This letter was sent to a builder who recommended an online only company, we feel it is worth reading, please read our comment at the end…
Housesimple – Simply a Fiasco
I am writing to you to make you aware of my personal experience with Housesimple. I am doing so as it was on your high recommendation (award) that I registered with Housesimple to sell my property here in Weymouth. I had paid a reservation fee for a new apartment and needed to sell my property in some haste to meet the completion date. This I explained to Housesimple on joining. And at this point I should say that the company representatives were ever polite in all my dealings with them. However………..
I first registered with the company on 24 June and completed their forms for advertising on the many websites that they appear with. When I completed the house description I pressed “save” on their site only to receive the message that something had gone wrong and the info was lost. Needless to say re-writing a lengthy description again did not impress me. However I persevered by writing in a Word document and then copying and pasting the information onto their form. It was equally difficult when preparing the detail for every room – I had to make sure I saved each room detail as I typed it. I did contact Housesimple to complain about their web site and their representative told me the site was not very good when opened with Safari or Google Crome!!
On 29 June their photographer managed to fit our home visit into his tight schedule of weddings and special family events. He was also to provide the floor plan for our home. I gave him the original plans and highlighted the few small changes we have made during our ownership. However, the photographer forgot to take a photo of our guest bedroom (although he did include the en suite to it!). So I had to provide one. On 3 July the photos and descriptions were on line on the Housesimple website and the many others used by them. But no floor plans!
On 14 July the floor plan was added to the advert – but without clearing it with myself. I could not believe this as it meant that early viewers would see a plan with significant errors compared to the property. Most notable of these was that the plus 30-foot kitchen/dining area was shown at 8 feet wide instead of 10 feet. As a frequent on line viewer of property this would have ceased my interest in ours. On 16 July I managed to contact a manager at Housesimple and pointed out the several errors in the plan.
Over the following TWELVE DAYS I contacted them on most working days pointing out additional errors as they tried to correct the plan on line. Eventually by 28 July they had an acceptable plan. I had asked for the plan with errors be removed but was told this was not possible. To compensate me for this error they made my property the feature one on their adverts for a week – which actually became two weeks – I suspect they had no other client for this service during the summer holidays. So five weeks of frustration and not a single request to view. Hardly “express” selling!
I now waited in eager anticipation of the flock of potential buyers wishing to view my property. But silence reigned – and reigned. I contacted Housesimple several times and was assured that my advert was getting many viewings. I will also record that on at least two occasions when I rang the company and asked for information the person taking my call said they would get someone to call back with the information. But I did not receive any return calls.
Twice I asked for their advertised free valuation service, but no visit transpired. I was told by one of their Directors, after a discussion about the value of my home, that that was their free valuation service. Yes, a telephone discussion, because they “had so much information on my location that they could accurately value my home from a distance”. Their only advice to improve our prospects of a sale was to reduce the asking price. I stuck at £499k, as I believed that to be a reasonable start point for a sale.
By 8 September, and still not a single viewing, I decided that I had to do something drastic to speed a sale. So, I contacted a local estate agent and signed up with his company – Wilson Tominey of Weymouth. They were quick off the mark and within a couple of days had a superb set of photos of our property and a full advert ready to go with an asking price of £495k. On 11 September I asked Housesimple to remove our property from their web site.
On Tuesday 22 September we had our first viewing arranged by Wilson Tominey from their list of people looking for property in our area and within range of our asking price. The house sold with that one viewing for £490k to a cash buyer. And had done so within two weeks of registering with Wilson Tominey.
We advertised with Housesimple because of all the plaudits and awards given by the media. However, they failed in every aspect of our dealings, and most certainly were not fit for purpose for a quick sale at a sensible price so we could secure our new apartment. Their local knowledge of prices and values proved to be zero and the only advice ever given was to reduce my asking price. It has been a most frustrating and worrying time in our home. Now, thanks to a local estate agent with local knowledge combined with a customer base of people looking for properties to a tight specification and location, we are happy sellers of our lovely home.
I hope you will be able to share our difficult and worrying experience with your readers.
Colonel Doug S.
A note from the Directors :
“we are a local professional agency, who offer extensive online marketing through Rightmove, the Zoopla Property Group and The Echo Property Portal, we have a wealth of local experience and knowledge, plus a large database of registered applicants, which makes all the difference on achieving the best possible price within our clients timescales, additionally we are the number one agent in Weymouth, Dorchester and the surrounding villages and we will not be beaten on local fee’s”
