Zoopla , what a load of rubbish

[FocusRS3]

Decided to put the house up for sale last year and downscale a bit and took the advice of looking at Zoopla for pricing .

Needless to say the estimated price was way over the top and we missed the boat selling the house but of course we ‘had’ to put it on just under the Zoopla estimate .

Zoopla and estate agents wind me up no end .
They say they have buyers on their books , utter BS, everyone looks at rightmove then calls them.

We’ve even had another competing agent send round fake buyers in an attempt to get us to sign up with them .

Any better sale ideas because I can’t think of any and I’ve reduced the house twice substantially already ?

[Muddle238]

When we bought our house we used Rightmove predominantly but also used Zoopla for a few searches. I found their site simply not as good as Rightmove, plus it was very slow to load individual properties.

Nowadays I would only really use Rightmove.

[FocusRS3]

We’ve never thought of using Zoopla for a property to buy its straight onto rightmove .

This is really my point , the agent is just a chaperone and negotiator , there simply aren’t people on agents books waiting for a call from abc estate agent

[Vocal Minority]

When I bought my first house, it was my excellent surveyor who got the job done.

The estate agent did f**k all for their fee.

Saw the property on rightmove (literally any estate agent would have done this)...agent let me in. I made an offer at a bit below asking. It was accepted. Straight on to lawyers.

They got paid 1.5% being a messenger boy. That delivered one message,

[Johnnytheboy]

In fairness, when we moved two years ago, we bought and sold with the same estate agent and they were excellent. Worked really hard for us.

[Vaud]

Vocal Minority said:

When I bought my first house, it was my excellent surveyor who got the job done.

The estate agent did f**k all for their fee.

Saw the property on rightmove (literally any estate agent would have done this)...agent let me in. I made an offer at a bit below asking. It was accepted. Straight on to lawyers.

They got paid 1.5% being a messenger boy. That delivered one message,

On the flip side there will be properties that they spend thousands on and don't cover their 1.5%.

[Monty Python]

Anyone tried PurpleBricks?

[LittleBigPlanet]

We used House Simple and sold within eight days, cost £995 (no sale, no fee).

Professional photography was excellent, booking/approving viewings was simple too (even our viewers said so). My only hesitation might be if you had an unusual house or one that was perhaps older that may warrant lots of questions.

[phil4]

Vocal Minority said:

The estate agent did f**k all for their fee.

Not for one second did I ever think I'd be sticking up for an EA... but here goes.

It sounds like you're basing this assumption on what the EA did for you. You didn't pay his 1.5% fee did you?

It may well be the EA made multiple visits to the property prior to it being put on the market, got photos taken, edited and then paid the rightmove fee to put it on there (or has a subscription, but cost all the same).

I'm assuming you were the only person to phone the EA and enquire about the property, as if not they most likely had various phone and emails questions to deal with.

Finally I assume you were the only person to visit the property? If not, they'd then have that aspect to deal with.

They then had the phone/emails to seal the deal, and send then prepare and send on the memo of sale.


While from a buyers perspective I can see why you'd jump to the conclusion you did, that doesn't mean the EA really didn't do anything. And while the 1.5% fee is often above their raw cost per property, they have all usual overheads like staff and premises that don't appear and vanish with the properties. And don't forget they still have the right to make a profit.

EA's days may be numbered, and once the keyholder/chaparone bit is accepted by sellers across the board, the value-add of the EA will be reduced, that doesn't mean they do nothing.

Edited by phil4 on Monday 20th November 09:04

[Vaud]

There are some very smart technologies that will help estate agents stay relevant - I think augmented reality and virtual reality techs will be relevant, at least at the higher end.

[jodypress]

I went through this last year/earlier this year. I originally put my flat up (2 bed loft conversion in old Victorian School) on eMoov then tried several estate agents with no joy. (I knew deep down I had to put it up with a specialised EA which in the end I did and they sold it)
The EA worked bloody hard dealing with a lot of issues from the buyer's side and I felt they earned their fees. It stung for sure as they were the priciest by far but they were the most realistic price wise and got people through the door.

All the EA's I used put the flat up mainly on Rightmove. When I was looking to purchase I sued both RM and Zoopla and still ended up buying through an EA. They too were pretty helpful as well.

There's definitely a place for online EA's for sure but some people don't like dealing with the Vendor directly.

[nealeh1875]

Hi OP,

I'm an ex EA and i always hated this Zoopla property estimate bs,

Essentially, if you wasn't aware, if takes an average of house prices within a certain mileage. So if a house 1 mile away sells for £1mil then your house price will increase too. Same if a load of small 1 bed flats sell.. your house average price will come down etc,

This was always a big objection. 'Well zoopla says its worth x amount, thats £10/20/50k etc more than what you are saying. Sometimes it can be correct but more often than not it is wrong.. In my experience.

