Home » Uncategorised »
Online Agent Changes Fees to Pay-As-You-Go
This article is an external press release originally published on the Landlord News website, which has now been migrated to the Just Landlords blog.
HouseSimple, an online agent, has introduced a new fee structure.
Customers can choose to have one week’s free trial of the new fees followed by a weekly pay-as-you-go charge of £9, plus a success fee of £495 if the property sells.
Alternatively, they can pay a lump sum of £395 on completion of the sale or after 12 months of the property being on the market, whichever comes sooner.
Fees are reduced if vendors use the company’s conveyancing and mortgage broking services.
Sellers are not tied into a contract and under either payment plan, they receive services including valuation guidance, photography, floor plans and marketing on Rightmove and Zoopla.
HouseSimple also arranges viewings, and manages the negotiations and sales progression through to completion.
CEO of HouseSimple, Alex Gosling, says: “Unlike high street estate agents, who stubbornly refuse to change their commission model to provide a better value service to home sellers, we are continually striving to meet the needs of our customers.
“We recognise there is still some uncertainty amongst home sellers around online estate agents and the existing up-front fee model can dissuade people if they’ve never sold a property online before.
“We wanted to address that concern and make the service more accessible to all.
“The free one week’s trial and pay-as-you-go payment plan that we’ve introduced gives home sellers the opportunity to see how selling their property online works.
“Once they’ve dipped their toe into the water, they’ll wonder why they never tried selling with an online estate agent before.”
Gosling ignored the high street’s no-sale-no-fee model, but claims: “Consumers are fed up with paying the exorbitantly high fees that traditional estate agents charge.
“Many home sellers are paying through the nose for a poor quality customer service experience from a high street agent.
“Online estate agency is the future of this industry. Not only do we offer an equivalent service to the high street agent for a fraction of the cost, but we also secure more sales than high street estate agents and achieve a higher asking price on sales.”1
Founder of Carphone Warehouse and Chairman of TalkTalk and Dixons Carphone, Sir Charles Dunstone, alongside his business partner, Roger Taylor, recently invested £5m into HouseSimple.
HouseSimple claims to achieve an average 99% of the asking price and an average selling time of 20 days.
1 http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/online-agent-changes-fee-structure-to-pay-as-you-go/
