First time seller - advice please!

nollag2006

UsernameAlreadyExists wrote: »

They can also do the EPC certificate thingy at a cost of £99 + no vat.

Seems like an awful lot of wonga for selling a 190K house?

You can obtain your own EPC for a lot less than £120:
https://www.energyperformancecertificates.co.uk

Just go for the cheapest EPC you can. No one ever looks at them!

UsernameAlreadyExists

nollag2006 wrote: »

www.energyperformancecertificates.co.uk

Despite there being a MASSIVE clue in the url, I never even thought of that

The EA quoted £99 with NO vat ... and I've just ordered online with EPC as they quoted £46.80 ... so that's £50+ saved already :money: Cheers!

googler

nollag2006 wrote: »

You can obtain your own EPC for a lot less than £120:

But can you get one for less than £99? For £99 + no vat still equals £99 ....

googler

UsernameAlreadyExists wrote: »

Seems like an awful lot of wonga for selling a 190K house?

If you don't think a flat fee of £2000 to £2400 is reasonable, then tell us - what do you think IS a reasonable fee?

What are you willing to pay?

I make that a percantage of between 1.05% and 1.26%, which is way under the OFT's quoted E&W average of 1.60% .....

UsernameAlreadyExists

Are you an EA? You seem very defensive.

I think the role of EAs has changed dramatically over recent years.

I found the place I want to buy from being sat on my a4se and browsing the web. The EA will end up taking a considerable slice of a potential £300K sale from taking some pics, and uploading it to Rightmove.

I am compelled to deal with them because that's the way the system works. So far, they've not managed to arrange a viewing for me, but when they do, I will more than likely commit to an offer as I already know it's the place I want. Right area, right house, right price etc etc. They don't need to "sell" it to me, and I will be largely ignoring their comments & banter when I do finally get to have a wander round it. (As it happens I have a friend who lives on the same estate, about 100 yards away in the exact same, but "mirrored", house, so I already know what it's like).

So it could potentially be "go","see","buy" ... ~£3500 ... Kerching!!!
Granted they'll have had to shown others and handled numerous phone calls/enquiries etc.

Now when it comes to selling my own place. He's been here tonight and wandered round and agreed with my own pre-valuation describing it as "very realistic", and then says it should be advertised for £10K more. No !!!! sherlock!!!!! ... you mean add room for discount/offers? I'd never had thought it.

So they'll take some pics and upload the details to Rightmove. Hey presto .... "some" phonecalls, and viewings later ... it'll sell.

now for £2500 ... I would work 9am - 5:30pm, 5 days a week, for an entire month. In that time, I could answer quite alot of phone calls, take alot of people around a property. I'd take photos, measure rooms with a 12" inch ruler on my hands and knees, i'd produce the sales leaflets, I'd do pretty much anything required.

I think, ~£2.5K for the sale of one house is steep, very steep. Especially these days.

EDIT: and I am not going to even mention Stamp Duty.

googler

....but you still haven't said what you think is a reasonable fee for selling your £190k house; not a particular fee for your circumstance, mind - a reasonable fee for all instances of a £190k house for what the EA does, not for the shortlist of tasks that you've outlined.

And don't muddy the water by mentioning Stamp Duty, you know fine well that's a Taxation issue, and nothing to do with EA fees.

UsernameAlreadyExists

You're right, I shouldn't have mentioned Stamp Duty. That's naff all to do with EAs, but it's something which I am still seething about. "Outrageous" doesn't even come close.

In terms of what I think is reasonable ... good question. I'd consider selling it myself, but I, and my partner, work normal office hours so I can't really field phone calls,emails, and arrange viewings, but I could employ a person to do that for me, short term, and probably from the comfort of their own home - so very little in the way of premises overheads.

I think the value of the house itself is unrelated, it's the same amount of work. So a flat fee, rather than a percentage, should apply. Selling a £3M house is not worth 10 times more than a 300K house, which in turn isn't 10 times more than a 30K (err, can you even buy property for 30K these days?) ... you get my drift.

If I can sell the house with 2 weeks of elapsed "effort" (spread over a longer period), then perhaps £1K ? If it drags on and on, and on ... then maybe a little more?

EDIT, and you too didn't answer. what's your tie to EAs?

Contessa

Might be worth looking at using an online agency. There have been posts on here recommending it. Just what I've read here, not yet tried it myself, but I am considering it.

