Frequently Asked Questions

We have broken these into seven categories.

General

Help using the website

Image and picture processing

Legal

Security

Wanted adverts

Technical

General

Have you got any tips for putting together an advert?

Firstly, we recommend that you work on your house description using a word processor before logging on to our site to place your advert. This will allow you to check spelling and also to save your advert on to your hard drive. Additionally, it will save you from losing work should anything go wrong when you submit your advert. Once you are happy with your description you can copy and paste it from your word processor onto our place advert form.
Secondly, you should ensure that your image files are in the correct format for submission with your advert. This is very easy to do using our own software utility. Please read our Image Preparation Guide.

Should I put the number or name of my house on the web page?

There are pluses and minuses for giving these details or not.

+	Allows potential purchasers to drive past and get an idea of the look of your house from the front.
+	There are less likely to be time wasters viewing your house if they know what it looks like from the roadside before they commit to an appointment.
-	You could get random viewers when you are not really prepared for them.
-	You could be encouraging unsolicited mail. Remember your e-mail address is protected from view by us.

How much saving do I really make from not having to pay an Estate Agent?

In general Estate Agent fees vary between 1% and 3% of the selling price. If your house is £250,000 at 2% you are going to pay £5,000 plus 17.5% which is £5,375. An Agent will side closer to the lower percentage if he knows he has got exclusivity to sell your property. The downside to exclusivity is of course that you have less exposure to potential buyers.

Is Five Pound a House going to send me a bill once I have sold my house?

No we will not charge you for you selling your house. The only charge is the fee of £5 for the advertising, and if you place your advert during the special offer period, you will already know that you have sold your house for free. The only thing we would ask is that you tell your friends about us.

How do I get my house valued?

There are a number of ways. Firstly you can look at the local area and make a judgment for yourself.
You can look at the local Estate Agents in the area to see what they are selling similar houses for.
You can have a local surveyor come and give a valuation. There will almost certainly be a small charge for this.
Have a local Estate Agent give you a valuation as they too will be chasing for the business, and the more houses on the market the easier the property chain moves.

How long will my advert remain on the site?

Your advert will remain on site for four months, or until you remove it. After this period you will be notified that your advert time is about to expire. You will be given the option to extend your advert for a further four months at no additional cost or delete your advert. In the event that no action is taken the advert will automatically be removed by us. This is to allow us to maintain a clean database and not build up a vast number of houses which are no longer for sale.

How much does it cost to advertise on Five Pound a House?

Our services are currently free from charge. However, a five pound fee is going to be introduced in the future for the advertisement. As long as this answer appears there is no charge.

Do I have to pay to register?

No, our registration is free from charge.

Do I have to pay to contact a vendor?

No, there is no charge for buyers.

Can I place more than one advert on your system?

Yes you can place as many adverts as you like, but be aware that once the £5 charge is introduced there will be a charge for each one.

I sent a message to a vendor, but have not received a reply.

Sometimes, although a message appears to have been sent successfully, it may not have reached the vendor because of problems on the internet. If you have not received a reply within 48 hours, then we recommend re-sending the message. If the problem persists you can notify us via email and we will check that the problem is not with our internet connections. We will confirm the result to you.

Is a “For Sale” sign available?

For Sale signs are available for a charge of £35.25. To order a sign you first need to register with us. You can then select the “Order a For Sale Sign” button, and follow the instructions. For Sale signs are double-sided screen printed on twin wall polycarbonate sheet, 600mm wide by 450mm high. They are supplied without a pole.

Do you have a mailing list of waiting buyers?

Yes, this is provided by our “Wanted” adverts. Buyers who have already registered an interest in a property like yours (by placing a “Wanted” advert) will receive an email notification (containing a link to your advert) when you advertise your property on this site.

After I place an advert (or if I make a change to my advert), how long will it take before it appears on the site?

New adverts and updates normally appear on the site within a few minutes, and we endeavour to ensure that it is never more than 2 hours. However, we do generally go to sleep between 11:00 pm and 08:00 am (UK time), so new adverts or updates made during this period will not appear until the morning.

Help using the website

How do I place an advert?

Click on the “Place Advert” button. If you have already registered with us this will take you straight to the “place advert” form where you can enter your property details. If you have not already registered, then you will first be directed to our “register form” where you need to fill in a few personal details.

After filling in the “place advert” form click on “submit” and your advert will be added to our system. Next you will be asked to pinpoint the location of your property on a map, and finally you will be given the option of adding photographs to your advert. You can login at any time after your advert has been placed to edit it, refine the map location, and add, update, or remove photographs.

How do I make changes to my advert?

