Well, we think it might be! We do know that the lady of the house was less than impressed having returned from a shopping trip to find a timber shed ‘glued and nailed’ to the front of her 18^th century farm cottage. 

Admittedly the owners are in the middle of a full renovation program and the ‘addition’ was only ever meant to be ‘temporary’, never the less it was removed as quickly as it appeared. Bless

 So, this rates as our worst DIY example…. unless you know better?       

I live in the small market town of Halesworth, where there are nonetheless no fewer than five Estate Agencies in business.

I came across House Revolution when viewing a Georgian property, I owned a 500 year old small Tudor farmhouse and, when I finally decided to put it on the market, in late Spring 2011, I decided to sell it through House Revolution; as I had been both amused and impressed by their sales technique.

I was subsequently visited by Debby. I lived in a fairly isolated spot, despite being within walking distance of the railway and local town. Debby spent about an hour with me – astonishing from my prior experience of many years of buying and selling properties. She felt the house was unique and wanted to walk round the vicinity, seeing first-hand the proximity to the main line station and local walks.

Jo then subsequently arrived to take photos. I took a few myself when the light was better and was allowed, as a former professional editor, to alter the draft sales blurb. But then I came across House Revolution’s mega impressive Christina, who had run her own Estate Agency in Harlesden, and had also written professionally. She tactfully changed what I had written – and she was right!

The house was on the market for a matter of weeks. This in a so-called recession. The house had enormous character and charm, and I had invested a good deal of money in lovingly restoring it, until I decided to sell it so my younger son could get a foot on the London property ladder. It had been sadly neglected when I bought it, and I put in oak flooring and handmade oak doors and kitchen units; lots of costly detail, as I had originally felt I would stay there for ever.

The combination of Jo, Debby, and Christina, totally got the message that I loved the place; the setting was unique and I wasn’t prepared to just let it go. There were some totally unsuitable instant viewers. Then a woman after a deal. I was waiting for the sympathetic souls who would fall in love with the place, as I had done. They came, viewed, sent a lovely daughter and husband – these were the right ones. But their subsequent offer fell short of what I felt appropriate.

Debby took over, totally. She explained to the prospective buyers that I wouldn’t even entertain anything, unless it was a serious improvement on their first offer. Message received. It was a decent enough offer for me to recoup my outlay and downsize to help my son. Job done.

From then on she was magical. Tough, sensitive, and one felt completely supported, even on the completion day for my next home; when she ‘held my hand’ during the slightly surreal drama of the protracted moving.

So, hats off to House Revolution! They were amazing. They put in loads more interest, time, and caring, than any other Estate Agency I have ever dealt with.

The case of wine I sent at Christmas was the very least way I could do to ever show my total gratitude and appreciation. Why on earth would anyone bother to go to the High Street? This method saves you a huge amount of money, and you deal with highly intelligent, totally switched on people. Go for it!

According to Rightmove, the most important site in house selling, 7 in every 10 homes put on the market in the first 6 months of 2011 are still for sale. We’re sure that other agents will tell you that everything is wonderful, but when they are talking to each other they tend to paint a very different picture. If you want to see the reality at any time, just look at some of the online trade sites, ‘estate agent today’ for example.

So, to make sure your home is one of the 3 in 10 that gets sold this year you need to choose an agent that is being honest with you about the state of the market and be willing to price your property realistically to be competitive with other properties in your area.

House Revolution is a new breed of estate agent. We do everything a traditional agent does for around half the cost. Our normal fee is 0.75% + VAT and we still give you the option of a flat fee of £999+VAT if you pay up front.

The savings you can make by using us could enable you to price your home keenly and be the difference between securing your sale and being one of the 7 in 10 homes still for sale this Christmas.

For a free valuation of your home please call our customer service team on

0845 017 6060 or visit us at www.houserevolution.com

Activity in the UK housing market remained flat during July, with house prices slipping further, according to the latest RICS UK Housing Market survey.

