Zoopla , what a load of rubbish

[fido]

LittleBigPlanet said:

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.

Did you use their solicitors as well? I think they charge an extra £300 if you go through your own solicitor.

[red_slr]

liner33 said:

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

You can submit more info to Zoopla to get a more accurate price. Its also more accurate the more sales on the property. So a house that's not sold for the last 15 years might be way over. Also on the flip side a house that sold 2 years ago and had £100k spent on it with extension and full refurb might be well under.

IMHO, round these parts anyway, its about 5-10% over in general terms.

[Puggit]

We bought our house with a good discount because the vendors were desperate (and stupidly admitted that to us). As a result, our 6 bed is priced at a similar value to nearby 4 bed homes. Silly.

[LittleBigPlanet]

fido said:

LittleBigPlanet said:

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.

Did you use their solicitors as well? I think they charge an extra £300 if you go through your own solicitor.

Yes, we did/are (for both sale and purchase). It's all online, nice to see how things are progressing.

[red_slr]

That's the only issue, people now easily know what you previously paid!

The issue with agents can be that they don't do anything but I have seen both sides. Had a sale fall through due to a lying agent who dragged us along for 3 months despite knowing the house was in probate and not telling us.

Then the other side was an agent that did everything they could to get us in a house within 4 weeks of the offer and whilst the vendor may not have seen the "value" it was something we appreciated!

[liner33]

red_slr said:

You can submit more info to Zoopla to get a more accurate price. Its also more accurate the more sales on the property. So a house that's not sold for the last 15 years might be way over. Also on the flip side a house that sold 2 years ago and had £100k spent on it with extension and full refurb might be well under.

IMHO, round these parts anyway, its about 5-10% over in general terms.

I think this is about 33% under but the house was last sold 18 years ago and has indeed had a lot spent on it with a large extension added and garden remodelled

I would almost certainly use an EA though . I want to move but the wife isn't ready its not that I'm obsessed with house prices

[red_slr]

If its had extensive works Zoopla price wont catch up till the next sale.

[Little Lofty]

I buy and sell 5 or 6 houses per year, I never rely on Zoopla prices when I buy and certainly don't use it to value a house I'm sellling. I've also never come across an agent who uses or rates it. I did see one property I've recently bought on Zoopla and it was valued at £330k, this was based on its last sale price of £300k. I bought it at auction for £170k and surprise surprise Zoopla now value it at £170k, but it's actually worth around £275k.

[PositronicRay]

red_slr said:

If its had extensive works Zoopla price wont catch up till the next sale.

You can submit an adjustment, I managed to bump the zoopla price on a property that had a loft extension and some other works.

[DonkeyApple]

I'll stick up for EAs also. Like all industries that pay on comm there are some great people and a lot of terrible little turds. But most areas have many EAs servicing them and it's always worth touring them all to find not just the right company for your property type but the right person who is going to be incentivised to sell your particular property.

The online selling services definitely have a place but I think you need to be honest when deciding whether to use one or not as to whether you have the right sort of property for that type of service to work well for.

Personally, I don't like being shown around properties by the owners. They are always keen to focus on aspects that are of no value or relevance and having a good EA as a buffer for all the toing and froing is very useful.

[FocusRS3]

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!

We are going to relist it (2nd week inn jan and go POA see if that gets the ball rolling .
Local houses are very individual so there is no obvious benchmark but you’ll know what I mean by that .

I definitely think a few things have conspired against us , most definitely Brexit , so our timings been out buy 18 months I’d say .

Really hate the process of preparing the house for viewings and my wife puts big effort in and sadly we’ve had all manner of time wasters rock up .
I just hope they get the same treatment although we won’t even look at a place untill we are under offer .

Fingers crossed for the new year

[Herbs]

FocusRS3 said:

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!

We are going to relist it (2nd week inn jan and go POA see if that gets the ball rolling .
Local houses are very individual so there is no obvious benchmark but you’ll know what I mean by that .

I definitely think a few things have conspired against us , most definitely Brexit , so our timings been out buy 18 months I’d say .

