Entwistle Green / estate agent fees

gregj2209

Hi All

This is my first post on here but I’ve been looking around at things for a while and gleamed some useful tips. We’re looking at putting our house on the market and based on the tips from here and data we’ve got Entwistle Green are the best agent in our area – in terms of no. house they’re selling, marketing etc.

The main problem is our house is under £100k and they’re saying they charge flat £2500 fees to sell it, which is around 2.6% of the potential sale price of our house. This seems EXTREMELY high to me (given advice on here is 1%) so does anyone know the chances of negotiating this down with them?

My thought is that they’re a bigger, more corporate type agency so this is likely to restrict our ability to do that – has anyone tried or succeeded in doing this with them before or does anyone have any useful tips in how to approach it?

Thanks very much in advance.

betmunch

They are part of the Coutrywide group.

I think you will find that they have introduced a minimum fee from upper management, I would not be too hopefull of getting it reduced. It would be far too much hassle to the branch manager to explain so he would probably walk away.

Please keep us updated on what you decided to do, especially if you do get the minimum fee down

rilou81

We are currently with another of Countrywide's EA's and the fees are the same, you wont get them any lower. She even said to us that 'I know we are most expensive, but thats cause we are the best' We were taken in by their sales pitch and promise of buyers lined up. Although we have had 1 viewing in the 2 weeks we have been with them, we are cancelling next week as we do not want to pay the HUGE fee and in hindsight we should have gone for a lower fee on our 100K house.

I know its not all about the fee and you need a good EA but in the 2 weeks they have been our EA they have not lived up to their many promises!!

gregj2209

Interesting responses guys thanks - I'll give some feedback on what happens.

My other half found a link on the advisory.co.uk (but I'm not allowed to post links as I'm a new user) which has some info on. Most of it is common sense but things perhaps you don't realise until someone spells it out in black and white.

oneeye1

i would nt be paying them that no way shop around and if you do their job for them you shud find a cheap one there all as bad as each other

sonastin

I was originally with another countrywide agent. They seem to put their best salesman onto the job of signing up new instructions and leave the rubbish sales guys to deal with buyers. They certainly didn't do anything to justify why they should be paid more than the rest.

Be wary of the "they seem more active in our area" argument. I felt like they had an "if we have every house for sale on our books, something will eventually sell" attitude. They had dozens of properties like mine up for sale at the same time as I was trying to sell and obviously a buyer isn't going to want 40-odd sets of details to wade through. It seemed like pot luck whether any individual property was included in the half dozen or so sent out as meeting the buyers requirements, despite there being many that would fit.

I also felt like at least half of my viewings were negative comparisons, i.e. "if you don't go for [some other totally different style property], look at what else you'd be able to afford. see, you should offer on the other one" - based on the feedback of what they didn't like about mine was an absolutely typical characteristic of the type of property, and not typical of the other type of property common in the area.

I had such a negative experience with countrywide that I am reluctant to even view properties to buy with them. But that is just my experience so feel free to make your own choice.

gregj2209

To update those that asked - the second agent that came out has initial fees of just over half of Entwistle Green and reduced them further (without us asking) as they let out our second house for us already. We spoke to someone at Entwistle Green who "didn't have the authority" (but implied they could be reduced) to reduce prices but promised someone would call me back that day - they did 3 days later, although I haven't returned the call yet but we're going with the other agent who we feel knows the local market better, charges fees more in line with what we expected and whom we already have a relationship with.

blt

I'm using Entwistle Green on my house on sale for £105k and they are charging me £2000 plus vat. Not too impressed with them to be honest. I fell for the sales patter but they're no better than any of the others:mad:

missscousemouse_2

ive just had entwistle green and my house would go for £134,950 and iu was quoted £2.800 fee my jaw dropped and she quickly said she could reduce to £2.600 i told her the agent im on with now is £2,200 and that i had a few more agents coming out. she said that if iit came down to not going with them because of the fee she would talk to her boss to reduce it to something i was happier with.
ive just had a firm out which is family run and has another on my road that has had lots of interest they charge 1%!

kingstreet

I'd always go for a small, local firm as I don't rate the likes of the corporates unless it's at getting extra cash from mortgages, conveyancing etc. for themselves.

£100k sale should be about £1,000 + VAT.

80schild

We tried to sell with them a few years ago-they were good at sending viewers but these viewers were mostly time wasters-including the next door but one neighbour who probably just wanted a nosey at our house so he could decide how much he should put his up for sale for!