Online agency YOPA says it has sold a property in under 24 hours “in what is thought to be Britain’s fastest-ever house sale”.
The claim is in a press release sent out on Friday.
We checked that “sale” in fact meant that the property had gone under offer, as opposed to being exchanged, and received confirmation.
The £185,000 home was apparently snapped up for £5,000 over asking price just hours after being listed on Rightmove.
YOPA’s Local Property Manager Lloyd Chappel said: “I went out to give a valuation on the property at 11am on Wednesday, listed it on Rightmove while I was there and by 4pm we had booked in five viewings.
“The next morning we got two offers – one for the full asking price and another from a different buyer for £5,000 over asking price.”
Seller Stephen Morris said: “I’m absolutely delighted YOPA has delivered a buyer for my house so quickly. Lloyd came to the house to give a valuation late morning, measured the property, took photographs, drew the floor plan and within 90 minutes all my house details were online.
“I’d taken the week off work so I was at home to do all the viewings and negotiated the sale face-to-face with the second person to come round.
“I never thought I’d sell my house so fast but if you want something to go smoothly you need great communication – and YOPA’s Lloyd was fantastic.”
YOPA – which at launch last year stood for Your Online Property Agent, but now stands for Your Property Agent – charges £780 for a listing.
It had 56 available properties at the weekend.
Comments (34)
It’s not marked as “Sold”, or even “Under Offer” on YOPA’s own website. Is it not quite as sold as possible?
Did he do the EPC while he was there. If not then he broke the law. And I can’t believe that an online agent would cut corners and break laws. I only ask because there is not one on the Rightmove listing, which would be, you know, illegal.
The outfit’s original Tweet on the subject went like this:
Is this Britain’s fastest ever house sale?http://bdai.ly/JZzf via
@bdaily#overaskingprice#sold#teamyopa#cutcostskeepquality#savingsto which I reTweeted
@YOPAPROPERTY@Bdaily No – it isn’t. I’ve done more than one in under FOUR HOURS – but I’m not claiming to be the fastest.#getfasterFunnily enough – they haven’t bothered to respond. Seems a common trait in Call-Centre Estate Agents
How’s about we give this form of steadfast ‘La-La Ears’ type approach to ignoring the truth cos it hurts a name?
In the ‘States, refusal to answer a potentially incriminating question is known as ‘Pleading (or Taking) the Fifth.
Maybe we could refer to avoidance of awkward questions in the property world as ‘Taking the Quirk’.
Alternative suggestions welcome.
And I can beat there under 24 hours to agree a sale, as many other agents probably can. My fastest was at a listing when the phone went from the office saying someone had just walked into the office asking for that particular location was it coming on. I looked at the vendor, they nodded and the office sent the viewer around immediately, 5 minutes later the ink had just dried on the contract making it available and the viewer walked in and left 10 minutes later with a sale agreed. That makes it 15 minutes from being listed! Never had it happen that quick since but agreed many sales within 24 hours, who hasn’t?
Actually the record is 65 minutes. It was a barrister back in the 80’s, Can’t remember who now but he was in the City of London. Cash buyer, contract was ready to go with the sellers and he went into their office and dropped the cash down on the table and exchanged.
Having re-read this apparently YOPA’s Lloyd was brilliant, yet the vendor did the viewings and negotiated his own offer…….So in fact all YOPA”S lloyd did was, potentially undervalue the house, restrict it’s marketing to a handful of portal callers and then no doubt go back to playing Call of Duty or FIFA16 in his back bedroom.
If this is worthy of praise, then I look forward to my Knighthood for my 30 years of having actually done the job properly!
These baked bean salesmen obviously think they are proper estate agents! Let’s just hope enough of the public realise that is you pay peanuts you tend to get monkeys
I think that the point of this story is actually to expose these muppets for the clueless bunch they clearly are. They think that putting a property UNDER OFFER (not ‘sold’) in 24 hours is a ‘fastest ever’ achievement? Like I said. Clueless.
