How many people renegotiate estate agents fees?

johnson293

To be honest, (perhaps naively) I only went for one particular Estate Agent, and didn't try and bargain down on their fee of 1.75%, based on an initial valuation of £89,950.

However, this EA had history of selling property in the area, and my street in particular, while a few other have had property marketed for months on end.

While the sale is still going through, we accepted an offer of £79,000 after 6 weeks on the market, so not too long. The house next door to us was also up with the same agent, and they have gone to 'under offer' about 4 weeks after us.

I could have waited to see if I got a higher offer, but we needed to be able to move (to be closer to wife's family and son's school), so we were happy to accept as it gave us enough to be able to move forward.

So while some may think the 1.75% is high, I was more concerned at appointing an agent who I felt happy would be able to sell my property, relatively quickly - and (touch wood) it has turned out that way.

googler

chickmug wrote: »

By the way we never negotiated our rates down.

We would politely say no as we operated a 'no haggle' fee basis. If we did we wouldn’t relish the idea of spending time fending off disgruntled sellers who find out we have varying rates and who would demand to have a full explanation as to why they were charged more.

You mean sometimes you negotiated them up......?

I take it something along the lines of
"Your house is different from the other person's",
"Your house will be more difficult to sell than the other", or
"Your house is a tip and will never sell as quickly as the tidy one next door"

didn't cut any ice with your clients, then .....?

chickmug

googler wrote: »

You mean sometimes you negotiated them up......?

I take it something along the lines of
"Your house is different from the other person's",
"Your house will be more difficult to sell than the other", or
"Your house is a tip and will never sell as quickly as the tidy one next door"

didn't cut any ice with your clients, then .....?

Refusing to lower fees meant a number of lost instructions but my business and so my choice. I knew the overheads and how much I would need to spend, each time, to get a buyer so didn't see why I should give our services away when we were lucky to have a really high repeat business. I was in business, offering a bloody good service, NOT running a charity;) So there - seriously not all agents will drop prices as easily as some of the posts on here suggest.

princessamy86

You get what you pay for! We have a tiered fee structure, you can pick which level of service you want and it is priced accordingly. A 0.5% difference in price gets you the absolute top of the range service. Although some agents will negotiate, you're much better off just choosing the best one and paying them accordingly. By all means try and negotiate, but don't walk away just because they won't drop as they might well be the ones who sell the house for you. I can't begin to count the number of people who reject us for a cheaper agent, then come back 3 months later with a barrage of complaints about said agent's level of service, brochures etc.

nancy711

It's always worthwhile trying to negotiate. If you don't ask you don't get. Many estate agents in the current climate will happily knock a little off their percentage fee, if it gets them a much needed client.

xtra_time

Yeah I will give it a try and if not will prob still go with them as I think they are the better agent (though I may go elsewhere for the HIP)

bitsandpieces

One tactic is to ask the preferred agent their best price - say you're getting quotes elsewhere - and they may well come down a bit. If it's still more than you'd like (and the other agents) tell them what the best price another agent has quoted you is - see if they can match or come close...

alexlyne

I didn't try hard to negotiate a cut in our fee.. and as such didn't get a cut. £1500+vat fixed on a house that we will be lucky to get 90K for. EA said it's the lowest they could go. To be fair, they were much cheaper than the alternative, and they probably knew it.

Still, they were in today to take photos (long nights this week cleaning tidying and filling the attic) along with the HIP guy.. Spent all of 20mins in here. Easy money!

googler

alexlyne wrote: »

I didn't try hard to negotiate a cut in our fee.. and as such didn't get a cut. £1500+vat fixed on a house that we will be lucky to get 90K for. EA said it's the lowest they could go. To be fair, they were much cheaper than the alternative, and they probably knew it.

Still, they were in today to take photos (long nights this week cleaning tidying and filling the attic) along with the HIP guy.. Spent all of 20mins in here. Easy money!

This must be a new definition of 'easy money' that I haven't encountered in the dictionary before.

They've spent time with you at the valuation, done the paperwork to start things off, and they've been back to your house to do the photos, and they haven't been paid anything.

They won't get paid anything unless the house sells. If nobody's out there in the FTB market for your £90k home, and it's on the market for three months, they won't get any income from you for at least three months.

Where's the 'easy' bit of this process?

Doozergirl

alexlyne wrote: »

I didn't try hard to negotiate a cut in our fee.. and as such didn't get a cut. £1500+vat fixed on a house that we will be lucky to get 90K for. EA said it's the lowest they could go. To be fair, they were much cheaper than the alternative, and they probably knew it.

Still, they were in today to take photos (long nights this week cleaning tidying and filling the attic) along with the HIP guy.. Spent all of 20mins in here. Easy money!

And you rejected the idea of house network over £1500 + VAT?