; the internet is like having a national paper,' says Myles Shipside, commercial director for rightmove.co.uk who claims that the website covers 70 to 80 per cent of UK agents. But as Phil Spencer rightly points out, 'there isn't yet an internet site that encompasses all agents and I'd advise people to look at a couple of sites at least.' Most property sites use similar search criteria: location, number of bedrooms, maximum price and property type (flat, semi etc). Be too broad in your search and you can end up with hundreds of irrelevant properties - our search for a three-bedroom house in Kent for John and Melanie using rightmove.co.uk, produced results from across the entire county and some of the houses listed were in Surrey. Equally, too narrow a search can prove disappointing - we entered Toy's Hill into rightmove.co.uk and came up empty-handed. The Vebra property portal (www.vebra.com) works slightly differently. You pick out an area (Kent) and then tick towns on a list. We turned up a beautiful Grade III listed property in Westerham within John and Melanie's price bracket. The site provides full property details, an external and internal photograph and the agents' details for arranging a viewing. VerdictViewing property online means that you can research potential properties at your leisure. 'As soon as you walk into an agents' office, they'll be trying to sell you [something]. The more information you can find out about a property before you leave the house the better. It won't be long before most sites offer 360-degree views and detailed floor plans,' says Spencer. |
Property Portals: Top 10
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Salad DaysBrian and Doreen both retire this summer and hope to relocate to warmer climes; they've got their hearts set on a villa in Spain. They've visited Alicante and would like to find a property nearby - the couple are keen golfers and there are plenty of courses in the area. Additionally, there are frequent, cheap flights to and from the city, which would make it easy for them to visit relatives back home. They'd like a house large enough to accommodate their daughter, son-in-law and their two children when they visit. As always, the first thing Brian and Doreen need to work out is how much they can afford to spend, how they're going to finance their Spanish home and what this will buy them in their preferred location near Alicante. Currency converterWhen buying abroad, you can get mortgage advice from the usual high street banks and building societies or use a specialist, overseas mortgage broker, which should have inside knowledge of property law and lending regulations where you're hoping to buy, as well as local contacts. 'People tend to assume that the system is very like it is here [but] the system overseas is generally much more stringent - there's no such thing as a self-certified mortgage, for instance,' said Miranda John, director of propertyfinance4less.com. Propertyfinance4less answers frequently asked questions (FAQs) on its website and gives general information on buying overseas on a country-by-country basis. Again the Switch with Which? mortgage calculator could help Brian and Doreen to set their budget. |
Sunshine RetreatOnce their finances are in place, Brian and Doreen can begin their hunt - not an easy task. Our search using Google and the key words, 'buy property overseas', produced 1,630,000 hits. 'Buyers tend to put in search terms and click on the first couple of sites that come up. These tend to be sponsored links, developer sites that try to pass themselves off as an informal arbiter - buyers beware,' said Peter Robinson, a spokesperson for Blendon Communications, publisher of Homes Overseas magazine. So, how do you spot the reputable companies from rogue traders? Trade organisation, the Federation of Overseas Property Developers and Consultants (FOPDAC) lists accredited agents and builders (alphabetically and by region) on its website, www.fopdac.com. As with estate agents in the UK, FOPDAC is self regulating - not the perfect situation. Its chairman, Adrian Medd who is also managing director of European Villa Solutions, admits 'Self-regulation is not the ideal way forward, but…(for the moment it) is better than nothing'. All FOPDAC's members have been in business for at least five years (it's a condition of entry) and were proposed and seconded by an existing member. FOPDAC's website has a broad choice of developers including several in Spain. Luxury Spanish Villas (www.luxuryspanishvillas.net), for example, lists several designs of Spanish villas in a range of price brackets. You can view their floor plans and, in some cases, even take a virtual tour exploring the bedrooms, kitchen, main living space and the terrace and pool area. It's no substitute for the real thing, but should give you a taste of what to expect before you shell out for a plane ticket. |
Sunshine Retreat: IIProperty expos are a good way of finding out about relocating abroad, with the added benefit that you'll get to meet the companies face-to-face. Expos take place most weeks and chances are there'll be one in your local area before long. Brian and Doreen could visit NEC in May for the Birmingham Homes Overseas Property in Spain exhibition. Homes Overseas is a monthly property magazine that regularly hosts shows of this type - you'll find a full calendar of events on its website (www.homesoverseas.co.uk/). Similarly, New Skys magazine also lists exhibitions on its website (www.newskys.co.uk). Remember, no one should jump on a plane before they've sorted out their finances and researched the legalities of buying property abroad. FOPDAC's website has a series of factsheets organised by country that give an overview of what's involved, but it's also a good idea to seek independent legal advice. The Law Society of England and Wales offers a searchable online database of solicitors in England and Wales as well as registered European lawyers (www.solicitors-online.com). Verdict Jetting off to foreign climes is costly, so do your homework, first. 'You can visit a number of sites to work out the type of area and the property that you want. It's perfect for background research up to the point that you need to seek expert guidance,' says Medd. |
Case Study: Private SaleChristopher Bailey sold his home privately within four months.'I needed to sell my property in north Yorkshire because of changes in the schools' catchment areas, but I had 18 months to move so I wasn't in a desperate hurry. I did a search for "properties for sale in the north" and came across www.countrylovers.co.uk. They only wanted a tenner to advertise on the site so I decided to give it a go. 'I put my property on the market just before Christmas 2002 and was amazed at the number of responses - I had 27 enquiries by January. After just a couple of viewings, I was made an offer and accepted. I got more enquiries after this and emailed people to say I'd stay in touch in case things went wrong. 'Previously, I'd had experience selling a house in Surrey - a lady made a serious offer but as the sale was going through we found out that her buyer was an American citizen who couldn't get a mortgage in the UK. By contrast, when I sold privately it was easier to deal with problems because I was in control of what was going on. There was an issue about access to the property through some common land but the buyer and I reached an agreement between us; we took out an indemnity and each paid half. 'My property was on the borderline for stamp duty. I advertised it for £255,000 but accepted the offer of £245,000 - I was happy to as I'd saved so much on commission fees.' |