Really hate the process of preparing the house for viewings and my wife puts big effort in and sadly we’ve had all manner of time wasters rock up .
I just hope they get the same treatment although we won’t even look at a place untill we are under offer .

Fingers crossed for the new year

I wouldn't personally do POA unless it is an expensive property.

Most people look through Rightmove at the floor plan and photo's at their price level and if it all stacks up and looks good value for money book a viewing. I tended to look through Rightmove/Zoopla/PrimeLocation either on my lunch break or in the evenings and a property that was POA wouldn't jump out at me enough to ring up to enquire about it (for a variety of reasons).

When selling you want your property to appear in as peoples searches and thoughts as possible.

[m3jappa]

BoRED S2upid said:

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.

I agree there are people on agents books, people who have sold but haven't yet found what they want or are cash buyers.

The house we live in is an example.

Agent knew of one person who may be interested. Agent phones him, he comes straight round and offered asking. I had also said to the agent 'look at this house here, if something like this comes up, this is what we want'.
Sale fell through with first bloke, agent straight onto us, we bought it.

didn't even make it onto right move.

[m3jappa]

The zoopla prices are also crazy, our house is shown as 120k less than an identical one round there corner, ours is in a better position and fully modernised.
Reason for price difference is what the other people payed in 05 seems a bit rich compared to what we paid in jan 17.

[Tony427]

Hoofy said:

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.

Was chatting with an old school friend who has been a Chartered Surveyor for nigh on 40 years and his advise, if we are looking to sell our place, was to go with Purple Bricks.To illustrate his point he gave us the example of one of his clients who sold his £1m plus home for a fixed fee and saved over £20k against EA fees.

As he said, everyone just looks on the web these days anyway.

Cheers

Tony

[FocusRS3]

Herbs said:

I wouldn't personally do POA unless it is an expensive property.

Most people look through Rightmove at the floor plan and photo's at their price level and if it all stacks up and looks good value for money book a viewing. I tended to look through Rightmove/Zoopla/PrimeLocation either on my lunch break or in the evenings and a property that was POA wouldn't jump out at me enough to ring up to enquire about it (for a variety of reasons).

When selling you want your property to appear in as peoples searches and thoughts as possible.

The problem is we need a new sales approach, just reducing the price in the current market isn't working .

I think the mkts at a bit of a standstill

[TA14]

FocusRS3 said:

Herbs said:

I wouldn't personally do POA unless it is an expensive property.

Most people look through Rightmove at the floor plan and photo's at their price level and if it all stacks up and looks good value for money book a viewing. I tended to look through Rightmove/Zoopla/PrimeLocation either on my lunch break or in the evenings and a property that was POA wouldn't jump out at me enough to ring up to enquire about it (for a variety of reasons).

When selling you want your property to appear in as peoples searches and thoughts as possible.

The problem is we need a new sales approach, just reducing the price in the current market isn't working .

I think the mkts at a bit of a standstill

You can't really do POA with rightmove. The agent must have to put a price in because they list it where you'd expect to find the house in the price order list.

As above though, price is only one factor. Are you happy about photos, description, tidyness, decor etc.

[Yipper]

Amazed anyone uses estate agents. They are massively overpriced.

As above, just use Purple Bricks and save a fortune, especially if you live in London or posh parts of Southeast.

[FocusRS3]

TA14 said:

You can't really do POA with rightmove. The agent must have to put a price in because they list it where you'd expect to find the house in the price order list.

As above though, price is only one factor. Are you happy about photos, description, tidyness, decor etc.

Yes pics and decor all good as is the description

[Vaud]

Yipper said:

Amazed anyone uses estate agents. They are massively overpriced.

As above, just use Purple Bricks and save a fortune, especially if you live in London or posh parts of Southeast.

Because sometimes you can get a good deal?

In our area each agent has a list for certain streets of prospective buyers.

In the mid market (3-4 beds, etc) the majority of sales never hit the internet. No costs to agent, no advertising fees, a straight £X commission and a fast transaction.