Estate agent fee's?

[Dan Le Moignan]

Afternoon guys!,
We are looking to put our first house on the market in the next 2 weeks and just wondered if anyone had any advice on the matter, as we have never sold a house before.
Had 5 local agents around to value the property, all of which advertise on rightmove/local paper, shop window etc and all gave more or less the same valuation (which we are happy with).
We have now scaled it down to 3 agents that we would like to market the house with, now is the question of fee's going rate seems to be 1.5-1.7%.
Ive haggled with one so far but the best she said she could do was 1.6% (down from 1.7%), and was not intrested in going lower which i thought was abit rude and stuck up of her.
When i mentioned the rate of 1.6% at work they thought this was steep, one guy buys and sells houses and he said always go in with wanting 1%+VAT, he has bought 8 houses and never paid over 1%, is that an unrealistic offer to make to an agent?
Thanks for any help, will put it to good use tomorrow!

[The Radman]

paul r is the man for this one,theryre all dodgy buggers you know lol

[Dan Le Moignan]

You mean Paul the gas man?!

[Rippers]

Hi, Dan being an agent myself I can advise that there is a huge variance in Estate Agency fees from agent to agent and area to area.

You generally find the most expensive are the corporate type agency's like Barstow Eves because you paying the office commission and they then pay the head office money and they pay the negotiator commission, the manager, the area manager etc etc so as you can see they have far more over heads and mouths to feed, but not much of these extra fee benefits you!

Smaller/Family run agencies often have lower over heads and more often then not charge cheaper commission and you should IMO get a more personal service (I find most corporate agency staff are like robots to talk to)

I think you need to get on with your agent and if they where rude when it comes to negotiating the fee what would they be like to a perspective purchaser wanting to negotiate on you house? not good IMO

Fee's in my area vary from 1% to 2% depending on the price of the property ie 1.5% on a £150K property and 1% on a £300K property all plus vat. I'll pitch an average fee but would negotiate, thing that make a difference to my fee quote are price of property, how sellable I thought the property was, market conditions and how realistic the owner was.

If your area is anything like ours most agents would presently be prepared to negotiate on the fee's as there is a shortage of property to sell so try your luck they NEED YOUR business. The other thing to sort out is the HIP pack, you don't have to use the agent's HIP company and be wearing of any tie ins with these. I can recommend a company myself that charge £195+vat (on a freehold property) if you get stuck. Also be weary of of the contract length, don't entertain 12 week plus contacts, try to stick to 4-8week contacts, you don't want to be stuck with a crap agent for too long and if they are good and the contract runs out you can carry on anyway until you give them the specified notice in the contract.

Anything else let me know

PS don't use Premier Property Lawyers for the conveyancing

[Dan Le Moignan]

Thankyou for that info Paul
For the HIP pack ive been looking at a place called myhiphome all online, not sure if you have ever heard/used them, they are wanting £218inc vat.
I think ive ruled out using Morris Dibben now, although she had the most enthusiasm for the house, i didnt like the attitude towards working on the fee's.
That is leaving Mann countrywide (you also get austin wyatt as a 2 for 1 as they are a sister company), like them they seem to know their stuff and have a good attitude, discussing fee's tomorrow. And a company called Enfields, they are coming round at 10 30 tomorrow to give valuation and talk fee's.
Do you think me asking for 1% +VAT is a silly ask? the property has been valued at £230-£233k with the thought of getting £225k if possible.
Alot of the properties around here have been on rightmove for a while, but when a good one comes on, it's snapped up very fast, i just hope ours is like that

[Rippers]

No its not silly to ask, say you have already been quoted 1% and if you want the business please match it, never fall into the trap of telling them who the other agnets you had around where thou!

[Dan Le Moignan]

Ok Paul i will remember not to tell them the above info! very gratefull for the help I will post up how it goes tomorrow.

[MATCOS]

Dan
I have used Enfields twice in our area and found them to be really quite good, they will be up for negotiating fee's too. I can't believe the Morris Dibben woman wouldn't bend on her fee's. Her loss not yours mate

[Dan Le Moignan]

Thanks Matt, a guy at work is selling with them aswell and is impressed, said they are a younger outfit really on the ball and not just laid back thinking because they have been trading for years that the can sit back and take the p*ss!.
Cant wait to move, really want to get some where semi/rural on the forest, with no road noise!.

[Dan Le Moignan]

Right, had them round, all seems good, Enfields will do 1% +vat, now torn between them and Mann country wide

Enfields +

Open 7 days a week, branch run by 2 brothers, always them doing viewings etc so no stand in staff
All properties are given 'Premium listing' headers (Mann want extra £500 for this)
Their office is better/ and better location than Mann
They have the most properties for sale, and also have sold the most properties in the area (so they claim)!
A guy at work is using them and said hes really pleased with them.

Mann country wide +,

You also get Austin and Wyatt, so 2 agents for 1 (other agent is 20miles away in next town)
They will fee match
They advertise on the most websites 14 in total (But i take it most use rightmove as the main hub?)
We are on their books for property search and they never fail to email us/contact us when new houses pop up (unlike pearsons!!)
On the downside the guy that does the viewings is abit annoying and IMO delves too deep into finances etc putting you under abit of pressure which the GF and i got abit annoyed at.

Decision needs to be made in the next few days really

[Ben Purnell]

well from those descriptions I would have to go for the first one, sound a lot better than the second especially delving into finances etc (although could be good to weed out the time wasters), and can you guarantee you won't get sume numpty showing people round.
I wouldn't be too bothered about how websites they advertise on, if I am looking for a house I would use RightMove

[Rippers]

I like the sound of Enfields, in regards to the 14 'other websites' we used to be subscribed to loads yet we still only got calls from Rightmove and sometimes from Findaproperty.com the rest are a load of tosh.

[Dan Le Moignan]

Thanks guys, think i will be using Enfields tbh, will stew for a couple of days tho to make up our mind. Paul thats what i kinda thought about the websites, anyone i know always use rightmove. That will just leave the uncomfortable phone calls to make to tell the other agents our decision

[MATCOS]

Dan, when we used Enfields they were selling a lot of houses like ours and to me that was as important as anything else as they could price the house properly and were just more familiar in general with the property type.
Have a look on Right Move to see which one of the 2 is selling more of the same house type as yours and who is selling more houses in your area in general.

[Dan Le Moignan]

Get what your saying Mat, and it's the same case down here!.

We are trying to finalise everything now, is it usual to have to market with given given agent for 3months? As this is what we are being told is the min contract length. seems along time to me, i was thinking a month to start with