Click on the “Login or Register” button. Once you have logged in you will be presented with the “logged in” screen from which you can update your registration details and update your advert.

Can I change my advert or edit it adding different text or changing the pictures?

Yes you can do this at anytime, however it is important to note that any changes to text or photographs may take up to 2 hours for us to re-approve them.

I want my details to be removed from your system.

Click on the “Login or Register” button. Once you have logged in you will be presented with the “logged in” screen from which you can remove your details from our system. Please note that this will also delete any adverts that you have placed.

How do I remove my advert from your system?

Click on the “Login or Register” button. Once you have logged in you will be presented with the “logged in” screen which will list the adverts that you have placed on our system. Click on the photograph of the property advert that you want to delete. This will take you to the update advert form. Click on the “delete” button at the top of the form and your advert will be removed from our system.

Image and picture processing

Can I show pictures of my property?

Yes you can and our research has told us that more viewings are gained this way. You can get started immediately without an image and add it later on or ideally place the image at the same time as the advert. It is simple to do, please refer to our Image Preparation Guide.

How do I get a picture on the site?

There are two ways to get your picture to appear in your advertisement. Either electronically or by post. We recommend the electronic method as it will produce the better quality images to show off your house.

How to do it electronically:-

Take pictures with a digital camera, then re-size the images by following our Image Preparation Guide.

If you do not have a digital camera you can use a scanner and again follow our Image Preparation Guide.
How to do it by post:-

If you do not possess a digital camera or scanner you can post good quality pictures (up to eleven images) to us at Five Pound a House Limited, Oakhurst House, PO Box 7287, Reading, Berkshire, RG7 3XZ and we will put the images on for you (please include a reference for us to identify you). Make sure you enclose a stamped addressed envelope if you require us to return your photographs.

What format do images need to be in prior to uploading to Five Pound a House?

Maximum size 380 pixels wide, 380 pixels high, maximum file size 50KBytes, JPG image format. Please read our Image Preparation Guide for more details.

Can I post photographs to you for you to add to my advert?

Yes - post them to us at Five Pound a House Limited, Oakhurst House, PO Box 7287, Reading, Berkshire, RG7 3XZ and we will do the work for you. Please allow 5 days for your photographs to appear on your advert.

Is there an extra charge for posting photographs for you to add to my advert?

Currently, there is no extra charge for any of our services including this one.

How many pictures can I have with my advert?

You can place up to eleven pictures with your advert. To add pictures, you must log in and click on the “Pictures” icon from the “logged in” screen.

Legal

Can I use Five Pound a House site at the same time as using an Estate Agent?

Yes you can as we do not compete as Estate Agents and it is you that is placing the advert. Most Estate Agents Terms and Conditions state sole or multiple agency. Sole Agency means that they are the only Estate Agent allowed to market the property for a stated period. However you are not an Estate Agent and therefore should not be restricted by this clause.
For further clarification of this point you can refer to the Office of Fair Trading on www.oft.gov.uk. Read up the difference between “sole Agency” and “sole selling rights”. You will note that there is some comment regarding paying for advertising or a For Sale board. We believe that this is not applicable unless it is individually itemised as a separate cost within the contract.
If in doubt we strongly suggest you read the small print in the Agents Terms or you can mail us the Terms and Conditions and we will have our legal team give an opinion (there is no charge for this).

What happens when I sell my house from my advert?

More or less the same as what would happen if you sold it through an Estate Agent. The only difference is instead of giving your solicitors name to the Agent you exchange solicitor’s names with your buyer.

Are there any special rules that I need to know about my advert?

The main issues are not to state something about your house that is not true. An example of this would be to say that a room is 14 ft x 12 ft when in fact it is 10 ft x 8 ft. This is why we automatically add a disclaimer for you to the bottom of your description field. This is to make sure that the buyer has checked and agreed for themselves what it is they are buying.

Security

Should I put my telephone number on my advert so that people can contact me directly?

There are pluses and minuses for giving this much detail. Whilst it does allow potential buyers to strike up a dialogue quickly this can of course be done more securely over the web.
It is also inevitable that you will be encouraging random callers and unsolicited phone calls from other would be sellers. The choice is entirely yours but our recommendation is that that you wait for a potential buyer to contact you via our secure e-mailing. This avoids you making your number open for public view.

I have placed an advert on your system, but it doesn't appear when I search for it. Why is this?

More than likely your advert is going through our approval procedure. If your advert does not appear within 2 hours, please notify us via email.

I have modified my advert, but when I search for it my changes don't appear to have been made. Why is this?

