Choosing an estate agent in Cambridge

sefw1982

Hi all
After 5 years of living in our first house my husband and I have decided to sell. We have had 3 valuations this week but I am at a loss as to which agent to pick. The valuations have been so different but the services offered have been pretty much identical. I didn't think there would be much difference in the valuations but we have had between £180,000 and £215,000 - a huge difference, and all local agents!
I know it can go both ways, them pricing low for a quick sell or higher to encourage your business, but this difference in values seems crazy! I don't want to aim too high and not sell or aim too low and lose out but with 3 professional views being so different I do not know what to do. Our house is quite different from the others around so it is difficult for us to compare to those locally.
Does anyone have any experience selling in the (south) cambridge area and could you recommend any estate agent in particular?
Any advice gratefully received.

timmyt

sefw1982 wrote: »

Hi all
After 5 years of living in our first house my husband and I have decided to sell. We have had 3 valuations this week but I am at a loss as to which agent to pick. The valuations have been so different but the services offered have been pretty much identical. I didn't think there would be much difference in the valuations but we have had between £180,000 and £215,000 - a huge difference, and all local agents!
I know it can go both ways, them pricing low for a quick sell or higher to encourage your business, but this difference in values seems crazy! I don't want to aim too high and not sell or aim too low and lose out but with 3 professional views being so different I do not know what to do. Our house is quite different from the others around so it is difficult for us to compare to those locally.
Does anyone have any experience selling in the (south) cambridge area and could you recommend any estate agent in particular?
Any advice gratefully received.

I don't know Cambridge but......it isn't a can of beans you are buying, it is a service, and no service is the same, fact. apples and oranges, same with conveyancers.

Always ask the local lawyers in the town you plan to sell in - and use a local law firm (making sure you get an actual 'solicitor' for your money), as they know all the estate agents and who the rubbish ones are. After all, the lawyers get work from all the agents so know first hand, day after day which are good.

personality, promptness, enthusiasm etc all are relevant to getting your hosue sold.

AVOID - always - the following:
- national estate agents chains (independent local ones know the Town far better and care about their reputation
- those whose valuations come in highest by some margin (as they will not get it and the property ends up being on the market too long and so hurt your sale chances - as they went high just to get you on their books)
- those that try and farm you off to Countrywide Lawyers or Premier Property Lawyers
- those your lawyer doesn't recommend - as they deal with the local agents all the time and know which ones are rubbish

firstaspect

We've recently been through a sale and purchase in Cambridge so can offer some first-hand advice on some of the agents I had to deal with in the process.


Tucker Gardner - Good valuation, very poor service once they have your business. AVOID
Haart - Good valuation, very good service, if not a bit pushy. However they sold our house very quickly, but do charge more than other local agents. After offer service is passed to their Bar Hill branch who were really, really efficient getting the deal to exchange.
Chapman, Lorimer, Oakes - Undervalued massively. In fact they valued in April when prices were much higher than now and the valuation was more than 10k less than we sold our house for in September.
Tylers - Very efficient, friendly local service. Only went through purchase with them but was very pleased with the service and communication offered.
Bradshaws - Not used them myself but have only heard good things.
Abbotts - AVOID!! I was registered with them to receive details of properties I might be interested in and they were constantly ringing up with properties which didn't fit the bill, sending letters weekly trying to get me to move to them and just pi**ed me off pretty quickly.

I can also highly recommend Miller Sands for Conveyancing. Very efficient, friendly and were always available when I had a query and always happy for me to pop into the office when I didn't want to rely on Royal Mail to send things.

Where in South Cambridge are you?

Running_Horse

Are all agents in Cambridge on Rightmove?

Only ask because noticed a couple of boards up on a visit but then couldn't find the property online.

firstaspect

Running_Horse wrote: »

Are all agents in Cambridge on Rightmove?

Only ask because noticed a couple of boards up on a visit but then couldn't find the property online.

Most are, probably not all. What agent's board did you see?

seraphina

We're looking to buy in south Cambridge so this is from a buyer's perspective:
TG - valuations seem pie in the sky; sales staff are rather patronising which put us off.
Abbotts - bloody useless.
Haart - not shifting much at the moment, valuations seem okay to high
Cheffins - totally uninterested in us as potential buyers.
Bradshaws - a pleasure to deal with compared to the others - were interested in what we wanted, phoned up and suggested other properties.

