Estate agents' fees for selling a house - how much is fair?

Lewis447

The first thing an Estate Agent will do is to suggest an asking price. Do not take their suggestion at face value but get your own idea of how much your property is worth. Factors that play a role when setting the asking price are the time frame in which you want to sell your house and the strength of the property market.

Chopsie&Chelvis

My house has been valued at £110k - £115k, and all the agents want a fixed fee as apparently they only do % deals if your house is over £200k. The fees vary between £1950 and £2900 + VAT! This is in the Salford/Bolton area. I was a bit taken aback, as I was expecting to pay maybe £1500 or so ... the online agents are tempting, but I'm just unsure about how successful they are.

Mickygg

When I next sell I'll want to do an on line agent. I didn't this time as I don't like my current place and it would have had some hard questions I didn't want to answer.I think if a house will sell itself, use on line agent as long as you don't mind doing viewings. Otherwise you are paying thousands just for an estate agent to put the house on right move and do a few viewings.

MarkBargain

I think I'd like to do the viewings myself anyway, as there are lots of things I can point out that an agent might miss (new roof, recent work done, new-ish boiler, new shower, things I could leave such as a fridge freezer, plus I could talk about the benefits of the location etc.). When viewing I found some agents were good, but others just said very little and pointed out the obvious like "This is the kitchen".

pinkshoes

I paid 0.75% in the South East, BUT... I offered them 25% of anything over amount X. They did their best, but were perhaps over confident and sold for just under X!

Hoof_Hearted

There is loads of stuff about online agents on this forum. We used HouseNetwork but there are others that may be just as good. Googler and other regular agents on here regularly knock them, but it is the biggest single way to save money when selling your property.

googler

Hoof_Hearted wrote: »

Googler and other regular agents on here regularly knock them, but it is the biggest single way to save money when selling your property.

No, I merely point out that an online agent does but one part of what an agent should do - the online bit, and perhaps a phone call or two.

They don't do any networking with other agents, local businesses or other property professionals, they don't cross-promote their own or other agents' properties, they don't have a presence in your town, village or city, they don't do any physical advertising, etc etc etc.

You call this 'knocking', I call it commenting, observing and drawing comparisons.

Whilst you take issue with me and others passing general comment on the industry as a whole, you repeatedly come along with single-minded promotion of one firm, and one firm only. I'm not the only one to have commented that you're on the cusp of spamming them.

Hoof_Hearted

googler wrote: »

No, I merely point out that an online agent does but one part of what an agent should do - the online bit, and perhaps a phone call or two.

Plus valuing, photographs, plans, description, measurements, getting feedback, booking viewings, advice, etc.


...you repeatedly come along with single-minded promotion of one firm, and one firm only. I'm not the only one to have commented that you're on the cusp of spamming them.

I have never promoted one firm. I happened to use HouseNetwork and was happy with them, saving a lot of money along the way. Other online firms may be better for all I know. The fact remains that MoneySavers can potentially save a lot of money by using an online agent.

There is a lot of difference between being a spammer and a satisfied customer. I have posted across the forum in a variety of categories but I do have strong feelings about the way house sellers are treated by a minority of greedy agents who put their own interests first. I don't think you are one of these, Googler, and you often give good advice.

googler

Hoof_Hearted wrote: »

I have never promoted one firm. I happened to use ......

You've never 'promoted them', but you've mentioned ...... by name twice in this thread, and roughly 3 or 4 times in other replies over the last couple of months or so......

As I said, other posters have also commented on the frequency of your name-dropping.

terryya

When I was trying to choose an online agent I had a look at this site which lists most of them and includes their fees and how many houses they have.

I then went on rightmove and checked out some of their actual adverts to see how good they were. In my opinion some of them were very poor so I crossed them of the list and went with the one I thought combined good value for money with good listings.