Your experiences (good & bad) with estate agents

Polly

Have just had 3 widely varying valuations for my house. If anything, I'd prefer to go with the quiet, serious and obviously knowledgeable older man's company who gave the lowest valuation but their fee is set on getting the asking price and I can't see how there's any incentive for them to get me a higher offer. The others may not have the same experience etc but have valued my house at 25% higher and who knows, may find me a buyer at this price. Any advice in my dilemma?

A_Nice_Englishman

Polly wrote: »

Have just had 3 widely varying valuations for my house. If anything, I'd prefer to go with the quiet, serious and obviously knowledgeable older man's company who gave the lowest valuation but their fee is set on getting the asking price and I can't see how there's any incentive for them to get me a higher offer. The others may not have the same experience etc but have valued my house at 25% higher and who knows, may find me a buyer at this price. Any advice in my dilemma?

Place it with the estate agent you like with an asking price based on the higner valuation. It's the seller who decides the asking price and (effectively) the buyer who decides the selling price.

I don't quite understand what you mean by "their fee is set on getting the asking price", by the way.

Polly

Thanks for the reply. As regards the fee, he explained that their fee is set at 1% of the suggested valuation price (in this case £250,000) which makes a fee of £2500 plus VAT. In the event of the house selling for a higher price, their fee remains the same therefore very little incentive for them to work hard to increase the selling price. I discussed this with him and he maintained that they would work to get the best price possible but I know others who have sold with this company and am aware that once they have reached this (relatively low) asking price, they pressurise the seller to accept.

Libra1975

Back to the advice, if you have had an offer on a house already tell the people looking around before they get excited and spend all night discussing what they could do.

coal9011

What a cheeky "!#!*#!"*! Estate Agent pricing his commission in such a way.
Don't get any ideas lauralla! :eek:

A_Nice_Englishman

Polly wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. As regards the fee, he explained that their fee is set at 1% of the suggested valuation price (in this case £250,000) which makes a fee of £2500 plus VAT. In the event of the house selling for a higher price, their fee remains the same therefore very little incentive for them to work hard to increase the selling price. I discussed this with him and he maintained that they would work to get the best price possible but I know others who have sold with this company and am aware that once they have reached this (relatively low) asking price, they pressurise the seller to accept.

But if you believe the property is worth more, and that turns out to be the case , you're the winner as you'll pay less fees than you would if he wanted a straight 1%.

jay7_2

lauralla wrote: »

I'd greatly appreciate your advice/comments/good and bad experiences about estate agents.

Here's where people review estate agents: www.allagents.co.uk
You might find some thoughts there.

Polly

Yes, its true that I'll only pay the fixed fee but my concern is that once the agent gets the asking price, he loses interest in marketing my property and I may lose out on a potentially greater selling price. My next property is on the market at £325k so I need to get much more than the £250k if I'm going to afford to move.

Gill3_2

When my house was on the market 3 years ago the estate agent said that my house was too old and needed updating and kept trying to get me to sell to a local property developer. Meanwhile he kept sending totally unsuitable viewers round to look at it (they wanted a garage, more bedrooms etc). We were suspicious so my partner phoned to ask to see houses exactly matching mine - and didn't get offered a viewing! I complained, the estate agent denied it, and I rapidly switched agents. I sold it a couple of weeks later for £10,000 more than the first agent said I'd get. I now tell everyone I know not to use the first agents as they can't be trusted.

coal9011

Typical "con artist" greedy estate agent. I bet there was £4K/£5K on offer to the EA from the developer if the sale was for £10,000 less then the true market value!