Strike VS SOLD.co.uk – Battle Of The Free Online Estate Agents

Strike Vs SOLD – The Comparison

Cost	FREE	FREE
	Visit website	Visit website
TrustPilot Rating	4.5TrustPilot Reviews	4.3TrustPilot Reviews
Marketing approach	Open market	Private database of active buyers + Open market
Service coverage	England only	UK
Rightmove listing
Zoopla listing
Photos & Floorplans
EPC
Property Valuation
Legal / conveyancing services
Managed until completion
Hosted viewings	£699
Business model / how & why their service is free	Strike earn commission from any optional add-on services the seller purchases from them, including the following: Mortgage services Conveyancing services EPCs Hosted viewings	SOLD will agree a price with the seller, and then SOLD will sell it for more and keep the difference. For example, If the seller agrees to accept £80k for the sale of their property, SOLD will market and sell the property for £100k. The seller will get £80k, and SOLD will keep £20k.
Positives	Can get full market value for property. 100% free, no strings attached.	Fast sale – they claim to sell faster than any estate agent in the UK.
Negatives / Concerns	Only operates in England. Some people have complained that Strike’s sales team can be quite persistent when it comes to up-selling additional services. Doesn’t include legal services.	SOLD does not make their terms of service publicly available on their website. Due to the nature of SOLD’s business model, it is more than likely that sellers will need to sell at a significant discount. Operates more like a “cash buyer” company, as opposed to a traditional estate agent. They won’t be able to sell every property quickly, which may disappoint those that only chose to use their service for a quick sale. According to their Privacy Policy, they share their customer details with their sister company WebuyAnyHouse.com
	Visit website	Visit website

Strike’s service and business model explained

Strike’s house selling service is 100% free, and there are no strings attached. Their service is similar to the likes of Purplebricks & Yopa.

Once you sign up to their service, they will schedule someone to visit your house to take professional photos and measurements for floor plans in preparation for marketing.

Your property will then be sold on the open market the traditional way, by being listed on the biggest UK property portals, including Rightmove & Zoopla.

You can then process the leads by scheduling in viewings. If you don’t opt in for Strike’s “hosted viewing” package (£699), you will have to manage the viewings yourself.

You can either use Strike’s recommended conveyancing service to handle the paperwork (this is NOT included with their free service, so will incur extra costs) or source your own. I always recommend sourcing your own reputable conveyancing service. If you need help doing that, here’s my guide on conveyancing solicitors.

Strike makes money by up-selling additional services like mortgages, conveyancing, EPCs, Hosted viewings etc. These products are all optional, so there is no obligation to buy them.

SOLD’s service and business model explained

SOLD’s service is not as straightforward as Strike’s service. Strike operates more similarly to a traditional estate agent, whereas SOLD operates more like a cash buyer company.

Once you sign up to SOLD’s service, they will contact you to see how much you would be willing to accept for the sale of your house. On their website, they state that they will “work with you to agree on a realistic price that you are 100% satisfied with.”

It’s important to note that any price you agree to is the amount you should expect to receive from the sale of the property. SOLD will market and sell your property for more than your agreed asking price.

For example, if you agreed to accept £100k for your property, then they will market and sell your property for £110k. But you will still only get £100k, and they will keep the £10k as their fee.

Once a price has been agreed and you’re happy to use their service, someone will visit your house to take professional photos and measurements for floor plans in preparation for marketing.

SOLD will start off by marketing your property to their database of 20,000 pre-qualified buyers – giving them 24 hours to make their best offer to secure the sale. If they get an offer, they will jump straight to completing the sale for you. This can result in a super quick sale.

However, if there is no interest, they will market your property on the open market by listing it on Rightmove & Zoopla. This means a quick sale becomes less likely, and the timescale is more likely to be prolonged to 10-12 weeks (the average time it takes to sell a home in the UK on the open market).

SOLD’s free service includes legal services, so you don’t need to source your own conveyancing service to manage all the paperwork.

For SOLD’s business model to work and for them to make money, it’s likely that they are selling properties for below market value. This is how they’re able to sell properties quicker than traditional estate agents (i.e. SOLD are selling properties for cheaper than the market value).

The most important part about SOLD’s model, which sellers need to be aware of, is that while they are likely to get a quicker sale by using them (but that’s not guaranteed), they are also likely going to get less money from the sale compared to selling through a traditional high-street or online agent.

The spread between how much SOLD pays the seller and how much they sell the property for needs to be big enough for them to cover all the expenses, including marketing and legal fees. So I think it’s safe to assume that sellers are having to accept anywhere between 5% – 15% less than the market value for their house.

That is similar to how “Cash house buyer” companies operate (also known as We Buy Any House companies), which is why I made the comparison.

Strike Vs SOLD: Which is better? Which do I prefer?

Disclaimer: in the spirit of being 100% transparent, I do need to make it clear that Strike is an affiliate partner of mine. However, I’ve tried to be as objective as possible when explaining the differences between the two free services. The fact Strike is an affiliate partner did NOT influence my opinion. I believe it’s objectively clear to see how their services differ.

I can’t tell you which is better or which service would be a better fit for you, but I can tell you that I personally prefer Strike because their service feels like a truly free estate agent, while I think there’s valid grounds to dispute whether SOLD is truly free, because their model seems to rely on vendors selling at a discount. SOLD operates more like a broker in that sense.

I would use Strike over SOLD if I simply required an online service that resembles a traditional estate agency, and I wanted the full market value.

However, that said, if a fast sale is the priority and it’s understood that the trade-off is the likelihood of selling at a discount, SOLD might make more sense. If that’s the case, it might also be worth checking out my Guide on Cash Buyer Companies (I list my recommended Cash Buying Companies and go into more detail about how they work).

FYI: I’ve already written detailed blog posts on both Strike and SOLD (that’s actually what prompted me to compare the two), so if you want to go in for a deeper-dive on either of them, here you go:

Right, that’s me done.

I hope that’s been useful and helped you in one way or another.

Landlord out xo