Evaluating your estate agent

bigfreddiel

Did you evaluate your estate agent before selecting one?

Or did you just ask a few questions, try to negotiate a better deal and then signupand go for it?

Well I plan to give the agents in my town a short questionnaire and here are a few questions:

1. How many properties have you sold in the last 1/3/6/12 months - total numbers and as a percentage of those on your books?

2. Break down of the above by price bands.

3. Actual sold price compared to agents recommended price when first on market.

4. Average time to sold status by price bands

5. Unsold and withdrawn properties by time on market 1/3/6/12 months

Anything else to ask?

Cheers

fj

cycloneuk

Is this a wind up? i guarantee no estate agent will provide you with such sensitive information like that and will probably think your a rival or something.

david29dpo

Plus even if they did, they would lie anyway.

alta

You sound like another agent asking for competition details, no rebuttal agent would give you any info from that list.

Better_Days

You can do some of this yourself by making up a spreadsheet and reviewing RM listings in your area. EA's often keep properties on RM quite a while after sale so include SSTC in your RM search. Use property bee so you can see how long the properties took to sell.

Also have a look at http://www.home.co.uk/
Click on the EA tab, put in your postcode and it will produce a list of EA's in your area.
Or go to this link http://www.home.co.uk/search/agents/ and choose your county then your town. The site then lists all the EA's with a note of median time on the market, number of properties marketed etc. Can be a useful starting point.

You are right to put effort into choosing an EA. However, they often send out their slick sales people to sign up vendors, but the staff actually selling the properties are no where near as professional. Ignore all the gimicks. Don't sign up for a long period. Make sure you have at least one local independent round - I found they gave a better service, were not so expensive (after all the gimmicks that the corporates flog have to be paid for) and didn't demand such long tie ins.

Get a shortlist and then view a property that you like through the EA. Then see if you would like them to sell your house.

Don't forget the importance of negotiating a price and sales progression.

GL

Tenyearstogo

I went it all my local estate agents pretending I wanted to buy a property like the one I had to sell.

How they treated me as the potential buyer gave me an idea how they'd treat my viewers when I was the vendor.

I immediately ruled out 50% of local EA's before any of them came to quote me.

Dan-Dan

bigfreddiel wrote: »

Did you evaluate your estate agent before selecting one?

Or did you just ask a few questions, try to negotiate a better deal and then signupand go for it?

Well I plan to give the agents in my town a short questionnaire and here are a few questions:

1. How many properties have you sold in the last 1/3/6/12 months - total numbers and as a percentage of those on your books?

2. Break down of the above by price bands.

3. Actual sold price compared to agents recommended price when first on market.

4. Average time to sold status by price bands

5. Unsold and withdrawn properties by time on market 1/3/6/12 months

Anything else to ask?

Cheers

fj

I think you`ll be whistling in the wind with those questions , probably , if i was you , i would ask round 3 local firms

They would each bring round their info pack , and then do the sell on you..

One stat some are keen on , is the independent survey thats carried out saying which company has the most amount of sale (SOLD) boards in any given period , so thats a good selling point

Also , word of mouth , and then check the quality of there website , check their listings on Right Move , Zoopla , do they encompass where you see your property sitting , bear in mind ,there are estate agents who aim for the prestige market , and hence have that reputation with the general public , then there are those that specilaise in the bog standard family home etc

Then theres the fee , anything 1% or below....is good , 12/16 week sole agency terms seems to be the norm , round here at least

For us , we negotiated a set fee , however much the house sells for , not sufre if thats the norm , but they know we want another property also vendoring with them , so they are hoping for 2 (or more ) sales in one go...

vectistim

Dan-Dan wrote: »

One stat some are keen on , is the independent survey thats carried out saying which company has the most amount of sale (SOLD) boards in any given period , so thats a good selling point

I'm not sure this is the most reliable statistic. The corporate agents will put up a for sale board by default, and I've come across vendors who didn't want one, but weren't strong enough to tell the agent so.

The sold board data is even more dubious. Some agents will put up sold as soon as an offer is agreed, so they will have a sold sign on a house for about three months[1]. Some will actually do it properly and not put up sold until exchange and so may only have the sold bit up for a couple of weeks.

[1] I remember one example I would drive past regularly - there were lease problems with this property and over the course of a year or more the agent kept putting up sold slips everytime an offer was agreed and then a couple of months later when the buyer pulled out it would go back to sold and then the cycle would repeat. So to the casual observer it looks like that agent was doing well, but a bit of back story and it becomes a bit embarrassing keep shoving up sold slips and then having to take them down again.

bigfreddiel

thanks everyone, I'm not an agent and this isn't a windup

some very useful feedback and comments

the reason i posted was when we seell our largest asset it seems wee just pick a local agent that we feel 'looks' good - why isn't there some independent rating system or feedback like tripadvisor

well there are a few sites that 'ratemyagent' but not many or widely usd.

so i thought why not ask them a few questions - where i live they know i'm not an agent so unless they have something to hide i think the questions are okay

and anyway with timeand patience you could piece together all the sales and sold prices from sites like zoopla which is what I aim to do before approaching an agent in future

in fact why noy make appointments for all your local agents to visit at the same time = they won't know that, but let themall tender for your business in front of each other - maybe a step too far and you'll probably alienate them all for a future sale! From the agents point of view losing one customer won't harm their business.

but food for thought - i'm still going to ask the questions.

cheers

fj

DRP

bigfreddiel wrote: »

thanks everyone, I'm not an agent and this isn't a windup

some very useful feedback and comments

the reason i posted was when we seell our largest asset it seems wee just pick a local agent that we feel 'looks' good - why isn't there some independent rating system or feedback like tripadvisor

well there are a few sites that 'ratemyagent' but not many or widely usd.

so i thought why not ask them a few questions - where i live they know i'm not an agent so unless they have something to hide i think the questions are okay

and anyway with timeand patience you could piece together all the sales and sold prices from sites like zoopla which is what I aim to do before approaching an agent in future

in fact why noy make appointments for all your local agents to visit at the same time = they won't know that, but let themall tender for your business in front of each other - maybe a step too far and you'll probably alienate them all for a future sale! From the agents point of view losing one customer won't harm their business.

but food for thought - i'm still going to ask the questions.

cheers

fj

YEs go for it - it would be interesting to know how you get on!

Definitely view some properties with several agents prior to signing up, in order to evaluate their selling techniques.

I think if you already live in the area you will have an idea for the EAs there. Also EA should bring stats with them when they value your property and also should bring examples of for sale/sold properties recently on their books - and how they sold for. Our EA did this without prompting as part of their spiel.

I think the biggest bargaining chip you have is to negotiate a contract of 6 weeks or less - thereby ensuring you can move on quickly if they end up being crap.