House Selling - Money Saving Tips

losgiganteskid

Why are the Halifax trying to negotiate a "flee" ?

I've just put my house on the market (yesterday) - last week got 5 Agents round not only to value, but I wanted to sound them out, see how professional they were etc. I took some note from what each had to say, then chose my preferred agent and asked them to accomodate me with all the best points from the other agents, ie, reduced comm's, no advertising or withdrawal fees etc

The commissions with the agents ranged from 3/4 of one % up in various bands to 2% - my chosen agent wanted more than 3/4% initially but when I explained that was the basis upon which I wished to proceed she said OK.

House "For Sale" sign went up yesterday, and today i've had my first viewing - i've also gone on 4 internet sites privately and the agent subscribes to rightmove.co.uk and propertyfinder.com - so as to maximise and saturate as far as I can :hello:

Consa

http://forum.globalhousepricecrash.com

https://www.housepricecrash.co.uk

check these out!!

losgiganteskid

Why do I need to check them out ??

ahll

Hi losgiganteskid,
You said "House "For Sale" sign went up yesterday, and today i've had my first viewing - i've also gone on 4 internet sites privately ". I was thinking of doing this as I believe you can use an Estate Agents and sell yourself on the internet. Which site did you use to try and sell your house and what responses have you had ?

gazman_2

Thanks Marcus - I`ve also found a great site for conveyancing, for buyers, sellers or re-mortgagers.

Checkout - Really cheap !!!

Gazman

Marcus wrote:

Greetings all. I’ve been using this site for a while now and have managed to save us a small fortune. Years ago I was an estate agent so I thought I’d see is I could write some bits and bobs in relation to my experiences in the hope that it might save people some cash.

Selling Your House

Methods to Save Money

1) Agents Fees
a. All Estate Agent Fees are negotiable. First, check through the local property paper. See which agents get the most business. Are any members of the NAEA. Busy agents who are members of the NAEA would be my first choices. Select the best 3 or 4 agents and phone them up as potential buyers. See what service you get over a week or so as a buyer - that way you’ll get an idea of how they will market and present your property. A good proactive, busy and well managed agent will still have time and resources to post/email you details and phone you with new properties.

Then get them all to Value your property. Tell each valuer that you have other valuations (BUT NEVER TELL THEM WHAT VALUATIONS OTHER AGENTS HAVE GIVEN YOU - AS THEY’LL MANIPULATE THEIR OWN VALUATIONS) and that you are looking for a fee of 1% with no lock-ins. Most agents will try to lock you in - so that if you instruct them to take your property off the market you will not contractually be able to re-market with another agent for up to 8 weeks (especially with corporates). Make sure you get this down to 1 week after written notice. If you are locked in and you then sell your property through another agent you will get sued for the fees.

Agents are sales persons - they will give you great reasons to lock you in and charge you more... but they also need your business - thus you have the power to ask for and get these things.



b. Once your property is up for sale keep an eye on your agent - mystery shop them ie call them up, give a false name etc. and tell them you are looking for a property that matches your own property’s description - see if they push for you to view your property - are they positive and energetic?

The Duel/Multi-Agency myth.
If you become unhappy with your agent’s efforts it may be time to sack them or go multi agency. Tell an agent that you wish more than one agent to market your property and they’ll try and push up the fees to staggering amounts (2.5%+!!).
Tactics - tell your current agent that you wish for other agents to market your property. Tell them that you’ll keep them as an agent only if they will keep your fees at 1%. If they will not, then sack them (you should only be locked in for a week). I’ve never known an agent not to back down in this situation - they’d lose potential business if they let you go.
Now go to some other agents - probably the other agents on your original list - and tell them that “my agent has agreed to let me go multi-agency and my current fees are 1% - would you like to also market my property at 1% multi-agency?” You can guess what the answer will be...

A 1 % saving on the average cost of a property in the UK (currently £150000) will save you £1500 before VAT.

Duel Agency means you’re marketing with 2 agents - multi agency means you’re with more than two. Agents will try and charge you more for either of these - especially in the case of multi.



2) Solicitor Fees
During you initial enquiries with estate agents, ask them for several recommendations each of good conveyancers or solicitors. You don’t just want the name of the firm, but also the name of the specific solicitor/conveyancer. Remember, some agents will have ‘arrangements’ with some solicitors and some will even have their own - so be warned. A good rule of thumb would be to approach solicitors (by name) who have been recommended by different agents - although some solicitors will have arrangements with more than one agent.

Phone the best solicitors and ask for written confirmation of their charges. Take note of how they treat you - do they speak in plain English, are they friendly and do you get their details as promised the next day. And once again - their fees are negotiable - there’s no reason not to ask your favourite contender to shave £xxx off of their fees if you have evidence of more competitive quotes from other solicitors... they may say “no chance” - in which case you need to make a decision as to whether or not the extra charges are really worth it.

A solicitor can make or break deals for you so shop around. It’s very hard to change solicitors once they start the conveyancing process for you... and it will cost you!

And finally - avoid fee busting corporate conveyancing firms - they will most likely slow down the conveyancing process - these are normally call centre and internet based firms. They can save you as much as £500... but as stingy as I am I would never use them.



I hope this is of use to you and I hope that my info is still correct.
I’ll see if I can write something for buyers when dealing with agents and the like.

Regards
Marcus

** Boardguide note: Link removed **

losgiganteskid

I used the Little House Company and i've had an enquiry through them as well - so far so good, total of 4 viewings to date, For Sale sign only been up 5 days !!

suzyq

My house is for sale on the property market through an estate agent.
I told a friend of mine whom runs a housing association that it was for sale, he wants to buy it, we have negotiated a price privately.
Do I still have to sell it through the estate agent or is there a way aroung this?

intraaction

Thanks for kind information

intraaction

thank you my friend
for this post
i got some usefull info

JennyB

Just wanted to add my thanks to the original poster. We've just sold our house (in a week!) through an agent for 1%. The 1% was achieved totally due to this post as I normally wouldn't have questionned the agent's original fees which in our case were 1.5%. So we've saved £700 thanks to this post. Thank you!! :j