An Impersonal Approach! (Online Estate Agents - Comments & Tips)

Member Name: katygriff

Product:	Online Estate Agents - Comments & Tips
Date:	22/05/06 (240 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Searching.

Disadvantages: No Contact.

I have been searching for a house for a while now as you all should know so it does not come as a surprise when I say that I have been using the internet as a resource for our search. Overall I think that without the internet we would not have seen as many houses or even known that many were on the market and we would have certainly not found the house that we have just made an offer on just a few days ago. So what are the online resources for estate agents like and are they any good?

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Online Estate Agents – What do They Offer and What are They?

Basically any estate agent you know of or any that you see advertising on houses should have an online resource. You can go to their website and get advice, search for property to rent and also arrange viewings and contact the estate agent.

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My Experience – The Bad:

Well overall I have had a positive experience with online estate agents but I will warn you that responses are extremely quicker if you do go through the agent direct and just give them a call.

The first estate agent we decided to check out online was Jayman and this is because my old driving instructor used to work there and told us they were quite good. As I am employed in a full time job I am quite hard to get in contact with via phone in the week so I thought using the internet and doing everything online would be a good idea as I can just check my emails throughout the day. The search facilities were great but then when it came to registering with the site it would not let me and then I requested a lot of properties to be sent to my email or home address and they arrived two weeks later so not exactly efficient.

Jayman isn’t the only site that I had problems registering with as property finder, your move and reeds rains I have not been able to register with effectively. Some sites I did manage to register with would just not send properties through to my email even when the saved search criteria matched them so it does make me wonder whether some sites are set up correctly.

The one other complaint I have about using estate agents online is that they are not exactly that useful when it comes to asking them questions. There was one property I wanted to view but wanted to find out a bit more about and I emailed them but nobody replied but then when I called them at the weekend they said they hadn’t even received an email.

One last complaint about using the websites is that some of them take ages to load up and then many of the properties that are on there are not in much detail and you have to phone them up anyway to find out about them. Also I have requested several viewing through websites and they were only arranged when I actually phoned the branches up as I hadn’t heard from them.

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My Experience – The Good:

Whatever I say about estate agents online they are brilliant for searching for property. I search for property to buy and then they go in-depth on many sites asking for area, what type of property, how many bedrooms, when it was put on the market and also the price range you need. The searches do bring up properties quite quickly and all of the sites I have been on do show photos of the property on the main search page so you can have a look to what suits you before you go into detail.

Although I do not think some websites show enough detail they do show you7 the main picture and then some of the particulars but literally just the basics. I have actually only come across DB Roberts that show you the property in great detail on the website and really gives you an idea on what it is like inside. I do think just by looking at the sites though that you can tell if you want to view the property and then you always have the option of requesting more information.

One other thing that online estate agent websites are great for is contact information as I have found all of the phone numbers and emails I have needed to do my house hunt so I think with that respect they are fantastic.

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Verdict:

I do not think I would have got as far with this house search as I have without using the internet. Me and my boyfriend have been searching the internet every day as we found that when we walked into estate agents we could not find everything that we wanted to as you have to search all of the properties on the wall where as I prefer it when they are right in front of you.

For me and Dave using the internet to search for properties has been the easiest thing to do as we are looking for properties that are over 20 miles away from where we both live so checking what has been updated onto the websites each day has been very efficient and I find that they are on the web quite soon after the estate agent actually gets them in.

In conclusion though I can only give online estate agents three stars and to be honest if the search engines were not so good and useful they would have only got two. It loses stars because you can search for properties but you cannot do much else and I myself prefer to talk to people anyway as you can get immediate responses to your questions. All they would need to do to get more stars in my books would be to treat people the same online as they do in person but I think if you have made an effort to call them then they are so much more helpful. I would only recommend online for searches but do not hold you breath waiting for email replies.

Thanks for reading.

xxx

Summary: Phone Them - Its Better.