Is it possible to start part-time as an estate agent from home? -

I am looking at starting as an estate agent part-time on my own. Looking for a career change. I am looking at selling from home, doing all the paper work myself. I am good with figures, computer, etc. I have a 3rd level qualification and have templetes for all paper work, contracts, etc that would required. Would anyone advise if I should give it a go. I live in a semi rural area and the local estate agent is not very highly respected in the area. Anyone have any advice?

It is possible - and can be highly successful!I recently engaged an Estate Agent who works from his rural home. He only advertises properties on-line (Rightmove).My property went live on the website at 3.30pm. The first viewing was at 7pm the same evening, and I had an offer by 7.30pm (which I accepted) - so, a home-based, self-employed estate agent sold a house within 4 hours!During the previous year, a traditional High Street Estate Agent was marketing this property. They couldn t sell it, and charged me a small fortune in fees.The self-employed Estate Agent s fees were less than ��500.I recommended him to a friend who d been trying to sell her ��900K+ property for 2 years via High Street agents........she had an offer within 4 days, which she also accepted.Go for it, and Good Luck!

How are people going to know you exist? Do you want them coming to your house? If you have people turning up at your house you ll need to consider planning permission for change of use of part of the premises.Back to the first questions about how people will know you exist. People (your potential customers) have preconceived ideas of what an estate agent is. They re in premises that you find on the high street. You ll need to find imaginative ways of overcoming that. If you can do a lot of it on-line and offer lower fees because you do it all on-line, it may work.You ll still need lots of press coverage locally to get your name known. The papers may take it up as a news story in that it s a different approach to selling houses.As has been said elsewhere, even if the other agent is not very highly thought of, he/she is still a competitor so you ll need compelling reasons why vendors should use your service instead of theirs.Good luck!

If you re in the UK then think carefully! We re in the middle of a recession and several reasonable-sized agents have gone out of business over the last year or two. The housing market is picking up (so we are told) but it is still very slow. The local Agent may not be highly thought of, but he is still competition. Can the local market stand two agents?