Most people begin their search for a new home online. The popularity of Zoopla, Right Move and others means you stand a better chance of selling your property if it’s listed on these major portals and seen by a considerable number of potential buyers.
High Street estate agents will generally list the properties they’re selling on these websites, but there is an alternative: online estate agents.
A traditional, local estate agent would come and value your home in order to sell it. In return for their services they typically charge a small percentage of the sale value. But even 1.5% of £300,000 is £4,500. That’s a lot of money that could be better spent on your new home.
Online estate agents work in a different way, effectively providing a way for you to list your home for sale on Rightmove or Zoopla, something you cannot do without an estate agent.
So what does it cost to use an online estate agent? Prices are usually fixed, but the cheapest – which can be completely free – make you become your own estate agent, conducting viewings and negotiating offers directly with buyers.
If that sounds too stressful, there are more expensive fixed-fee packages where the estate agent handles those things. But even then, you can still avoid that huge cut that a traditional estate agent takes.
Since selling a property can be one of the most stressful things you ever do, partly because it’s usually combined with buying a new one, the idea of saving a serious amount of money can be something of a silver lining.
Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry
Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry
Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry
Online vs high street estate agents
Under normal circumstances, the main advantage of a local high street estate agent is that they’ll show prospective buyers around your home for you, have good local knowledge of schools, transport links and other amenities. Remember, too, that if you use a local agent, you’re likely to have just one or two people to deal with, who will get to know you personally.
They usually have contact books brimming with buyers’ details and know exactly what they’re after, and will vet potential buyers and may even require that they already have an offer on the property they’re selling before they’ll allow them to view your property. The last thing you want is ‘window shoppers’ wasting your time: you’ll want to tidy up as few times as possible ahead of viewings.
Online agents, on the other hand, don’t know your local area and may use algorithms and simply look at other similar homes for sale to come up valuations and other information. They also rely on Rightmove, Zoopla and other sites to attract buyers.
You’ll be expected to do a lot of the legwork yourself. This can include conducting viewings with potential buyers, putting up your own ‘For Sale’ sign, and even writing your own advert and taking your own photos for Rightmove and Zoopla. Most online agents offer these services for an additional cost.
They may have not have enough staff to assign a dedicated agent to manage your sale and may taking a long time to respond to emails.
The attraction is the amount of money you’ll have. Online agents usually charge a set fee, which can start from as little as £75 or, in certain circumstances, completely free. This gets your home listed on on Rightmove, Zoopla and other portals for a certain amount of time (typically 12-16 weeks). If your property doesn’t sell within that time, you may have to pay again.
Many also levy a surcharge for properties sold in London and surrounding areas, and you should check whether an EPC (Energy Performance Certificate) is included in the fee. If not, you’ll have to arrange one and pay for it yourself, as every advert must include one. They start from around £55.
Don’t overlook all the work that needs to happen after a sale is agreed. High Street agents will work to progress your sale, dealing with the buyer and conveyancers. If you pick a service where you have to do all that yourself, it can add to an already stressful process.
Some online agents adopt what’s known as a ‘hybrid’ model, which combines a face-to-face service with online elements, so this could be a good compromise if you want the reassurance of that local knowledge, someone to handle viewings and generally manage the sale.
The best online estate agents in 2023
1. Strike
Pros
- Can be used completely free of charge
- Only pay if your property sells
Cons
- Most extras cost money
Can you really sell your house for free? That’s what’s Strike is advertising. Known as Housesimple from its inception in 2007 until its 2020 rebranding, it offers almost all the services you’ll need without paying a penny.
Strike provides expert valuation, a floorplan, a For Sale board, professional offer negotiation and listings on Rightmove and Zoopla. The company also says it will provide ‘dedicated support until completion’.
How is it able to offer all this for free? Well, there are two premium services you can pay for. A hosted viewings service (£799 and £999 for some London postcodes) means you won’t have to conduct them yourself, while the Performance Package adds professional photos, a video trailer and a premium listing on Rightmove, for £599 (£799 for some homes in London).
Strike also has partnerships that offer mortgage advice and removal services, so get paid if you choose to use these services. Nonetheless, the core service is offered completely free of charge.
We can’t vouch for how good this current iteration is, although one of the Tech Advisor team used the service when it was known as Housesimple. They found the experience seamless, despite being part of a long and complicated chain.
The pro photographer they sent was fantastic, the process of uploading details was simple and straightforward, and arranging viewings or accepting and declining offers was painless.
A rating of 4.4 ‘Excellent’ from over 21,000 reviews on Trustpilot suggests it’s a similar story following the rebranding.
2. Yopa
Pros
- Local agents
- Pay up front, or later
Cons
- Relatively expensive
- Only the Ultimate package includes a 360° tour
It might sound like a brand of drinkable yoghurt, but Yopa is a well-respected and established hybrid estate agent. Unlike some of its competitors, the company offers a local agent that can manage your sale, no matter which tier you choose.
There are three packages on offer, with two of them not requiring any payment until after the completion of the sale. For £999 (£1499 in some London locations) the Core service includes a valuation, pro photographs and floorplans of your property, a full listing on Zoopla, Rightmove, PrimeLocation and others, plus all negotiations with buyers handled by Yopa.
There are a few additional services you can purchase, which include unlimited accompanied viewings, premium listings on the top property sites, and conveyancing (quotes on application), and everything can be paid in instalments across six months.
The Premium bundle includes unlimited hosted viewings, premium listings on Zoopla and Rightmove and a discount if you choose to use Yopa’s mortgage broker. That costs from £1,399, but there’s also a Ultimate package that gets you a 360° virtual tour, plus featured listings for £1,999 (or £2,999 in some London locations.
