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Instant Cash Valuationwww.propertysalewatchdog.com / www.myhomebuyers.co.uk
Property Sale Watchdog is a site that claims to provide property sale guidance and reviews of various “we buy any house” companies.
However, the site’s main purpose is to direct users to a specific organisation: My Homebuyers.
This brand has been registered with Companies House since 2016, under the company name Elliott and Cooper (Holdings) LTD.
The organisation’s address is listed as 1 Edison Court Ellice Way, Wrexham Technology Park, Wrexham, Clwyd, United Kingdom, LL13 7YT. However, My Homebuyers’ contact address is listed on their website as “My Homebuyers, The Mews House, Stanley Place Mews, Chester, CH1 2LQ”.
My Homebuyers appear to be a typical “fast home buyer” company. The organisation sells property all across England and Wales.
The company’s website itself is straightforward and easy to navigate, with FAQs at the foot of each page to explain certain matters in greater detail.
One aspect that is not made perfectly clear is the organisation’s average timescales for buying property. On My Homebuyers’ site, the company states that they can take “as little as two weeks” to buy a property.
However, on My Homebuyers’ partner website, Property Sale Watchdog, 14 days is displayed as the average time taken by this company to buy a house - and the minimum period is quoted as being “3 days”.
For this reason, it’s hard to know which figure is the most accurate.
As is the case with many cash buying companies, My Homebuyers claim that they are able to work to timescales specified by the seller.
The company is a little more transparent when it comes to their average offer. In their FAQs, under “What's the rough price you'll pay?”, it is stated that:
“We will typically pay around 80-85% of the market value of your property. The actual figure varies according to a number of factors, including the two reports we receive from the local estate agents we appoint, the strength of the local and national housing markets, the type of property you are selling and its overall condition”.
In the section below, My Homebuyers also make a point of explaining that any organisation that offers 90% or above will not be a genuine cash buyer.
As the company explains, it is not financially viable for direct buyers to offer this much, so there are often hidden risks associated with organisations that claim to do so.
My Hombuyers claim that there are “no fees” to pay, and that they cover all legal costs. They even state that the seller is able to instruct their own solicitor if they choose, or they may use a legal specialist recommended by the company.
It is not clear whether My Homebuyers will pay the fees of a solicitor that the seller has chosen, or whether this is only relevant to members of their own panel of conveyancers. However, there is nothing on their site to suggest that they will only cover costs in one case and not the other.
If you receive an offer on your property from My Homebuyers, it will remain valid for 30 days.
The company says “we undertake your valuation free of charge with no obligation to accept the offer we make”.
As with all organisations, My Homebuyers have a range of potential positive and negative elements associated with their services and processes. Here, we explore their main possible pros and cons.
As a well-established company, it is likely that the team at My Homebuyers offer a good amount of experience when purchasing property - which means that you are likely to experience a fairly smooth process.
They provide clear information regarding the offer they are likely to make, as well as the way in which they generate revenue.
What’s more, they are members of the National Association of Property Buyers (NAPB), The Property Ombudsman Service (TPOS) and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), as well as The Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI), so you can rest assured that your rights will be protected.
They use Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) qualified surveyors to inspect your property, which means that all of the information they have in this respect will be accurate and carefully collected.
The company’s website is very easy to navigate, and its FAQs are informative and straightforward.
It is made clear that the client is under no obligation to accept the company’s offer following their valuation, and that no fees are payable throughout the process.
As the company says that they are able to work to the seller’s timescales, it appears that My Homebuyers are fairly flexible in terms of their property buying approach.
The different references to timescale between My Homebuyers and their sister site, Property Sale Watchdog, are somewhat confusing - with one claiming a minimum of two weeks and the other a minimum of three days.
It is worth noting that if the former claim is true, and the company is able to purchase property in a minimum time frame of two weeks, this would make it among the slowest cash buyers we have reviewed.
There is also a lack of clarity regarding the payment of legal fees. It would be useful to know whether My Homebuyers requires sellers to use one of the company’s selected solicitors in order to have their costs covered, or whether they are willing to do this even if the client uses their own legal specialist.
The organisation is also only reviewed on one platform - Trustpilot - where it only has 44 responses. This is a very poor sample size when trying to analyse the quality of My Homebuyers’ services.
The company claims that they will buy “any house, anywhere”, but there does not appear to be any information regarding properties with tenants in situ, homes in retirement communities or other specialist cases. It would be helpful to have a little more detail surrounding these matters in their FAQs.
My Homebuyers is only reviewed on Trustpilot. Among the companies that we have examined, there are very few others - perhaps none - that do not even have Google Reviews on their SERP.
For a company that has been running for six years at the time of writing, it is very surprising to find so few reviews online. It is still more surprising to find that all of My Homebuyers’ reviews are concentrated on one site.
“My Homebuyers do not charge any fees for our services”.
This claim certainly appears to be true. The only matter that is not clear is, as previously mentioned, the question of legal fees. If you are interested in engaging the services of My Homebuyers and using your own solicitor, we highly recommend talking to a representative of the company before proceeding.
My Homebuyers will buy “any house, anywhere”.
Again, there is a lack of clarity on the company’s site regarding this matter.
On their “Why Choose Us” / “About Us” page, under the “Our Story” section, the company claims that “each sale [is] specifically designed to suit the individual seller”, which suggests that there may be scope to sell unusual or unique properties to this company, but again, this is something that we would recommend clarifying with the organisation before moving forward.