More than likely your modified advert is going through our approval procedure. If your modified advert does not appear within 2 hours, please notify us via email.

Wanted adverts

When I perform a "Search Wanted Adverts" why do I have to be so specific about my property details, won't this reduce the chance of a match?

A Wanted advert works in a similar way to our property search, but runs only against the details you enter for your property in the "Search Wanted Adverts" form.

For example, a Wanted advertiser may specify that they are looking for a 3 or more bedroom detached, semi detached, or terraced property with at least a 50 foot garden within 20 miles of the centre of Emmer Green in Berkshire. If your property meets or exceeds these requirements, then a match will be made and the Wanted advert will be displayed. A 4 bedroom detached house with a 200 foot garden in Wokingham would be an example of a property matching this Wanted advert.

In other words, the flexibility is already built into the Wanted advert - there does not have to be an exact one-to-one match with the details that you enter and the details specified by the Wanted advertiser. Entering your property details in the "Search Wanted Adverts" form is like pretending to place an advert for your property to see if we already have any potential buyers registered.

I entered my property details to search your Wanted adverts, but none were shown. Is there a problem?

We don't yet have enough Wanted adverts for complete geographical coverage of the UK, so it is pot-luck as to whether we have any Wanted adverts for a property like yours.

Technical

Is it possible to highlight words in my advert by using bold, underlined or italic fonts?

Yes, however for security reasons it is not possible to use the normal HTML text formatting codes in your description. Instead, you must use the syntax below:
[B]bold[/B] [I]italic[/I] [U]underline[/U]
For example:

[B]My House is very nice[/B] The text inside the square brackets should now be bold.

[I]My House is very nice[/I] The text inside the square brackets should now be italic.

[U]My House is very nice[/U] The text inside the square brackets should now be underlined.

Do you have a facility where I can register for messages to be sent to me as soon as a house fitting my requirements is entered on your system?

Yes. You can set up a "Wanted" advert which you can configure to send you an email message whenever a property advert fitting your requirements is placed on our system.

I get a browser error when I try to place or update an advert.

The most likely explanation is that you have tried to submit an image with your advert that is too large. We recommend using our software utility FivePounds.exe to automatically prepare your images for submission with your advert. This takes just a few minutes to download, and only a minute or two to setup and run. Please read our Image Preparation Guide for more details.

My browser crashes when I click “submit” to place or update an advert.

Please refer to the answer of the previous question.

How can I see the viewing statistics for my advert?

If you login you will see a colourful bar chart icon next to your advert. Click on this to see the viewing statistics. These statistics show the total viewings for your advert over the last 30 days.

The viewing statistics show that my advert is rarely viewed. Is something wrong?

We have noticed that adverts without pictures receive far less attention than those with pictures. So the first thing is to ensure that your advert has at least one good quality photograph. Secondly, ensure that the property is realistically priced as an overpriced property will often not even be looked at. Thirdly, check that we have the correct location stored for your property (log in and click on the map icon). If this is incorrect, then your advert may not show up when someone runs a search for properties in your area.

The map displayed on my advert does not show my property in the right place

The location we initially assign to your property is derived from your postcode, and as this generally covers a number of houses, the position shown will be approximate. You can change the position so that it gives the exact location by logging in and clicking on the map icon. This will show you a map that you can click to indicate the precise position of your property. Please note that this may not work with some early browsers.

When I perform a search, the county that I selected is changed

All town names entered into our search are validated against a database of 58,000 place names. If there is an exact match for the town name, but not the county, then the town name is assumed to be correct, and the county is automatically overridden. In order to prevent the place that you are interested in from being confused with a similar place in a different county, then you must enter its full name. For example "Appleby-in-Westmorland" (Cumbria) and not just "Appleby" (Lincolnshire).

The search screen insists that the town that I have entered is not a recognised place name

All town names entered into our search are validated against a database of 58,000 place names. You must enter the full name of the place that you are interested in. For example "Henley-on-Thames" and not just "Henley". If you find that we are rejecting a valid, correctly spelt place name, then please Contact Us.

Maps are not visible or do not work properly

Maps require Javascript and do not work with all browsers. Ensure that Javascript is enabled and that you are using one of the following:
- Internet Explorer 6.0 or later
- Firefox 0.8 or later
- Mozilla 1.4 or later
- Netscape 7.1 or later
- Opera 7.0 or later

Images or photographs are missing / there is no picture to click on for viewing an advert

Advert blocking software has been known to cause some issues with this site, so try temporarily disabling your advert blocking software to see if it resolves the problem. Issues have been seen with Norton Internet Security and Zone Labs ZoneAlarm. Please note that we do not use any pop-up advertising.