Yopa has received a string of awards in recent years, and currently has a 4.6-star ‘Excellent’ rating on Trustpilot from over 19,000 reviews.
3. 99home
Pros
- Zoopla and OnTheMarket listings
- Excellent Trustpilot rating
Cons
- Rightmove listing is £100 per month
- Virtual tour available for up to 2-bed properties
99home is a popular choice because of its affordable £99 standard package. This is great if you’re happy to to most of the work yourself including taking photos, making a floorplan (or not if you don’t feel you need one) and showing prospective buyers around.
You get listings on Zoopla, OnTheMarket and other portals for four months, but no Rightmove.
There is even a completely free package, but that doesn’t include any online listings except on 99home’s own website.
If you want someone to take photos, make a floor plan, write you a nice description, the Combo package at £599 is good value as it also includes a listing on Rightmove for three months plus a For Sale board, plus negotiations and sales progression support. But you’ll still be showing people round yourself.
None of the packages include an EPC, but 99home will provide one for £79 (for up to 4-bed properties). Similarly, a virtual tour is an add-on and costs £180 for up to a 2-bed property.
One of the highlights, though, is that 99home has a seriously impressive 4.9-star ‘Excellent’ rating on Trustpilot from 1,000 customers at the time of writing.
4. SellMyHome
Pros
- Excellent Trustpilot ratings
- No price hike for London properties
Cons
- No fixed-fee packages
- No longer a portal to see viewing enquiries
SellMyHome is another online estate agent which offers a variety of packages and payment options.
It has changed its offering so you can no longer get the basic package which used to cost £150 per month (with an additional £250 setup fee). Now, it offers only packages costing a percentage of the sale price, starting with the Essential tier at 0.5%. That’s £1,500 if your property sells for £300,000.
This means it’s a better choice for lower-value homes, and a worse choice if you’ve a more expensive property to sell.
The Essential package includes an online valuation, professional photos, a virtual walkthrough and short videos, and a floorplan to accompany your listing on Rightmove, Zoopla, PrimeLocation, and a number of other popular sites. Other perks include a dedicated account manager, monthly performance reports and a memorandum of sale (if the property sells, that is).
SellMyHome will also create the copy for the listing, after asking you questions about your home.
The Traditional package has a fee of 0.9% of the final sale price and includes accompanied viewings and a physical (in-person) valuation, .
It may be a bit more expensive than some rivals, but all SellMyHome’s packages still undercut high-street agents by quite a margin. And though it has just 530 reviews on Trustpilot, the 4.9 average rating – and the comments themselves – show that those who’ve used it are very happy indeed with the service they received.
5. Purplebricks
Pros
- Dedicated app
- Well established
Cons
- Relatively expensive
- Extra charge for in-person estate agent viewings
Purplebricks is one of the best-known online estate agents in the UK and operates as a hybrid service. The company has local property experts that know their areas well and can provide you with a free valuation for your home.
You might think Purplebricks would be the obvious choice, but prices have been steadily climbing over the last few years to the point where Purplebricks now charges £1,349 (or a whopping £2,250 in and around London). Yet the package is basically the same as it was a few years back.
Included in the fee is the local expert, photography of your property, support from a UK-based team, and your house or flat being listed on Rightmove, Zoopla, and other popular sites. You have the option to pay either at the beginning of the engagement or deferred for ten months, which might appeal to some.
Despite the price, you’ll need to conduct viewings yourself. If this isn’t to your liking, you can pay an extra £500 (£1000 in London) for Purplebricks to send one of their agents to handle the viewings instead.
A dedicated Purplebricks app allows you to receive feedback from viewings and even accept offers on your property, making it easy to manage the sale wherever you may be. There’s also conveyancing support that makes the last few parts of the process less complicated.
It may be more expensive than others, but you’ll still save a packet compared to using a High Street estate agent, especially if your home is worth more than average.
At the time of writing Purplebricks’ Trustpilot rating had dipped from 4.4 last time we looked to a 3.8-star ‘Great’ rating. However, that’s from over 90,000 reviews – more than 10 times the number some of its rivals have.
6. Property Solvers
Pros
- Cash sale option
- 24/7 live chat
Cons
- No fixed fee payment options
As a hybrid estate agent, Property Solvers offers a choice of ways to sell your house. However, unlike others here, it’s aimed at people who need to sell their property fast.
In fact, Property Solvers will buy your house itself if you opt for the ‘Quick Cash Sale’ service. This gets you up to 75% of market value and urgent sales can be turned around in as little as seven days if you are in a really tight spot.
For those who aren’t in quite so much of a hurry and want to get what their property is worth, the Express Sale Service means you get the market value but still a good deal faster than normal. One of the benefits of the hybrid service is that a sales manager will visit your property, talk you through the sale process and value it.
Everything is arranged for you: floorplans, high-quality photos, and listings on the major (as well as smaller) online marketing portals. There’s a choice of three packages, all of which have no tie-ins so you can leave at any time, and not pay a penny until your house is sold. Fees start at 1.5% for the All-in-One Online Package and rise to 1.95% for the Premium Package that comes with extras such as a virtual reality tour of your property, featured listings on Zoopla, Rightmove and more.
These fees are comparable with high street estate agents, but if you’re keen to sell quickly, and you want 24/7 live chat access to a sales manager then Property Solvers can be a good option.
Author: Martyn Casserly, Contributor
Martyn has been involved with tech ever since the arrival of his ZX Spectrum back in the early 80s. He covers iOS, Android, Windows and macOS, writing tutorials, buying guides and reviews for Macworld and its sister site Tech Advisor.