Because you put it on overpriced initially, buyers on rightmove and zoopla would of seen it now, seen you reduced and now think you are desperate to sell (reduced twice) and will wait for you to drop more.

I would wait until the new year, if you can wait that long to sell? Chances are it will take 3-4 months to complete anyway especially if you sold now as solicitors shut down for pretty much 2 weeks.

Wait until new year, look at what agents are selling well within 1/4 1/2 mile of your area, same type of houses etc and get them round. See what you reckon then.

Hope it all works out!

[TA14]

nealeh1875 said:

Hi OP,

I'm an ex EA and i always hated this Zoopla property estimate bs,

Essentially, if you wasn't aware, if takes an average of house prices within a certain mileage. So if a house 1 mile away sells for £1mil then your house price will increase too. Same if a load of small 1 bed flats sell.. your house average price will come down etc,

This was always a big objection. 'Well zoopla says its worth x amount, thats £10/20/50k etc more than what you are saying. Sometimes it can be correct but more often than not it is wrong.. In my experience.

Because you put it on overpriced initially, buyers on rightmove and zoopla would of seen it now, seen you reduced and now think you are desperate to sell (reduced twice) and will wait for you to drop more.

I would wait until the new year, if you can wait that long to sell? Chances are it will take 3-4 months to complete anyway especially if you sold now as solicitors shut down for pretty much 2 weeks.

Wait until new year, look at what agents are selling well within 1/4 1/2 mile of your area, same type of houses etc and get them round. See what you reckon then.

Hope it all works out!

To follow on from that can you post some 'photos of the house? Does it need to be free from clutter? Neutral decorating? NB, as Neal mentioned, very close to Xmas so will be hard to sell in the next month-ish. Good luck and remember that sometimes houses just don't sell in the first month or so

[alorotom]

FocusRS3 said:

there simply aren’t people on agents books waiting for a call from abc estate agent

Yes there are, loads of investors are held on lists by agents where they are buying up several properties in particular streets, post codes etc... - we were for years (still am on the lists actually but we don’t have our portfolio anymore so it’s academic)

These are normally for very specific property types though so unlikely to be the types of property the average WBPHD goes for

I personally dislike estate agents and when we sold our portolfio I had 12 properties to sell, ideally I wanted one agent to handle the lot but ended up with 5 as it was just too much of a nightmare with offices only handling certain areas and not allowed across these internally set boundaries - and their approaches to assessment, valuation, paperwork etc... varied wildly between branches also - was so peculiar

I’ve never used Zoopla - Rightmove all the way for us for uk properties but this is trumped I believe by Trulia in the US which is much slicker (but the agents are even worse in terms of images and information so it all balances!)

[DocJock]

FocusRS3 said:

We’ve never thought of using Zoopla for a property to buy its straight onto rightmove .

This is really my point , the agent is just a chaperone and negotiator , there simply aren’t people on agents books waiting for a call from abc estate agent

That's simply not true. Our last house sold to a couple the EA introduced the same day he came round to do his valuation, and before he had even taken photographs or written up the ad.

[Agent XXX]

As an agent I confer that Zoopla is, a bit crap.

They really have become more of a 'services supplier' recently buying up all manner of companies that provide various products and services to estate agents. The 'estimates' are, as stated, way out of line and as for the quality of enquiries from Zoopla in comparison to Rightmove is laughable.

As for the issue of the agents's fees, there are a lot of overheads running a 'high street' estate agent, not to mention £1500 a month per office just to list the properties on Rightmove.

[Hoofy]

Monty Python said:

Anyone tried PurpleBricks?

When I asked this a while ago on PH, I was warned against using them as you pay the fee and then they just are slow to reply to your emails etc. Ended up going with a normal EA.

[anonymous-user]

I have no idea why you'd use Zoopla in pricing your property for sale.

It's a rough estimate, often based on minimal average data. At its most basic it takes no account of interior state and sale-ability etc.

[BoRED S2upid]

FocusRS3 said:

there simply aren’t people on agents books waiting for a call from abc estate agent

In some rare cases there are. Some friends of ours were buying in a very sought after area stuff literally sells in days and one agent has the area tied up. It was a case of get yours under offer and mortgage in place and the agent will put you on their approved sellers list. Also happens in lettings so agents do have a use in a handful of cases.

[liner33]

nealeh1875 said:

Hi OP,

I'm an ex EA and i always hated this Zoopla property estimate bs,

Essentially, if you wasn't aware, if takes an average of house prices within a certain mileage. So if a house 1 mile away sells for £1mil then your house price will increase too. Same if a load of small 1 bed flats sell.. your house average price will come down etc,

Thats really interesting I did wonder how it calculates it as my house is valued quite a bit lower than other similar properties sell for in my area but its a 5 bed and most on my street are 2 or 3 bed