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

Good_Money

When i picked an estate agent, the one that was best seemed to be the smaller independent who knew the area well.

They also gave a more realistic valuation and were the cheapest at 1% with an 8 week tie in.

2 others wanted 1.5% and 1.6%.

DRP

We are paying 1% for a sale at asking price (230k), with the fee reducing if the house goes at less than that (minimum 1.88% ). 6 week contract.

We were quoted 1% by 3 EAs but said we'd go with ours if they could beat the competition.

amcq1

An online agent or 'intermediary' can help keep the costs of selling down.

Buying / selling a house through intermediaries can be likened to booking your holiday over the internet, and not with a travel agent. You should know that you are not getting the same service, but that it can lead to money savings as you are not paying the agents fees.


In the US 20% to 30% of house sales are made without agents, whereas the figure is as low as 2% to 3% in the UK.

I think it is ultimately down to whether or not you are prepared to do some of the leg work yourself, as both routes have pros and cons.

Good luck with the house sale which ever route you choose!

googler

amcq1 wrote: »

In the US 20% to 30% of house sales are made without agents, whereas the figure is as low as 2% to 3% in the UK.

What's the source of the 20-30% figure?

googler

I gather Sarah Beeny has quoted the 20 - 30% figure in recent days....

Here's another set of figures

Assuming these to be correct, the number of sales by owner were 13% in 2008, 11% in 2009. So Beeny reckons they've doubled or trebled between 2009 and 2012, when they went down by 2% between 2008 and 2009...?

Doesn't that seem a touch... unlikely?

MarkBargain

terryya wrote: »

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.

Thanks, that's an interesting list. I see that House Network have the most properties, which is perhaps a good sign, although they are £200+VAT more expensive than Emoov who also have quite a few houses. Can anyone else comment on any personal experiences with these sort of companies?

I think if I'd be happy if I could get a good local agent for 1%, but I'm not sure if that's possible on a £100K house as they'd only get £1K. Still, it doesn't hurt to ask and get some quotes.

cazziej

Chopsie&Chelvis wrote: »

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.

Me too, we have just had our house valued at £100k to £110k and I was expecting to pay around 1.5%, but one of the quotes was £2500 + V.A.T!! We are in Salford too. Ended up going with Housenetwork we have gone "live" last night. So far so good. Had a web chat with them Friday, paid my deposit on Friday at 5.30pm, photographer came round yesterday to take the photos (really pleased with them) and got an email last night about 8.30 pm to say they were waiting for me to hit the approve button. By 9 o'clock last night we were live, and we appeared on Rightmove today. Now fingers crossed we get some viewers!!

googler

Eton_Rifle wrote: »

In the area of the US with which I am familar, agents charge 5-10% for a house sale.

Given that the average price must be about $1m that seems like a powerful incentive to sell your own home yourself.

..and do you have any thoughts on why they don't?

BritAbroad

Eton_Rifle wrote: »

I have no in depth knowledge and can only speculate on this one US state but I suspect one major factor is because it is extraordinarily difficult to advertise your property to a wide audience.

The big property portal listings are jealously guarded by local groups representing the estate agents (the "princesses" as they are known locally) and so your house wouldn't get a listing.

Additionally, in my town, 'For Sale' signs are not even allowed, whether by agent or owner, so these MLS listings are really the buyer's only property information source. I do see the rare handmade sign alongside regular agent signs in other towns but have no idea how widespread are these different rules.

In addition, when a person seeks a house to buy, he engages an estate agent who acts for him and performs searches and initial viewings on his behalf ... and that's not going to include private listing because there will be no commission.

So my impression is that unless the buyer happens to stumble on one of these 'For Sale by Owner' properties, it would require a much deeper search to find them.

There may be other factors, I haven't looked into it. However, the fact that sellers are even prepared to give serious six figure sums to estate agents speaks volumes to me!

Agree with this. In my state there's another reason why people sell without an agent - the 6% commission - 3% to the selling agent and 3% to the buying agent, so if you can do away with at least one of them it's a substantial saving. Here the buyer pays nothing except the mortgage costs - the seller has to pay everything else, and even then it's common to negotiate for the seller to pay some of the mortgage costs. Going it alone is not for the faint-hearted though, as the agents actually deal with the legal side as well.