How much to pay an estate agent?

hcb42

slater hogg howison in Troon, no idea on SPC

Yorkie1

spam reported

reddyman

googler wrote: »

I'll bet your solicitor never leaves his office except for lunch. I'll bet your solicitor only spends his time with clients who will pay him.

The EA's business income, as with any other business, has to exceed their expenses in all areas, not just on the tasks they complete on your property.

When you buy a new car, do you just pay for the raw materials and assembly? No, the manufacturer has to factor in research and development, promotions, maintaining/supporting a dealer network, warranty work, recalls, etc. into the price that you pay.

Your EA must ensure that the aggregate of fees earned exceeds expenses, in a climate where they're not even sure that every client will yield a fee, and where the sales of lower-value properties could quite possibly be loss-leaders.

With regard to motoring expenses, where your solicitor merely commutes to his office, the EA has not only the cost of driving back and forth to your property for valuation, viewing and other appointments, but also back and forth to other valuations and other appointments which don't yield any profit for them. In the case of London agents, they appear to be obliged to ferry viewers back and forth to viewings, so add the cost of sufficient cars to achieve this, and the appropriate higher-premium insurance ....

So having said all this why charge a % fee based on the value of the property? What additional cost is involved in selling a 400k house versus a 600k house?

The EA still " has not only the cost of driving back and forth to your property for valuation, viewing and other appointments, but also back and forth to other valuations and other appointments which don't yield any profit for them"

So are they overcharging those with a 600k house by charging them 6k for the same services that they offer for half the price for selling a 300k house? So they are effectively using those with more expensive house to subsidise their costs associated in selling cheaper houses. Pretty much what governments do I guess? So the conclusion to this is that EA's think they are the Robin Hoods of the property world!

Surely the fee should not be based on a % but a calculated cost by the EA in how much it will cost them to sell in having factored in all their costs?

more_money_for_me

These people have a property for sale near me. http://www.dalesandshires.com/
Know nothing of their service/commitment or anything else, but shows lower rates are possible. Yes I noticed the minimum price, but not relevant to 600K house.:)

mel19632

If you can be bothered why don't you use an online agent? there are a few about! I am currently on with one and have paid £250 to be on rightmove, findaproperty, zoopla etc, which is basically all that normal estate agents do.

googler

Yorkie1 wrote: »

spam reported

What spam?

googler

reddyman wrote: »

Surely the fee should not be based on a % but a calculated cost by the EA in how much it will cost them to sell in having factored in all their costs?

You can see what happens when they attempt to charge a flat fee from other threads on this forum (I've paraphrased);

"The EA wants to charge me £X for selling my £65,000 flat - that's over 2% / 2.5% !!!"

If it's going to be a flat fee, based on an average house price, it'll be too expensive for the low value properties and way cheap for the high value ones, surely, and the owners of the low value ones will be starting more threads in the same vein as above, with the owners of the high-value homes will be getting something like 0.3%, 0.5% fees, and they'll be laughing.

Factoring in all 'the costs' is fine, but let's say that your house stays on the market for 6 months, and their costs are higher than usual over 2 of those 6 months - would you be happy for your fee to go up from an initial estimate based on an average?