Private Property Sales Continues to Grow in UK

Everyone involved in the property market, if not anyone who owns a house has heard the buzz-acronym FSBO. For Sale by Owner property is -- you guessed it -- property being sold privately by its owner without the use of an estate agent.

FSBO has grown incredibly in the last few years; first from people selling their second homes and investment properties abroad, and since the advent of property crashes around the world, with people selling their own homes privately.

In fact private property sales has become so big in the UK, that the BBC ran a series title Axe the Agent, which caused a massive stir in the media as an agent-supporting portal Property Index slated the BBC.

Undeterred the BBC then followed this with a head-to-head style interview featuring a debate between the interviewer, the director of leading private sales portal the Little House Company Nick Marr, and Richard Hair representing the National Association of Estate Agents.

The overall theme was how private sales offered house sellers the chance to save around £3000 by not having to pay estate agent's fees, a crucial saving in a down market.

The interview was short but it raised a lot of interesting points, including the fact that you can add a clause to an agent's contract so you can avoid paying their fee if you sell privately, and how some of the major UK portals have banned private sales from advertising on their portals, because the estate agents are a larger customer base and so have more sway over the portals.

I managed to get a hold of Nick Marr to see how he thought the interview had gone:

"Well it was a bit short, and we were kind of cut off just as we were getting going, I also felt the presenter was trying to make it more argumentative than I would have liked. But apart from that we were able to raise some important points, and in terms of attention it has generated for Little House it has been excellent," he said.

"Don't get me wrong most people are still selling their UK house using an estate agent, but as FSBO continues to grow and attract media attention for all the right reasons -- namely the amount of money you can save -- more and more people will give private property sales a shot," he added.