TheHouseShop.com, the latest incarnation of a For Sale By Owner website reserved for private transactions, is scheduled to launch today.
The site takes over from The Little House Company, although it is run by the same team. It was scheduled to launch a week ago but delayed its debut for technical reasons.
It says in its new guise, TheHouseShop.com, will try to encourage high street and online estate agents to list as well as FSBO vendors. However, when Estate Agent Today broke the news of its potential relaunch 10 days ago, there was widespread scepticism in the story's online comment section about its chances of success.
The site claims links with some 4,143 high street agents, mostly outside London and with fewer than 10 staff.
With listings from direct sellers, online agents, high street agents, property auctions and new homes and accessible property developers, TheHouseShop's unique mix of properties will not be found on other major portals which cater exclusively to agents says Nick Marr, co-founder of the site.
Marr believes traditional portals have the misguided notion that estate agents and private sellers should not work together although he admits that 90 per cent of the site's customers will in reality use an agent.
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Comments
The estate agent model is dead & overvalued. OTM taking on Zoopla, @PayAsYouGoHomes taking on estate agent model
I quite like the new logo - although mildly resembles OTM's. I still don't see why agents would encourage this model Sounds a bit like the iproperty company without slagging off agents...
I was interested to have a look but I see it is still not 'live', more like the little shop of horrors!! :p