On Companies House, My Homebuyers is registered under the business name “Elliott and Cooper (Holdings) LTD”.
A quick online search reveals that the company also manages “Elliott Property Acquisitions Limited”. It appears that the organisation is also affiliated with Property Sale Watchdog, as mentioned above.
Here, we go into a little more detail about My Homebuyers’ practices and services to help you, make a decision regarding the cash home buyer you intend to use for your property sale.
My Homebuyers provides a straightforward explanation of the system they use to buy property on their “How it Works” page. This is the process as they describe it:
You can get an idea of what we could offer you by clicking Get a cash offer [a button on their site], or you can call our friendly team directly
Valuation - if you’re interested, we’ll value your home. There’s no charge and no obligation
Formal offer - We’ll make you a formal offer within 24 hours
Accept our offer - If you accept our offer, we’ll instruct the solicitors and talk you through the next steps
Home inspection - We’ll arrange a RICS inspection on your home at our expense. This is just to check the property is mortgageable – not to find fault with your home
Solicitors finish - We’ll keep you fully informed throughout the process, then in the run up to your chosen moving date, your solicitors will send you the final documents to sign and return
On completion day - On the day, you’ll tell your solicitor to go-ahead and complete. You’ll leave your keys with a local estate agent, and you’ll receive the money in your bank account the very same day”
Due to the company’s size, Elliott and Cooper (Holdings) LTD is exempt from filing full accounts on Companies House. However, their abridged accounts have been made up to 30th September 2021.
Between their previous Profit and Loss account figures filed in March 2020 (£265,596) and their most recent figures in September 2021 (£214,333), there has been a decrease of 19.3%.
If you agree to use one of their recommended solicitors, then My Homebuyers will absolutely pay the entirety of your legal costs.
This may also be the case if you decide to use a specialist that you have chosen yourself. However, there is no clarification on the company’s site so, as mentioned, we would highly recommend that you check this matter with a member of their team before moving forward.
There are no costs involved in getting your property valued by My Homebuyers. This includes the desktop valuation they undertake before making you an offer and the survey that they arrange once you have accepted that offer.
In their FAQs, My Homebuyers state: “My Homebuyers do not charge any fees for our services. In fact, we will pay all of your costs for you.”
There will be no traditional viewings of your home required, as My Homebuyers are direct property purchasers, there will be no need for a third party to look around your home with a view to making a purchase.
However, the organisation will need to arrange a survey - using a Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) registered surveyor - to inspect your property to ensure that their offer is accurate and that there are no hidden issues.
It does not appear that My Homebuyers have received any awards for their services or their standards of customer care at the time of writing.
My Homebuyers only have reviews on a single public feedback platform - Trustpilot. On that site, they only have 44 write-ups in total, making them one of the most sparsely-reviewed organisations that we have studied.
Indeed, it appears as if their Trustpilot account has only been active since 2020.
While the organisation appears to claim that they have a 5-star overall rating on its own site, Trustpilot appears to display a 4.8.
This may be due to the platform’s method of gradually lowering a company’s score if it has not been reviewed in some time, as 100% of responses on the platform give the company 5 stars.
My Homebuyers has had an account on Facebook since July 2020. They currently have 142 likes and the same number of followers.
While the organisation posted regularly between July and September of that year, there has been no further content shared on this platform at the time of writing.
The posts that were shared on their feed include adverts for their services, quotes from reviews and case studies relating to their various property purchases.
The company’s video FAQs that are displayed on their website are also accessible via their Facebook page.
My Homebuyers also have a LinkedIn account, though this has only 7 followers. The company has never posted on this platform, although an introductory video has been uploaded.
Finally, My Homebuyers also have an Instagram account with 157 followers. They first posted in July 2020, which suggests that this account and their Facebook page were set up at around the same time - and they have shared virtually identical content on both accounts over precisely the same time period.
We hope you have found the above information useful when choosing a fast home sale company.
This Company Review and in-depth Summary have been created to provide users with a clear understanding of the organisation’s specialisms, processes and practices.
All of the information above was researched and fact-checked using:
The company’s official website
The Companies House website
Relevant review sites, including allAgents, Feefo, Google, Reviews.com and Trustpilot
Relevant social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
The websites of regulatory bodies such as the National Association of Property Buyers, the Information Commissioner’s Office and The Property Ombudsman
The websites of relevant rewarding bodies (from which the company claims to have received accolades)
Independent reviews of the company found via Google’s search engine
If you wish to double check any of the information provided in this summary, you can refer to these same sources.
The entirety of the information we have included in this review was correct at the time of writing. We will continue to fact-check and update the review at regular intervals in order to achieve the highest possible levels of accuracy.
We highly recommend that you undertake your own research into any home buying organisation you may be considering, as we understand that you may have unique requirements or specific queries that are not covered on this page.
You can learn more about our company comparison techniques and approaches in the “About Us” page of this site.
You’ll find a selection of handy guides in our “Resources” section. These articles may provide you with valuable information regarding selling your property fast, for the best possible price.
Alternatively, if you require a fast valuation to get a clear idea of the amount you should be offered for your property, please tap the “Valuation Tool” button below. For further information, to make any enquiries or to request advice, please tap the “Help and Support” button.
0800 046 1949
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