Getting Out of an Estate Agent Contract (or not)

harrys_dad

Where are you moving to? The only consideration is the "price to change", how much more you pay for the house you buy than you receive for the house you sell. Given your description above an offer of £259000 on your asking price of £270000 sounds pretty good to me. Couldn't you have made a reduced offer on what you were buying?

ReadingTim

It's a long contract, but I don't know why you think any other agent will be any better - they're all much of a muchness.

Put up a link to the property if you want people to critique it, but the main reasons places don't sell is because they're overpriced. I suspect the EA appealed to your ego and vanity by suggesting they could get an unrealistically high price for your place, suckering you into a 6 month sole agency contract. They'll probably want you to drop the price, but claim their fee as a percentage of the price originally listed, rather than actually sold....

Given you've been languishing on the market for a couple of months now, suggest you need to immediately drop £10k and hope for more interest, or if you're keen to go, drop £15k and hope a bidding war develops.

So really the question isn't about whether you should move estate agent. It's whether you really want to move house? If you do, you know what you need to do - drop the price. Your call.

penguingirl

How did other EAs value you? It sounds like 11k under was an OK offer, can you afford to accept it? It may just be that the potential buyer doesn't like negotiating, and would rather put in one sensible offer rather than start lower. Did they seem keen? Did you give a counter offer e.g. 263k?

Thrugelmir

GrumpySO&SO wrote: »

The asking price is 270k for an ex new build. The person who made the offer wasn't willing to budge an inch. It's not as if we're not willing to negotiate but that was his one and only offer.

If you didn't counter offer. Then the potential buyer probably thought it better to walk away. As far as the EA is concerned you've set your marker. Little point in sending prospective buyers round if they aren't going to spend £270k. Selling property is a compromise.

GrumpySO&SO

All right then... here goes. _pale_
rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-47374419.html

(Sorry, you'll have to copy and paste - as a newbie I can't post actual links)

We haven't exactly said £270 or nothing that'd be dumb. The person who made the offer basically wasn't going to go above what he was offering by a penny even though I suggested to the EA that we'd have considered 265. So he could come back and said 263 but there was nothing. Either we take it or leave it. Maybe in a few months we'd have considered it... once my patience truly wears thin.

We've contacted Connells (again) asking them (again) to make a few changes that we asked them to do 2 weeks ago but they didn't bother doing. I don't expect them to magic up viewings out of thin air, but at least actually respond to us or do what they said they were going to do in the first place. I mean if they aren't responding to us, what about the viewers?

I got to talking recently to people at work who seem to be in the same situation with the exact same branch of estate agent. They get locked into this contract (our of our own stupidity) and they do sweet F A.

Saying all this, some of the individual agents who have come around to show the house do seem nice enough. At least personable.

GrumpySO&SO

They valued us 5k more even going up to 280 which is daft as the 4 bedroom house a couple of doors up went for 290 I believe... or 287.

I think part of the problem is that - this is pretty much the nicest area in what is a crumbly area. And there were several other houses that I saw had gone up at the same time at a lower price or at the same price that at least at the face of it - look a bit bigger. And then the other new build estate which has just 2 more houses on offer are priced £275k which obviously they'd get help to buy with that. Although frankly - far as I'm concerned I'd have chosen ours over there's. Ours is slightly better positioned being south facing, not overlooking car parks and not too near the Tesco express. But then I guess that's a given seeing as we live here already!

steampowered

You need to read the small print in the T&Cs to understand what you have signed up to.

Even if the contract term is 26 weeks, you might still need to give Connells a formal termination notice to get out of the contract.

You also need to be aware that - if you sell to somebody who was introduced to you while the Connells contract was active - you'll be liable to pay the fee to Connells, even if the sale does not take place until after the 26 weeks are up. This could be in addition to the fee payable to your new estate agent if you aren't careful.

By the way, I love the cat walk!

Lespaul1960

I think you need to drop the offers in excess of,from the asking price. In my opinion it just puts people off. Well it does me anyway !!

AdrianC

Link - http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-47374419.html

Well, there's not much wrong with the details... The back garden would not hurt with being turfed - easy, cheap project for this weekend for you.

So, really, that can only mean one thing...
Let me put this here - http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-46547760.html
We don't know the area at all - why would you say your place is worth £30k+ more than that one?

Davesnave

Another one who'd drop OIEO sraight away. House presented fine. Garden needs love.

What's with the weird poles on the fences and the extra framing over the shed?

Do you sometimes cover the entire garden with a tarpaulin?