We’ve been looking at moving house and its a completely different market to the one we experienced 12 years ago. There is a new wave of online estate agents taking over the market, these are exciting times. These online estate agents make it much, much easier to buy a property when you have children. Here are some reasons why:
Old-fashioned an inaccessible buildings
If you’re trekking the High Street with kids and pushchair in tow the last thing you really need is to navigate small doorways and stairs to just to sit and register your details. Added to that, its a real challenge trying to give your details whilst you juggle children desperately telling you something!
…and methods
Lots of traditional estate agents will still use traditional methods market their houses. This means waiting for a prospectus to come in the post or looking in the paper.
Cost
For us this is one of the key benefits for online estate agents. A High Street Estate Agent will have overheads in terms of staff and premises, this is why they can be far more expensive. Its then an added charge onto already high stamp duty and solicitors fees.
Hidden charges
With an online estate agent you can customise the services you need, at the start of the transaction. A simple one-off fee is paid, and if you want floor plans, photographs, nine months’ listings, or anything else, you can pay from the beginning.
Speed
Not only can an online estate agent sell your house with much-reduced fees (as little as a few hundred pounds compared to anywhere up to 3.5% of the sale) you may be able to offload it in double-quick time. HouseSimple.com, for example, boasts of average savings of £5, 899 and average sales times of 22 days. This is often ideal as a parent because you might be moving to take advantage of different schools and need a quick solution!
Social media
Usually online estate agents are brilliant at using social media. They can be posting a home, for free, on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any other platform that can gain traction, in the blink of an eye and their staff are usually very savvy about it. When you have children its really important to have a good awareness of social media and also how to use it properly to avoid putting your children at risk.
Physical travel
If your nearest estate agent is a few miles away visits can become very tiresome and draining your petrol tank, especially if there is no progress to report. It can be really tricky to negotiate in the shop or on a telephone when you have kids dangling off you. It can also be difficult to record what has been agreed. If you are in contact from your laptop you can keep a paper trail.
Office hours
We’ve already mentioned the drawbacks of having to visit a physical location, but we didn’t mention that you invariably have to do so when an estate agent is free and open. An online account may allow you to change some listing details whenever you like. This is a brilliant added bonus!
Trying to do anything with children is challenging and moving house is one of the most stressful things you can do anyway. Anything you can do to make things a bit cheaper and bit more stress free are a great idea so we are making full use of online estate agents!
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