Internet or High Street - Where would you go to find your next home?

By: Sarah Beeny, Tepilo.com
07-Dec-2009

The number of estate agent-related queries on Google is believed to have grown by 35 per cent this year and more people are using the internet to search for properties to rent or buy than ever before.

Twenty years ago if you wanted to buy a house, you would visit the local estate agents. Now it seems most of us look online.  Rightmove, the UK's largest property portal boasts that over 90% of all homes for sale in the UK are listed on its site, and the major portals such as Propertyfinder, Primelocation, Globrix and Fish4homes have seen a huge rise in property numbers, particularly since some major site updates in 2006/7.

I've recently launched my own property website, Tepilo.com, which differs from the major portals in that users can upload their own properties for free, without the need for getting an estate agent involved and saving you thousands in the process.  Portals such as Rightmove and Globrix will only accept properties from agents, so there are limited places you can advertise your own property effectively.

Tepilo also facilitates a negotiation process, viewing requests and offers through the site itself, and you can pick up useful advice throughout the process. Properties are displayed in a magazine style format, with plenty of images and handy information about the local area, such as transport links and nearby schools. Owners also describe the properties in their own words, which we think often provides the information you just can't get through an agent's description.

There is a general perception held by the public that selling your home is daunting and incredibly complicated. Of course this isn't the case at all. By providing a simple to use platform, coupled with solid advice and a step by step guide, I thought we could help people through the process and dispel the myth that selling a home can be a minefield.

Valuing property is not an exact science; but be led by the local market...

There is no science to a valuation and once you understand how an estate agent or professional values your home you will be able to see how straightforward it is to value it yourself.

The two ways to value are to find out how much a home like yours recently sold for and/or look at what you can buy at the level you think you should be selling for - i.e. if you think your 2-bedroom flat should be worth �£130,000 but there are lots of 3 bedroom houses at a similar level - you are unlikely to achieve your price. Not much science to it really. Nothing that keeping a close eye on the local market and seeing how much other properties are selling for won't tell you.

Recently I had a valuation of Ã?£120,000 from one very large national agent and Ã?£250,000 from another for the same property (it ended up selling for Ã?£208,000).  So if it's all a bit of guesswork you can do a great deal of the same research yourself.

There are an increasing number of online valuation services too, Propertypriceadvice, Zoopla and Nethouseprices are among these, most of which use data on latest sale prices from the Land Registry or sophisticated algorithms to give predicted valuations based on your answers to sets of logical questions.

Things are changing fast in the online property sector

Simon Prockter (CEO of Adventura holidays) was reportedly the first person ever to sell their property completely online in the UK, it was interesting to hear his thoughts recently on how things were back in 1997 when he sold his property himself:

"The whole experience of selling on the internet was painless.  Mainly because it cut out the estate agent.  Not wanting to be negative, I didn't believe the agents were selling in my interest. I think the buyer felt happier as well as the line of communication was clearer. I also think being able to achieve it independently provided a much better feeling afterwards.  I was disheartened to see sites like the one I sold through had all but disappeared when I last bought a property 5 years ago so I was delighted to see a new site, tepilo.com, come along and give the power back to the seller (and buyer). I'm interested to see how my next property sale goes with them!"

We also asked him how much he thought he had saved by selling his property online.

"I obviously saved a lot - not just through not paying fees but also by not receiving stupid offers. I was selling in a buyers' market and I think agents encouraged stupid offers when I was selling - most offers via agents were �£10k below the asking price, one offer was �£25k below! Plus on top of that agent fees were higher then - something like 4-5 % if using more than one agent. So realistically I saved at least �£13-15k - not much in today?s money but certainly a lot back then."

Selling by yourself now, you could be saving up to 3.5% of the value of your property, which is considerable with current property values, so something that I think everyone should be considering. If you are already with an agent, then look to the internet as a back-up plan, the additional exposure might be what you need to find those buyers.

We have been surprised at the huge amount of high value property being advertised online, way above the average house price, you might expect this to sell better through a specialist, but in selling and advertising online, this is where the really big savings can be found and I guess this makes it an attractive proposition. Buyers will come where the properties are found.

See also:  Sarah Beeny's guide to selling a property online

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Tepilo is an alternative way to buy or sell your home online without fees.

Some people will always prefer to use an estate agent. But for those of you who would like to take control of the sale of your home, often your biggest asset, we have created Tepilo. The site simplifies and explains the whole process which is often perceived as something more complicated than it really is. We are here with all the advice you need to get through the whole process, and of course to save you many thousands of pounds at the same time.