Haggling estate agents' fees 12 January 2015 at 7:20PM in House buying, renting & selling 15 replies 11.1K views

frankie

Hi

Has anyone managed to haggle down the percentage fees of estate agents. Or, managed any deals on fees such as high percentage for say 8 weeks then lower. Bonus for agent if buyer found within certain time frames?

LateStarter

I've managed to get the fees down from 1.5% to 1% - it helps if there are other agents around and you can say "Look I'd really like to go with you but X are offering a lower fee and I rate them as highly as I rate you. What can you do?".

Be polite. Be friendly. Be firm. And be willing to give in if you really want to go with a certain agent and they won't budge.

Best Wishes

eddddy

frankie wrote: »

Hi

Has anyone managed to haggle down the percentage fees of estate agents. Or, managed any deals on fees such as high percentage for say 8 weeks then lower. Bonus for agent if buyer found within certain time frames?

Yes, frequently.

I have also offered bonus fees for achieving a good price (within a time limit).

And go for a minimum contract period of no more than 6 to 8 weeks.



But... just something to think about... if the EA has lots of similar properties... you're paying the EA 1% but the other vendors are paying 1.5%... the EA may push the other properties harder than yours. Who knows???

Guest101

A good clause would be fees 1%, bonus of additional 0.5% is offer received with in 6 weeks, who goes on to buy the property.

[Deleted User]

We got our estate agent to use a tiered structure.. The more they sold the house for, the higher a percentage.

Of course you can haggle with estate agents! Everything in their contract is subject to negotiation

tea-bag

Do it yourself save £££

Hoof_Hearted

Online agent -- £500 all in.

mrsmazza

We haggled the fees down to 1%. Call the agents bluff, just say I really want to use you, but agent x down the road said they would do it for x, if you match it I will use you.

DRP

ringo_24601 wrote: »

We got our estate agent to use a tiered structure.. The more they sold the house for, the higher a percentage.

Of course you can haggle with estate agents! Everything in their contract is subject to negotiation

we did this:

1% for asking or over, down to about 0.8%.

penguingirl

We got a fixed fee which equated to 1% inc VAT. We get a 10% discount if sstc within 8 weeks

Prothet_of_Doom

My nephew is a senior negotiator in a big chain, and has always said "what's in it for the negotiator personally"


Lets say I want to sell my house both quickly and at a premium price, of say £200K.


I could easily sell it at £190K, and 1% on that is £1.9K, so I see £188.1K ?


What does the employee see personally of that £1.9K ? on top of his basic ? £190 ?


Right.


I'd suggest this : a 2% fee, if they achieve £195K, 0.5% if they achieve less, and if they achieve over £200K 2% plus a bonus of 50% of everything over £200K to go to the sales negotiator who achieved it.


So Sell it at £202K and the agency gets £4,040, but the sales person gets an extra £1000 personally.


So I see a smidge under £197K


I'd rather pay £5K and get £9 K more than if I only paid £2K


The other thing I think is that if they can't get a sale within 8 weeks, I should be free to walk away without paying a bean.


Anyway I suggested this to my nephew and he thinks I'm deluded.