John and Mandy Hayes: 'least stressful property sale ever'
They were members of their local Facebook page, 'Grange Park, Northampton', which operates as an online message board for the community.
One of the members uploaded a post asking if anyone was looking to sell a five-bedroom house in the area. Mr Hayes responded, saying they were thinking of selling in the new year.
They arranged a viewing, but interest in the property quickly grew online.
'The first couple came and viewed the house twice, but there was also a lot of interest from others who had seen the original post,' Mr Hayes said. 'In the end another couple made an offer and we thrashed out a deal. We saved thousands of pounds by cutting out the estate agent.
'The couple who bought it already lived in the area and were looking to move up the ladder. It was nice to sell to someone living in the local community.'
The sale completed at the start of March. An estate agent had initially quoted 2pc plus VAT to sell the house, meaning the Hayeses saved £8,784 in fees.
Mrs Hayes said: 'It was the least stressful property sale I've ever been involved in. We didn't have to negotiate through an agent and it all went very smoothly. With the resources available online today, I don't think you necessarily need to use estate agents.'
Websites such as eBay and Gumtree have historically had a stronghold on the online marketplace, but sellers' fees and problems with fraudsters have encouraged some users to look elsewhere. Many feel more comfortable trading within their local area or their Facebook 'friend' network.
Local community pages tend to be quite general and people post a range of items for sale as well as services such as plumbing, house removals and beauty treatments. Some local businesses use them to promote their services, but a large proportion of the advertisers are private individuals. Most have rules that prevent businesses from posting too often.
Some are 'closed groups', which means you have to submit a request to the group administrator to become a member. Open groups can be viewed by anyone with a Facebook account.
The 'Battersea and Wandsworth selling site', for example, is a closed group with 1,900 members. It lists a range of items for sale in south-west London from cars to vintage clothing, furniture and children's games.
One post this week advertised a Fiat Punto sport with 2007 registration and 123,000 miles on the clock for £2,500.
Other pages on Facebook target a particular interest group. 'Buy, Sell, Swap Camera and Photography Gear - UK' is an open group with almost 1,400 members. The items on the site include digital SLR cameras, lenses and accessories.
A used Nikon D600 camera body in the box with all accessories was posted this week for £875 or nearest offer. eBay listings for other second-hand D600s ranged from £600 to £1,100.
Another seller listed a used Canon EF 300mm telephoto lens for £710. It is available new on other sites for £1,169.
The downside of buying on Facebook is there is no buyer protection. If the item you buy turns out to be a lemon, there's probably not much you can do about it.
The eBay website, on the other hand, offers a money-back guarantee for items purchased with PayPal that are not received, are damaged or are not as described in the listing.
Avoiding agents
Home owners paid out more than £3bn in fees to high street estate agents during 2013, with London home owners alone paying almost £1bn, according to research by online estate agents Housesimple.co.uk.
It said agents charged an average fee of 1.75pc plus VAT for their services.
The figures are further evidence that agents still have a stranglehold over the housing market. The widely forecast shake-up, where home owners shun costly agents and instead advertise their homes on the internet, has not materialised and DIY house-selling is still uncommon.
Part of the problem is that in order to reach a broad audience sellers need to be on the dominant property portals, Rightmove and Zoopla, which also owns Prime Location. To feature a property on one of these all-powerful sites, however, it has to be listed with a traditional agent. This has really hurt the success of private sales websites.
Property expert Sarah Beeny started her own sale-by-owner website, Tepilo, four years ago and found that many people were reluctant to use the service because they wanted their property listed on the big portals.
Sarah Beeny
She relaunched the website last Christmas as a low-cost online estate agent. The charges range from £195 to £495, depending on how much help the vendor needs.
Other listing sites for private sellers do exist. Noestateagentsplease.co.uk acts as a notice board for private sellers. Potential buyers contact and negotiate with the home seller direct. Sellers pay a one-off fee of £49.98 to market a property.
-- Have you sold anything on Facebook? Let us know in the comments below.
-- nicole.blackmore@telegraph.co.uk
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