Property Finding Fee

hazyjo

Here you are - found it. Very similar. Responses will be the same.


https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5478747


Jx

DaftyDuck

About ten years ago I was "lucky" enough to receive a house-finding service as part of a rather good company relocation deal. Part of their service was a two-day (:eek:) tour with one of their estate agents (:eek::eek:) to view all the houses they'd found for me. Since I'd already easily found the house I wanted, and got an offer accepted, I wasn't that interested, but thought I'd use them for a morning to see what else the could find. ... ....

Which was far less than I'd already found, from using Rightmove, contacting all the agents (likely to sell the kind of property I was interested in), and reading the local rag. When they were extolling how wonderful house X was, I kept having to ask why they hadn't suggested house Y, just round the corner, bigger, cheaper, nicer view...

Final straw was when they parked outside the house that was soon to be mine anyway, suggesting that with their skills they might be able to get the owner to accept a price of such-and-such, which was £20,000 more than I'd already had my offer accepted at.

It was a morning well-spent, in that it confirmed I had got the best house, at a stonking price. Well, at least it allowed me to be convinced It did confirm my view of estate agents!

Of course, the main benefit of this "service" is to the agencies. Aside from their fee that they quickly pocket from the buyer, they are likely to be linked into an agency, and they'll save on advertising and marketing fees - and likely convince many a buyer to buy at a higher price.

theGrinch

They ask for a fee to guarantee you are not a time waster. I think its common practice if you google the major players in this area.

Equally, how do you know they are not timewasters once you paid over?

silvercar

The only time this would be useful would be if you were in a particularly niche market, a heavy seller's market or at the absolute top end of the market.

Otherwise. Rightmove, zoopla and phoning local agents will be just as good.

jorpati

eddddy wrote: »

Hmmm... I guess you need to ask them exactly what they do for the money.

Is it an upfront fee, or paid on completion? I suspect it's either immoral or a waste of money.

For example, if it's paid on completion, it may be that...

- They call you first when a new property comes on their books
- They push your offer harder because they get £1.5k extra if your offer is accepted.
.... e.g. The other guy offers £200k without a £1.5k finders fee, you offer £190k with a £1.5k finders fee - so the EA pushes your offer harder.

i.e. they are not acting in the seller's best interests. (But maybe you're OK with that.)

Thank you everyone for their replies, lots of interesting views.

EA told me I will have to pay him after the completion. But he hinted me if I use the service by signing an agreement, they could help me secure the property I was viewing even for bit lower offer as they wanted to sell the house ASAP. I found this bit dodgy because I found the property and they want to charge me Property Finding Fee to secure my offer...

My after thought was similar that EA would put forward my lower offer to vendor as the best offer... which is good for me but not good for the vendor and didnt sound ethically right to me so wanted to check with if people had used similar service.

It seems like EA are trying to make money from both SELLERS but from BUYERS..

Personally I wouldn't pay £1500 just for them to find the property. Like lot of you suggested we have zoopla and rightmove for that which makes thing lot easier. But in this case EA wanted me to sign up for the service retrospecitvely and they will put forward my lower offer.....

I live in London so there are plenty of EAs. This particular one was one I have never heard of before but they do seem to have few offices.

Freecall, I like the value of the property you shared but it bit too squarish for me and thank you.

kinger101

I think what has probably happened is when you were blind drunk at the pub last night, one of your friends wrote "idiot" on your forehead in permanent marker.

In your rush out to meet the estate agent this morning, you didn't notice what they'd done.