Reuters reports that a survey conducted by Alliance & Leicester has found that private home-sellers using websites to market their properties have sold their homes in an average of less than two months while those using the more conventional estate agency route were taking over three months.

8% of the 2,384 people interviewed said they had used Private Property Sales sites. (This is up from the commonly accepted figure of 5% last year.) A similar proportion had simply used word-of-mouth. Of the rest, 5% had advertised in a local paper, 4% had made their own “for sale” board and 1% had even used auction sites like eBay.

A spokesperson for A&L said “Using an Estate Agent to sell your home is generally viewed as part and parcel of the moving process, but the research suggests that DIY methods , such as using the Internet to sell a home are becoming more popular.”

So, you not only save money, you also sell faster privately. Not a bad combination!