How to sell your house quickly without losing out – words Alan Woods

It wasn’t so long ago that we just accepted selling a home could be laborious, and costly. Pre-digital – let’s use the year 2000 as shorthand – moving from a home went as follows; you did a little research, and it was valued and placed in local newspapers and the windows of high street estate agents.

Then, after several weeks or months, an agreement was reached on a price, forms were laboriously signed in person, and eventually, if you were lucky enough, your property would be sold.

Thankfully, technology has shortened the sales journey considerably, for both buyer and seller. Indeed, one of the longest tasks in 2016 and onwards could be choosing exactly which estate agent/online agent you choose to sell through. There are numerous criteria for choosing how you sell, but ultimately, as The HomeOwners Alliance rightly points out, the agent works for you and the decision to sell is ultimately yours and yours alone.

So, to sell your house quickly online is fast and easy, and presents the property on a huge range of property portals, including giants such as RightMove and Zoopla. Sellers can usually access files or information at any time of day, and not rely on someone on the other end of the phone (especially if you’re buying or selling abroad on a different time zone). Some high street agents also offer this as well, but the one area where the new and the old do differ is costs.

Since online estate agents have no local physical premises (apart from perhaps a central office somewhere), costs are cheaper and usually expressed through a flat rate which is more transparent and known at the start of the process, and generally far cheaper than high street agents who take a cut of any sales price. This makes online agents an attractive proposition to customers and investors.

There are drawbacks – many people not au fait with the digital world might want to actually sit across a table from a human being and talk to them – but generally online sellers are growing in popularity, and companies such as HouseSimple.com boast expertise across the country through local experts, even if their actual head offices are not physically situated in a given area.

Some sites even promise to sell your home within a week by buying it from you at a reduced cost, but not charging legal or estate agent fees. While this might not be ideal from a financial point of view it could be perfect if you need to move quickly, or you are suffering from financial difficulties.

Fees can even sometimes be deferred, and while some sites do charge whether they manage to sell the property or not a good estate agent should be able to help save you good money. According to a BBC piece on online agents, a typical fee could be around £1,200 in London, compared to around £3,251 for high street agents – assuming it sells, of course.

Remember that the actual length of time that it takes to sell a home varies from area to area. According to research from Hometrack, it takes on average four weeks to sell a home in Greater London but ten weeks in the North East, and this is just one piece of research – others show contrasting or wildly varying results. So promises on websites of selling a home in a fast time do not always come to fruition. However, finding the right agent – online or not – can usually guarantee success.