How about this for a great new idea from the The Little House Company

They have been online since 2000 and have just made a new website that gets official launch September 2010.

They have some very interesting innovations including Assisted Private Sales, and Referral Rewards both are aimed at selling a home online with an estate agent.
The Little House Company are NOT anti-agent as they also supply an online estate agency service the first online agents service to offer Assisted Viewings

The Jewel in their crown is the “referral rewards” idea

So how does it work? Private sellers can offer a financial reward to anybody that finds them a buyer. They post the amount of the reward on the site and referrers then contact anyone they know who is looking to buy a property. They send them an email and referral code and ask them to enter this code if they make an enquiry. They will also chase them for feedback to see if they actually went on to buy the property. Only when as a result of a referral that led to a sale is the reward paid. Interestingly our market research and test properties all resulted in agents searching for a buyer for our private sellers many doing this unofficially.

Nick Marr founder of The Little House Company

Nick Marr founder of The Little House Company told us, “One sample property we offered 3000 reward (after consulting the owner) his fees were going to be 20K plus! However we had unnamed agents actively working out hours searching for a buyer. The model suits anybody with a online social network. Referral rewards could be really popular we are working on a number of new features for the site once completed we are going to have a real push with this.”.

They are about to announce the free listings package and launch the smart looking web site, so keep an eye out for the Little House Company over the next month and if you know of anyone looking to buy a property, you might be able to make a little earner.

Update: Nick informs us, “we got a our first referral reward £7000 being offered to find a buyer today, at this time we have about 5 people offering rewards”

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