Estate agent won't sell unless we drop price.

safesound

Hi Sasha, I live in South Wales too and would recomend you contact Durbins. They were absolutely fab when we bought this house (Church Village btw). Even if you dont sell with them they are worth getting out to value your house just to be sure you are getting a fair price for it.

sharon

s@sha

Hi everyone, thank you all for your advice, and to safesound..we will look into contacting durbins, though I'm not sure if they cover the tonypandy area?

Update: We've requested (and received) confirmation in writing from Peter Alan that it is they who are terminating the contract, and therefore we are free to use another agent. The original agreement was we had to give them sole selling rights for 12 weeks.

We can't afford to do the work ourselves so it will have to be sold in it's current contition. Also, although we like the idea of selling it ourselves, it's would be too awkward for us to do the viewings (small baby, full-time work, live 40 min-drive away)

So Hubby is taking a day off work to go to the house & get several other local agents in on the same day to value it...as suggested, we'll ask for a realistic valuation. Just waiting for the keys to be sent to a local Peter Alan branch for us to pick up. We're hoping they haven't lost them though, as they were sent via their 'secure' internal mail on Monday & were supposed to arrive Tueasday...but they still weren't there yesterday. Hmmm!

Realistically, we were always expecting to have to drop the price, and are prepared to eventually,as I think most people expect when selling a house. But not £12000 after less than 2 months. As pal pointed out, they simply can't be bothered anymore with it because it's no longer cost effective for them.

safesound

Ring the Aberdare or Tonteg office and ask (your kinda in between both offices). I know they cover Porth as I've seen them on their website (https://www.durbins.co.uk incase you didnt realise )

Horasio

I wouldn't let an estate agent tell me what to do - they can advise, and as they have a good knowledge of the market and would know what is the best price.

Why didn't they advise a lower price when they came to value the place?

They are your employees, you pay them a percentage of what you get. It sounds like they don't care, they want a quick sale.

I don't know about whether they can refuse to keep you on their books or not but you certainly have the right to find another agent who actually cares about YOU - yes they do exist :rolleyes:

clairehi

s&#64 wrote: »

Hi everyone, thank you all for your advice, and to safesound..we will look into contacting durbins, though I'm not sure if they cover the tonypandy area?

Update: We've requested (and received) confirmation in writing from Peter Alan that it is they who are terminating the contract, and therefore we are free to use another agent. The original agreement was we had to give them sole selling rights for 12 weeks.

We can't afford to do the work ourselves so it will have to be sold in it's current contition. Also, although we like the idea of selling it ourselves, it's would be too awkward for us to do the viewings (small baby, full-time work, live 40 min-drive away)

So Hubby is taking a day off work to go to the house & get several other local agents in on the same day to value it...as suggested, we'll ask for a realistic valuation. Just waiting for the keys to be sent to a local Peter Alan branch for us to pick up. We're hoping they haven't lost them though, as they were sent via their 'secure' internal mail on Monday & were supposed to arrive Tuesday...but they still weren't there yesterday. Hmmm!

Realistically, we were always expecting to have to drop the price, and are prepared to eventually,as I think most people expect when selling a house. But not £12000 after less than 2 months. As pal pointed out, they simply can't be bothered anymore with it because it's no longer cost effective for them.

Just a thought - my advice would be to have a few agents round to look at it, but its usually best to go for the agent who sells the most property in the local area - judge them by their results (ie SOLD boards). Peter Alan were great for us but it was a different office (Whitchurch) so different staff.

To be honest they are probably doing you a favour in terminating the agreement rather than leaving it on their books and doing nothing. After we gave notice on our first agent (Darlows - useless) they took the house off their website/Rightmove, even though there was still 2 weeks to run on the contract. so we lost 2 weeks of marketing time.

s@sha

clairehi wrote:

To be honest they are probably doing you a favour in terminating the agreement rather than leaving it on their books and doing nothing. After we gave notice on our first agent (Darlows - useless) they took the house off their website/Rightmove, even though there was still 2 weeks to run on the contract. so we lost 2 weeks of marketing time.

Yes, you're probably right. We bought our current house and sold our last one through Peter Alan in Whitchurch and they were better than Halifax who we were with initially. But as I say, we're going to try to get most of the local ones this time. We were thinking of Lanyons, Tudball & Edwards, Barbara Rhys (who valued last time as well at £50,000) Darlows (because they've got a Tonypandy branch) & we've seen for 'sale signs' in the area by one called Touchdown, though I've not noticed them before. And also Durbins has been suggested.

clairehi

s&#64 wrote: »

Yes, you're probably right. We bought our current house and sold our last one through Peter Alan in Whitchurch and they were better than Halifax who we were with initially. But as I say, we're going to try to get most of the local ones this time. We were thinking of Lanyons, Tudball & Edwards, Barbara Rhys (who valued last time as well at £50,000) Darlows (because they've got a Tonypandy branch) & we've seen for 'sale signs' in the area by one called Touchdown, though I've not noticed them before. And also Durbins has been suggested.

PA seem to do a lot of business in Whitchurch. We bought and sold the same house through them.

We didnt sign them up initially as they didnt show up to do the valuation - drr! think they went to the wrong place, not a good sign for an EA. I was also concerned that they didnt advertise on rightmove but I think they do now.

Despite this they did sell the house in 6 weeks - wish we'd gone to them first. (Darlows were first agent, not v good) We accepted a low offer (not as low as £38k though!) because we knew we'd also get a good deal on our purchase, but thats not the case for you I know.

safesound

clairehi wrote:

PA seem to do a lot of business in Whitchurch. We bought and sold the same house through them.

Funnily enough we sold a house in Whitchurch last year (by the Victoria Chip Shop... ) through Porters. PA quoted and although they gave the same valuation the actual EA was *really* young (he looked about 18) and he was so disinterested in the whole sale that I just didnt have any confidence in their ability to sell the property. Porters OTOH were very enthusiastic and did exactly what they said they would (plus they offered a lower % ) They even got us 9K more than the asking price which was nice.
Oh well they do say YMMV so I guess its a case of it depends on who does the valuation.

clairehi

safesound wrote:

. PA quoted and although they gave the same valuation the actual EA was *really* young (he looked about 18) and he was so disinterested in the whole sale that I just didnt have any confidence in their ability to sell the property.

yes the guy from PA who did our valuation was a young lad. however I dont think he had a lot to do with the sale after that in all fairness. where I thought their service was very good was in managing the sale after we got an offer.

you did well to get over the asking price last year in Cardiff, the market was grim.

Jorgan_2

Get various valuations, don't tell them what each one has said. After they have told you the reasons why you should use them over anybody else & what they value the property at, ask them what price for a sale in 4-6 weeks. If you get a massive difference between the two vals the agent gives you, chances are the first one is a figure to win your business.

What is it with PA & their valuers, they all look about 18, or maybe I've been doing this job for too long. Had one of their guys in the office the other day asking for directions & did I know what the houses in that street sold for as he was off to value one. Heaven help the seller on that one.