Better_Days

UsernameAlreadyExists wrote: »

If I can sell the house with 2 weeks of elapsed "effort" (spread over a longer period), then perhaps £1K ? If it drags on and on, and on ... then maybe a little more?

To be fair you need to bear in mind that getting an offer is in some ways the start of the process, and good sales progression is essential to moving things on. Even with hard work on all sides, it will most likely take months to get to completion.

I am paying my EA 1% and I think she has earnt every penny. She prepared excellent details, did all the viewings (I sat in on one and she 'sold' the house much better than I could have done - none of the 'this is the kitchen', 'this is the bathroom' rubbish, but actively promoting the good points of the property and its flexibility)

She has done a great deal of work on the sales progression front, there are six below us in the chain, so there is a lot to keep an eye on. She has updated me at least once a week and always returned my calls. Yesterday she told me that exchange is going to be delayed until after Christmas and then offered to contact the LA I have been dealing with to see if they will hold the let we are interested in until exchange.

BUT, I doubt that there are many other EA's in this area who would have worked so hard. They would have charged at least the same, and in the case of the corporates, more. It really is 'buyer beware' when it comes to EA's. They send out their slick sales people to reel you in, but when it comes to selling your biggest asset you may well find yourself dealing with inexperienced staff who don't have a clue.

One way to choose and EA is to do some viewings of suitable properties and see how they treat you. Do they know a lot about the property, do they emphasise the properties good points, do they waste everyone's time by trying to get you to look a properties that don't fit your criteria, do they follow up after viewings etc. Look at the 'most reduced' tab on Zoopla - do they value high to get business and then advise the vendor to reduce when there is no interest. Are they unprofessional and are critical other EA's in the area?

EA's do not have a good reputation - and in many cases there is a good reason for this. Do your research, it really is worth it. House buying/selling is incredibly stressful, a good EA will earn their money by making it all that bit easier for you, and then it is worth 1% (but not much more in my view )

ash28

UsernameAlreadyExists wrote: »

You're right, I shouldn't have mentioned Stamp Duty. That's naff all to do with EAs, but it's something which I am still seething about. "Outrageous" doesn't even come close.

In terms of what I think is reasonable ... good question. I'd consider selling it myself, but I, and my partner, work normal office hours so I can't really field phone calls,emails, and arrange viewings, but I could employ a person to do that for me, short term, and probably from the comfort of their own home - so very little in the way of premises overheads.

I think the value of the house itself is unrelated, it's the same amount of work. So a flat fee, rather than a percentage, should apply. Selling a £3M house is not worth 10 times more than a 300K house, which in turn isn't 10 times more than a 30K (err, can you even buy property for 30K these days?) ... you get my drift.

If I can sell the house with 2 weeks of elapsed "effort" (spread over a longer period), then perhaps £1K ? If it drags on and on, and on ... then maybe a little more?

EDIT, and you too didn't answer. what's your tie to EAs?

Doubtless we could have sold our own house...we lived in an area where properties were selling...we sold last year.

We used an estate agent and they were excellent - I know EAs get a lot of bad press and it's often deserved, but ours were brilliant. They did all the viewings and because they were local they knew the area, the schools etc as well as I did. There was very little they couldn't answer.

If I had had to deal with our buyers on an almost daily basis I would probably have told them to !!!!!! off. They were nightmares. I think selling the house was the easy part - it was what they did afterwards that was excellent - IMHO.

They held our buyers hands (and their buyers) every step of the way, fielded almost daily phone calls from them both for about the last 6 weeks. Kept our buyers straight on what we could be asked to pay for - they wanted us to pay for gas safety certificate and electrical survey - the EA dealt with that. We agreed to pay for the gas safety certificate for them.

They didn't do EPCs themselves but were able to put us in touch with someone who charged £60 including vat. When we agreed to pay for the gas safety certificate for our buyers we were able to use the guy who looked after their rentals and he serviced a gas fire, a gas boiler and an oven and hob and issued the certificate for £80.

They negotiated the completion date between everyone - we couldn't agree and the solicitors in that aspect were useless.

They dealt with our buyers buyers when our buyers mortgage had to go back to the underwriters because of an undisclosed very large gifted deposit. Their buyers went into full panic mode, convinced the mortgage wouldn't be reapproved and the whole chain would collapse.

I think the easy part was selling the house - it sold within 3 weeks - it was what they did afterwards that made their 1% fee worth it. Without them the sale probably wouldn't have gone through.

And, no I have no personal interest in estate agents - but we had a good one.