estate agents are conmen

Davesnave

I misread the title as, "Estate Agents Are Common" and thought, 'The last one I dealt with had no chin, spoke with a plum in his mouth and seemed very ex-public school.'

Mind you, he could barely write, his cheque on the client account bounced and the 'girls' in his front office ran the whole outfit.

I expect he's the only one still looking for a job, now they're no more.

One benefit of the recession.

ruggedtoast

Good grief. This thread needs a Rightmove link. And how!

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jimpix12

C_Mababejive wrote: »

The thing is, a few dodgy photos ,an entry on right move and a sale board costs the same whether the property is a bedsit and is worth 25k or it is a detached worth 500k so why the difference?
EAs generally just mug off punters ,smile in their faces and stab them in the back back at the office.

Its a bit like LIBOR rate riggers. If they havent offloaded your house quickly,they have made no money so they con you into lowering the price or the old sealed bids con.

Now now, let's not tarnish them all with that brush. Your post only applies to 75% of them, to be fair.

jimpix12

ellie27 wrote: »

1.5% is a lot! You will be paying for the EPC/photos/brochures in that 1.5%

Of course. I might try to negotiate them down but they've all said, when simply asked about their fees, that they are non negotiable...

red_imps_2003

I am also surprised to learn that estate agents don't typically charge a fee up-front. We sold recently with a large national firm (branches all over the UK) and they charged us £300 up front, which I presumed at the time was what it cost them to list on Rightmove. They also charge 2% of the sale price, which I learned some time ago is expensive and have been kicking myself ever since. Also their photographs weren't particularly good compared to others I've seen since.

Had it been down to me I would have consulted a number of EAs before committing to anything but my wife had arranged an appointment with this one to get an idea of what we should set the asking price at and the next thing I know I get a text that afternoon to say we've signed with them and paid the £300 fee up-front. Having already paid the fee (which I didn't realise at the time was unusual) I felt compelled to stay with them rather than fork out (as I thought I would have to) a similar amount to go with an alternative.

Incidentally, our place was on the market for fifteen months before anybody offered anything like what we needed, during which time I think we got all of (I think) eight viewings. Thankfully, there was no particular urgency to sell; we couldn't afford to drop the price any further.

C_Mababejive

The last EA i dealt with when they published on rightmove had some dire photos. I took my own which were far better and they refused to substitute their dross for my better pics. I ditched them.

Daerve

We're selling with an online EA who is charging £600, £300 up front and £300 on completion plus £60 for an EPC.

We had a few High Street EA's round who all valued our house at around 95k, the cheapest was a 2k fee and the most expensive a laughable £3600 plus they wanted £180 for an EPC.

While I'm not convinced the online EA is as pro-active as I'd like their local rep has been very good and we're sold after 2 months.

A local agent certainly isn't worth £1400 more and definitely not over 3k more.

One viewer even commented on how good the photos were.

dancingfairy

I think I would have a look around firstly to see what else is on the market at the moment and what sort of prices they are on at. I'd then have a look to see what had sold (I believe you can look this up online somewhere ) to see what is actually selling and for how much.
Then you need to objectively look at your house and see whether it is likely to sell for the amount you want or need.
You can try and persevere and put boundaries in place for the agents - ie you should be doing the viewings etc or you can take it off the market, regroup, maybe do a bit of painting/decluttering and try again sometime.
House selling is horribly stressful and there seems to be some that will try it on to rip you off
df