Situation on Estate Agent fee's?

dfarry

We have decided to sell our house in London... we put it on the market three years ago, we had an offer for the asking price within 2 weeks but the sale fell through.. anyway at that time we got an estate agent on a 1% fee basis. Yesterday we had the same agent in but the fee's are now in the region of 2.5%!!!! and they would not budge it seems... a virtual tour and floorplan doesn't justify an extra 1.5% in my opinion but I do like the agent and on past experience do think they will do a good job of marketing it.

There's no scope in our budget to pay more than 1% for an agent so we will have to keep looking. However I just wondered that with the economy/property crisis if agents are forcing up prices because of the lack of general business?

We've also been advised to go for a range price to attract more potential viewings... this makes a lot of sense but without a clearer idea of what we might sell at compared to what we might buy for it is very difficult to budget for the move.

Cheers

Benji_Brown

Not all estate agents fees have gone up. It differs depending on where you live. In my area, there are now some very cheap (but up front) fees which allow cash flow. I would have thought that if you are willing to market your property at a good price, they would be willing to negotiate on fees. Estate Agents won't miss out on sellable properties if they can help it.

mandi

If your property is in a good area, and marketed at the right price, why not try selling privately, the most you could loose is the cost of the advert .

dfarry

Yeah thats what I was thinking, our house is in a popular area, on the outskirts of London with reasonable commuter links, lots of schools, shops etc... and the house is well maintained. We'll get another agent in over the next few days.

Was also considering going down the internet route to get onto RightMove but I need to research that more.

lovemotown

You can only get on Right Move through an EA. I know housenetwork.co.uk are on RM and is somewhere between an EA and sell it yourself type (via internet). This is an option I am considering.

dfarry

Yeah looks a pretty good option for the money, I'd be tempted to give it a punt for the price... have you found any information, pro's and con's of going down this route?

natters_2

We are also on the outskirts of London and the EA that was recommended are charging 2% - rang another one today and they were evasive about what the fee will be. I guess this might be the going rate at the minute.

carlsberggal

I work at an estate agents, we haven't put fees up in fact in this current climate we are having to negotiate our fees to get the instruction. Shop around, you don't have to stay with them. A lot of agents are now fixed fees, ok as long as they don't over value in the first place to get the instruction as they base that on the initial price, no matter what the sale price.

If your still with the same agent, he can't suddenly up his fee as you have signed a contract with him/her at the original fee

northerner79

Dan if your estate agent achieves you an extra 10k which a good agent can then is it not worth it, you get what you pay for.

dfarry

Definitely, so on that basis I'd be happier with an incentive agreement... for example if they were able to get £200K (what I am looking for really) then I'd be happier to go for 2.0% or so... Less than that and there just isn't the budget for it. The esate agent that came around valued at £190K.