motivating estate agents

tyler80

I'm not entirely convinced that estate agents sell houses, I think houses will sell themselves. So as long as the agent is not being totally rubbish I'm not sure there's much to be gained from changing.

Also if you do change don't let the new agents take an outside picture with the old agent signboard visible. I'm amazed at how many pictures I see like this!

DVardysShadow

claire70 wrote: »

... So we're torn - we feel bad about sacking them, as it's not really their fault if the buyers out there at the moment are playing hard to get. On the other hand, we wonder if another agent might be able to swing something that they can't. Not sure how that other agent would do it, but there you go.

For this situation, you need a good reason

• They did or didn't do <x>, which means we are not prepared to continue with them
• They are uninspired in <y> and we feel sure that Agent <B> will address this

Unless you have a killer reason along these lines, there is no obvious purpose in switching.

poppysarah

Do they show on rightmove?

Get someone to ring up and ask about a viewing of your property and see how they deal with that.

Find out how much notice you have to give - if you find they're really not handling enquiries well then it's time to get rid of them. If they handle the enquiry well then that's fine.

Are you price competitive? Are you watching what's selling ( houseprices.co.uk ) and what's coming new to market, and what's being reduced (property bee)

lkmartin

hi - go with a smaller estate agent. with the bigger ones you just get lost in the pile. We had a local one to sell our house who has been fantastic and sold our house in 2 weeks! we have dealt with the same person the whole way through. The people who we are buying off however are a large local chain who have been horrendous!

satchmeister

lkmartin wrote: »

hi - go with a smaller estate agent. with the bigger ones you just get lost in the pile. We had a local one to sell our house who has been fantastic and sold our house in 2 weeks! we have dealt with the same person the whole way through. The people who we are buying off however are a large local chain who have been horrendous!

I would agree. We are trying to buy via one of the larger EAs and the EA does not even seem to understand the buying process - exchange, searches, completion, what forms are needed etc. I am having to drive the process!!!

A smaller EA will have probably been around for a while (large EA have newbies who do not know what the are doing generally) and tend to be more hands on and proactive, not least of all you tend to be a big fish to them.

Riq

Give them a bigger fee, the estate agent then gets a bigger commission and then they are more likely to push your house.

It's simples.

Cheeselady

lkmartin wrote: »

hi - go with a smaller estate agent. with the bigger ones you just get lost in the pile. We had a local one to sell our house who has been fantastic and sold our house in 2 weeks! we have dealt with the same person the whole way through. The people who we are buying off however are a large local chain who have been horrendous!

Glad it worked out for you, but it's not always the case. We have 3 estate agents in our town and the small independent is the worst of the lot! We are buyers by the way, cash buyers as well, and have found the other two agents who are both 'chains' much more on the ball about letting us know about new properties and price reductions.