Some 22% more chartered surveyors reported that prices fell rather than rose in July. While this represents a slight improvement on June’s net balance of -26, this reading has now remained in negative territory for over a year.

Large deposits required by lenders appear to be a stumbling block for many would-be buyers.

New instructions also fell back in July, with 7% more surveyors reporting falls rather than rises in new houses coming onto the market. With prices continuing to slip, it appears that many potential vendors are unwilling to accept reduced selling prices, so are reluctant to enter the market or reduce their price.

London bucks the national trend as the only region to report a positive net balance for house prices, with 30% more surveyors reporting rises rather than falls. The West Midlands and the East of England saw the most negative readings, with net balances of -44 and -40 respectively. Meanwhile, the capital recorded the strongest level of new buyer enquiries, again outperforming the rest of the UK.

Significantly, the average number of sales per surveyor over the past three months dipped to 14.2, the lowest level since June 2009. Alongside this, the average number of properties presently on surveyors’ books increased to 70.2 (from 69.7 in June).

Looking ahead, pessimism still surrounds future house price expectations. Some 13% more surveyors predict prices to decrease rather than increase over the next three months. However, sales expectations are rather more upbeat, with a net balance of 15% more respondents predicting sales to rise over the coming three months.

RICS spokesperson, Ian Perry said: “The UK housing market continued to stall during July; prices edged lower and sales levels remained subdued. While the holiday season appears to have had some impact on the market, the continual problem of inaccessible mortgage finance is still preventing first-time buyers from accessing the market. Unsurprisingly, with prices continuing to fall, many would-be sellers seem unwilling to lower their expectations and are reluctant to place their property on the market.”

If your selling and looking for great service and low fees then contact House Revolution today: 0845 0176060  

Newspaper advertising for estate agents is a huge cost and many firms splash out large sums each and every week for full page spreads. Vendors expectations then are set very high that big is beautiful and therefore worry that a small advert is underwhelming,

Size and position of adverts all boils down to cost. The more money you spend of course, the bigger the advert and the more often you spend it, the more prominent you will be in the paper  but let me get to the nub of the issue. There needs to be a distinction made in newspaper advertising between the marketing of a property and the marketing of the estate agency. Also, for that marketing to be successful, there needs to be a suitable return on the investment. Big adverts create brands but don’t automatically sell properties. This branding must be paid for which, in part, explains the higher fees charged by the big brands.

The good news is – size isn’t everything, The type of customer that buys the paper looking for property will interrogate all the pages and find every advert. Reality of course is that most buyers choose the internet to property search.

In summary, There is still a value in advertising homes in paper which is why we offer it as an option but the costs should reflect the suitable marketing of the property, rather than the marketing of the estate agent. This fits with our general behaviour of honesty and value for money in an industry that is bereft of such values. If a customer was looking they would have seen an advert and if its suitable will make contact.

Look aging at the big adverts and count the actual number of houses for sale, ergo the reason for the advert in the first place  verses prehaps the estate agents huge brand logo or sold properties or marketing for in-house services such as mortgages, conveyancing and  free valuations or my personal favourite – ” Mrs B, cash buyer, looking for a bungalow in the suburbs for a sqwillion pounds call now for more info”.

Taking the traditional business of estate agency and blending it with modern customer service behaviour provides the optimum estate agency service.

What does that mean in practice? Well as an estate agent you would expect us visit you and provide you with a valuation of your current home, take photographs, prepare your details, market your home on all major property portals and newspapers, organise viewings, obtain feedback, handle offers and price negotiations and then manage the sale process all the way through to the point where you get the keys to your new home.

Add in the fact we use the latest technology to give you 24 hour access to the latest information about your sale. Everything we know, you know! It’s all in your account so you don’t have to ring to find out what’s going on. We also provide the online ability for buyers to arrange viewings if they wish, or make offers or even ask questions 24/7. Starting to see the difference?    