However we've been more impressed with non-Cambrige based estate agents. In particular Thomas Morris in Royston have been excellent; phoning us up regularly to see if we're still looking and actively sending us stuff that (on paper, anyway) meets our requirements and is in our price range. There's one young guy in William H Brown (also Royston) who's okay - the older guy there is totally unrealistic with his pricing and had a stand up row with my H when we suggested that a house bought less than a year ago for £260k and untouched since might not be worth £360K in the current market....

Check the rightmove searches with propertybee to see which agents are actually selling houses.

sefw1982

Thank you
You've all given me some things to consider. I did have a preference for TG but now am not sure with what people have said. We have Haart coming today so we will see how it goes. I found Bradshaws very nice but their estimate was the lowest by far and Russells were nice but quite young. Hmmmm... lots to consider

firstaspect

sefw1982 wrote: »

Thank you
You've all given me some things to consider. I did have a preference for TG but now am not sure with what people have said. We have Haart coming today so we will see how it goes. I found Bradshaws very nice but their estimate was the lowest by far and Russells were nice but quite young. Hmmmm... lots to consider

I've heard bad things about Russells..
TG I really would stay away from, anything they tell you about number of viewings to expect, people they have on their mailing lists etc. was rubbish. They hardly got us any viewings and kept making excuses. I also had to take my own photos and spell/grammer check their description as they just hadn't done a good enough job.
Haart did sell our house quickly (in about 2 weeks), just had to pay more for the privilege and we did have to reduce the price 15k from our original price. But I think that was more the market.

PasturesNew

Go through Rightmove, for your area, for your house type, in your price range - and see which agents are selling houses in that price range.

e.g. if Agent1 has 10 on and 0 sold, it might mean that in that price range, in your area, they're rubbish. Agent2 might have 6 on and 5 sold, which might mean that in that price range, in your area, they're a bit better.

I'd just load up Rightmove with Property Bee and do some counting up of various searches and results.

In any area, one agent will tend to be a bit better at a certain type of house, or in a certain price range... there's no point going with Savills if your house is £240k and on Arbury for example, because a RM search would show that Savills have no houses for sale at £240k in Arbury.

Go for the agent who seems to have most houses like yours on their books - and are selling them.

You can also go through the Price Comparison Report part of RM, which shows you what's sold, which agent it was with ... and you might be able to spot where people have given up/not sold, or changed agents.

Of course, doing this will actually drive you mental

LittleMissAspie

I'm surprised that people don't like Tucker Gardner. As a buyer, I prefer their adverts as they have good floorplans and measurements, and good pictures. TG are the only estate agent that we browsed their actual website rather than just Rightmove. We happened to buy our house through them and found them easy to deal with. It was priced low and our offer was accepted a week after it came on the market.

Russell Residential adverts are a joke, full of mistakes.
Haart adverts aren't that great, often missing measurements and rubbish photos. I always assumed Haart were really cheap as so many people use them yet the adverts aren't very good.
I don't know if Morris Armitage cover your area but avoid like the plague, they distort all their photos and NEVER put measurements on Rightmove, nor do they ever do floorplans.
Cheffins adverts are quite good but they seem to going the way of Morris Armitage with their photos.
Tylers adverts are good with all the information needed.
Taylors kept sending us to houses that were too big and expensive and didn't seem to listen when we said we wanted smaller and cheaper.
Vincent Shaw adverts are fine but very slow to get back to us and didn't contact us when a house we'd made an offer on came back on the market.

On my road most of the houses that are for sale are through Haart, one through Tylers, and nothing is shifting. We are the only house sold/bought since May 2009.

If I was selling I'd look for houses to buy first to get an idea of who is best for buyers to deal with.

firstaspect

LittleMissAspie wrote: »

I'm surprised that people don't like Tucker Gardner. As a buyer, I prefer their adverts as they have good floorplans and measurements, and good pictures. TG are the only estate agent that we browsed their actual website rather than just Rightmove. We happened to buy our house through them and found them easy to deal with. It was priced low and our offer was accepted a week after it came on the market.

TG isn't bad for buyers, just rubbish for sellers. They don't push houses very much apart from sticking it on the website and when mine was with TG the pictures and description was only good as I did them myself due to their terrible attempt.