We often agree a sale on a property before it goes on the portals. That is what having a database of buyers is all about. Your sales team should be contacting their buyers and getting them round as soon as you are instructed (and signed up). So long as the vendor has had 2 or more valuations that more or less agree, then the price will be right.
This is news? In Reading in the 80s (1987) I was pre-selling pretty much everything… that is.. once I got the sniff of an instruction, pre-phoned my applicants to ‘warm’ them up to be ready, advised them that due to demand, it was likely the property would be ‘more expensive than the last one in the road etc etc..’, then won the instruction after discussing strategy with the vendor, rolled in the applicants in the afternoon and sorted out the offers with my in-house MA before locking the office at 8.30pm.. I was selling upwards of ninety units a month back then with an 18% cancellation/re’sale rate, average comm £800..!
I once sold a house a week before it went onto Rightmove – I win
I’ve sold a number off plan……hmm advantage RealAgent methinks.
Dayum! Before it was built, Game, Set and Match RealAgent
Sold the land before the planning permission was even applied for. Beating the both of yer! 🙂
Not so fast AgencyInsider, Ive actually sold a piece of land where the deal included one of the new units, just on the architects plan….he shoots, he scores.
Not so fast …… I sold a property 29 years ago that provided access to a land bank field that has yet to be developed and included in that deal were the construction of 3 ‘prime units’ for the vendor or their beneficiaries of their estate as and when the site is developed.
I wonder how old Lloyd was then.
I wonder how old even I was then Robert!
How old are you now? I will get Coding to write a complicated algorithm to see if we can work it out.
29 Years before it was built! Winner winner!
Well, I think I might still have a shot at the title with this little peace.
About 10 years ago, through an EA points incentive scheme I ended up with a load of points so looked at what I could get for them.
I ended up getting an acre of the moon, and given that planning will be a forgone conclusion when we get up there I will put my hand up again for the win!
Could be thousands of years
You could list it with a fixed fee bedroom billy and get it portal juggled every month from now till then. You’ll save fousands on fees
I’m going to try it myself first, my board company assure me a for sale board will be going up on Friday.
Perhaps the Nigerian who is trapped in space and needs £3million to get home (seriously) could check it goes up?
To be fair to YOPA they are clearly going to be excited by this as they are just “playing” at estate agency and forget there was a time in the 80’s when estate agents could agree a deal in one or two hours.
Then we grew up and realised that its better to market a property to get the best price rather than to just try and do a quick deal.
Unless you’re taking your money upfront of course……..
Did anyone check to see if it’s front page news in the Telegraph?
I don’t get it.
Sale agreed in 24 hours? that’s not news if it was we would all be in the headlines.
£5,000 over the asking price?
How many agents did the owner get round to advise on price?
Some lucky buyer has bagged themselves a bargain there it seems.
Really? How many agents do this?
Not really worthy of a press release
You’d make a rubbish primary school teacher. You can’t go around swamping achievement like that Stephen. We can all ride 2 wheeled bicycles that doesn’t mean we should mock a child who is excited when the stabilisers come off for the first time.
I agree danny, if Lloyd was that fantastic, he would have advised the seller to be patient, hold an open day at the weekend and allow for further viewings to be booked…
that’s the difference between an online only ‘Lister’ who’s job is done and commission collected at instruction and a local expert who’s incentivised to get the best price for the seller and whose job isn’t finished until completion!
Bet they didn’t highlight that in the press!
Ahhhh bless, why are trees green mummy?
First gravitational waves are discovered and then an agent agrees a ‘sale’ stc within a day? Who thought they’d have seen that in their lifetime eh?!
Hard to say without the property details but as a general rule of thumb if your offering over the asking price within the first 24 hours of market generally you’ve got your pricing wrong , the vendor may want to consider that having more people than 4 round may have achieved a higher price .
Exactly. Whatever happen to testing the market. As agents we all know that you are much more likely to get a much higher price after a few days than from the first buyer to turn up on the doorstep. Someone has got a bargain. Did the sellers really pay for this service???
Sorry. In my haste – “happened”