Forget contracts, they’re a waste of time and remember because we house ourselves in low cost offices, we keep our own costs low and therefore our price to you. So not only do you get an optimized service, but we are typically half the cost of traditional agents*

So why go anywhere else? To sell your home, please call our team today on 0845 017 6060 or visit www.houserevolution.com for more information.

*Based on typical charge of 1.5%+VAT

Spring has sprung ! Traditionally this is the time when people thinking about moving house and with that comes the difficult decision, Who are you going to entrust the sale of your house to? There are so many estate agents the choice is overwhelming. Of course, every one of them will tell you that they can do a better job than anyone else, but can they really? When you scratch the surface how are any of them any different from each other ?

If you were looking for a tradesman, who would you ask for a recommendation? A family member or a colleague perhaps – certainly someone that’s used the company and is happy to give you a report of a job done well. Interesting to note then, that in the last 12 months, almost one third of House Revolution’s business came to us through recommendation by happy customers and its not hard to understand why.

We do everything a traditional agent would do for you, free valuation, photography, managing your sale to a conclusion, but (and its a big but) because we don’t have lots of offices and spend lots of your money marketing ourselves we are able to charge you half the fees of a traditional agent. So, why would you even think of going anywhere else?

We have all the latest products from Rightmove – so important to get your home the profile it deserves on the most important property portal. And we can normally have your home being marketed within 24 hours of you appointing us.

To find out why our customers think we’re so great, please give our customer service team a call on 0845 017 6060 or go to www.houserevolution.com

House Revolution. A new breed of estate agent. We’re half the cost of a typical high street agent. Why go anywhere else?

I’ve just read quite an interesting article that despite being written to highlight the low levels of property transactions this year actually shows, very clearly how estate agents high fees enable them to survive in this troubled market.

The article reported that 650,000 house sales completed in 2010, roughly 54,000 a month. The point of the article was to highlight that this figure was only 6 per cent more than 2009. A very small number indeed.

Anyhooo, when you consider that there are around 15000 estate agent branches across the country it represents somewhere between 43 to 65 sales per office over the year. Take into account that some of that 650,000 sales would have occurred without the use of an estate agent its around one property sale per week per branch!

Consider that an average branch has to pay, rent, rates, cars, advertising, three or four staff members and of course the magic word ‘ Profit’ you get a feel for why the fees are so high.

Relate this to any other type of High Street consumer business and think how crazy it sounds, example: How much would a potato cost if the local green grocer only needed to sell one a week to survive ?

The fact is there are just too many estate agents for the volume of transactions and while the public continue to pay through the nose nothing will change.

House Revolution is a new breed of estate agent. We do everything required and expected of an agent yet at a lot lower cost than our competitors. Decreasing our overheads, operating efficiency as well as using our great service to win new customers means we can afford to do the job better for a lot less.

These days, most of us use the internet as our first port of call for key information. Who nowadays gets out the yellow pages? No, you ‘Google it’. TV dinners, apparently, no longer exist being replaced by PC dinners. The fact is that we spend a major part of our lives either glued to a PC screen or an iPad or an iPhone. Internet searching is interwoven into our lives and there is no going back.

More than 90% of all property searches are now completed online. Long gone are the days of people driving into the City to browse the high street windows, and with fuel prices ever rising it’s easy to see why.

So, if your potential buyers are looking on internet sites such as Rightmove, you need your property to not only be online, but presented in the best possible way.

At House Revolution, we understand the internet, we live and breathe it. That’s not to say that we don’t have real people who will come and value you property or manage your sale to completion.

We do all that too.

So, why pay more? House Revolution will do everything you need to sell your home for a fixed fee of £999+VAT, no sale – no fee. We won’t tie you in with an unnecessary contract either.

It’s perhaps worth mentioning that in 2010 nearly a third of our business came from satisfied customers referring us to friends, family and contacts. How many estate agents can boast that?