Estate Agent work

freeisgood

googler wrote: »

Oh, my ... how droll. Such wit.

C'mon, seriously ... how would you pay, if not by %age of sale price?

Flat fee for all?
Flat fee graded according to value?
Hourly rate?

Discuss.

In a way that if the service was poor, you are not obliged to pay the high fee regardless. No point of the estate agent making an effort if they are guaranteed their chunk of money.

greatgimpo

':rotfl:Estate agent' and 'work' in the same sentence.:rotfl:

Surrey_EA

greatgimpo wrote: »

':rotfl:Estate agent' and 'work' in the same sentence.:rotfl:

The vast majority make the rest of us look bad!

NineDeuce

googler wrote: »

Oh, my ... how droll. Such wit.

C'mon, seriously ... how would you pay, if not by %age of sale price?

Flat fee for all?
Flat fee graded according to value?
Hourly rate?

Discuss.

Yeah, perhaps a flat fee which doesnt pretend that the agent spends 3 weeks worth of his/her time.

NineDeuce

I have heard on here that estate agent fees are inflated by 'timewasters' i.e. their derogatory term for people who pull out of a sale/purchase.

So you and I should pay for completely unrelated events? What a load of balls

Surrey_EA

NineDeuce wrote: »

I have heard on here that estate agent fees are inflated by 'timewasters' i.e. their derogatory term for people who pull out of a sale/purchase.

So you and I should pay for completely unrelated events? What a load of balls

That's the only way "no sale, no fee" can work. The ones who do sell subsidise the ones that don't end up moving for one reason or another.

Slithery

NineDeuce wrote: »

I have heard on here that estate agent fees are inflated by 'timewasters' i.e. their derogatory term for people who pull out of a sale/purchase.

So you and I should pay for completely unrelated events? What a load of balls

I've never had an accident in my car but my insurance premiums keep going up due to other peoples claims. Unfortunately that's just the way it works.

tom9980

I told my in laws to use a certain agent to sell their property and they have not let me down. The property is very nice but has complicated access issues, the agents ferried viewers in using their own 4x4's and found a buyer above the "offers over" inside 6 weeks of going on the market.

They have dealt with

Buyers solicitor
Vendors solicitor
Landowner 1 solicitor
Landowner 2 solicitor
Landowner 3 solicitor
Council planing department
Architect for new track

They deserve every penny of the 1.5% fee in my opinion. Not all agents are useless that's for sure.

googler

NineDeuce wrote: »

I have heard on here that estate agent fees are inflated by 'timewasters' i.e. their derogatory term for people who pull out of a sale/purchase.

So you and I should pay for completely unrelated events? What a load of balls

Whatever name you want to call them, it's beyond dispute that the EA spends way more time with people who do not buy their clients' homes than with those that do, and even less time with the person who pays them, the homeowning client.

Given that the buyers, viewers, enquirers and others absolutely will not pay the EA anything at all, then all of the time the EA spends with them MUST be paid for from what the seller pays them, since this is their only primary source of income.

How is someone who viewed a house, put an offer in, then withdrew from their purchase, "unconnected" to the sale ...?

JoJo1978

Our relationship with EAs is odd, right, because over time most of us experience liaising with them as a potential buyer and then formally appointing them when we want to sell. Some of the stick and bad press for their "skills" they get from a buyer perspective (fiercely optimistic, economical with truth, generating competition...) can actually be pretty useful if you're a vendor needing a sale.

Our first EA were lazy Londonite locals who'd got complacent when times were good but couldn't, it turns out, sell for toffee when the market cooled. So we never got to experience their facilitation skills because we sacked them when they failed to get us any offers.

But our second choice were amazing on the marketing and offer negotiating, helping us to change buyers early on due to lack of progress. The team were young, ambitious and full of ideas. They fell down a little on communication between themselves and with us, but after we raised our concerns, things got better. The sale took ages and our buyer was difficult, this is where they were worth every penny, right up to frantic phonecalls on completion day because buyers monies had not cleared by 4pm and I was stuck 120 miles away with irate removals outside a house I couldn't get the keys for! And our vendors' EA was equally heroic, providing a shoulder to cry on when I arrived in our new town in meltdown mode, minus DH sorting out key drop off in London.

We've really changed our perception of EAs given our recent experience. Yes, they made me scream and shout on occasion, but credit where it's due!