We don’t like the word “cheap” it’s almost related to “nasty” and often is associated with goods or services that do not meet expectations but rather just do the job adequately.

 

Our estate agency service is good value for money and this is the phrase that often gets used by our clients who write fantastic testimonials on behalf of our company.

 

I think any company that promotes their service as “cheap” is in danger of giving themselves a bad name and in this day and age there are many forums where angry customers can vent their feelings and this can be very damaging.

 

Our fees when compared to local agents may initiate a knee jerk reaction which we get asked a lot here by new clients “Why are you so cheap?” and it’s an easy question to answer and the simple answer is “why are the others so expensive!” we can sell a house for £510 including vat, it’s not a small amount of money but compared to the high street fees it there is such a difference that people are quite right to question it.

 

The after-sales service is key, it’s not just about finding a buyer and then letting solicitors get on with it, you must provide assistance throughout the transaction which can sometimes go on for months on end especially if there are many people in the chain. The average sale will be completed within 3 months from the point of solicitors being instructed so it’s important for us to be there for our clients and to help them through a daunting phase of their lives.

 

One of the biggest complaints against estate agents is that they charge thousands of pounds to sell a house but do little in terms of after-sales service. The service we provide certainly makes the £510 fee great value for money but not “cheap”.

 

The tempting thing to do of course is to raise our fees but the whole ethos of House Network is to save our clients money on high street fees and provide a first class service along the way. We’d much rather take on more properties at a lower fee than a minority at a higher fee and to date this has given us tremendous success and growth as the country’s leading online estate agent.

 

We would also never put our fees down much lower than they are currently, I think once you start to get down to a couple of hundred pounds then you really do start to encroach the “Cheap” arena and quite rightly so, to carry out the full estate agent job thoroughly then fees need to be at a certain level  and going under a couple of hundred pounds would make it impossible to provide a first class service and if anything would instigate those nasty complaints and people writing us off as a fly-by-night company of which many we have seen come and go over the years.

 

We feel our pricing structure is positioned at the correct angle for building the business and for continuing to provide real value for money in a world where we see very little of it these days.

Posted by Graham Lock - 04/02/2011 13:36:10

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