varying agent prices

twirlypinky

We put our house on the market on saturday, after speaking to most of the agents in town. I was astounded at the varying costs.

The cheapest was £1,200 plus vat, the most expensive was £2,700 plus vat, both of these were also plus EPC, which was £99 for one and £65 for the other! Serious variation there!

We eventually went for one that was £1,500 plus vat, which included not only the EPC, but also solicitors fees for the sale!

The other thing that niggled us was how unprofessional they were. Apart from one (the one we went with) they all spent about 60% of their sales pitch putting down the other agents. "You don't want to go with them, they get loads of complaints and aren't on findaproperty" and "You don't want to go with them, once you're on their books you won't hear from them again". At one point hubs actually said "We're not here to talk about them, we're here to talk about you".

The only good thing about the experience was that they all valued the house with the same figure. The fact that that figure is between £1k and £6k lower than the mortgage is a whole other -painful- issue!

G_M

You may find you get what you pay for. You've gone for the cheapest, but
a) will they sell the property and
b) will they get the best price?

Did you read the small print?
If you switch agents later, how much will they charge you for the EPC!!?
What tie-in period and costs are involved
etc etc

And who is doing the conveyancing? Did you check them out? Will it be a local experiencd solicitor, or a call centre full of admin people in Bangalore, with a single solicitor overseeing 500 property deals?

Edit, you can get your own EPC done for less than £50 and it's yours to keep if you switch agents.

twirlypinky

Yes, we've looked into all that. The agent we've gone with isn't actually any better or worse than the others, it's just that they're very new on the scene here, and this is a promotion thingy they've got for August.

The solicitor is one we've used for something else already, which is coincidental, we'd probably have gone to them first anyway! Apparently we do get to keep the EPC, we rang up and asked that after someone told us.

Apparently the £1,500 part is because our house is in their minimum bracket (less than £100k) and the EPC and solicitor fees thing is just the promotion. This deal only lasts for 12 weeks, after that we'll look about and see what deals other agents have (assuming of course we haven't sold in that time...)

Thanks for the advice, I'm going to look up some of their properties on rightmove today, see what sort of ads they have.

For us it really needed to be cheap, as we're losing on the house.

ognum

I think the key thing for me with an agent is not to put it with an office that has hundreds of houses to sell. You become a very small cog in their enormous wheel and particulaly if you have a low value home will be just another seller.
Finding someone who actually knows what is going on with you property is difficult and you never speak to the same person twice and they all give different answers. I have found this to my cost but at least I only signed for 8 weeks!

twirlypinky

I've just looked on their website and at the moment they've only got 25 properties, so i don't think we'll suffer with that. Hopefully we'll get a buyer soon so we can rent nearer to work and save more money

G_M

twirlypinky wrote: »

....Apparently we do get to keep the EPC, we rang up and asked that after someone told us.

.....

My point was not whether you keep it, but how much you pay for it. If you end your contract with the agency without selling (ie if they are cr*p) they will charge you. It's in the small print I guarantee! £100?£200?

twirlypinky

I don't think so, but i'll read it again when we get home. When i asked her if we get to keep it she said "yes it's yours". I'm fully under the impression that the deal with it being free is simply a promotion to get us to use them. It's the same as if we'd paid for it seperately. I realise that an impression isn't the same as fact, so i'll check it.

G_M

twirlypinky wrote: »

I don't think so, but i'll read it again when we get home. When i asked her if we get to keep it she said "yes it's yours". I'm fully under the impression that the deal with it being free is simply a promotion to get us to use them. It's the same as if we'd paid for it seperately. I realise that an impression isn't the same as fact, so i'll check it.

Yes, it's free as a promotion to get you to use them...... provided you use them!
If you leave and go to a new agent after X weeks/months without a single viewing, they will hit you with the small print fee.....