Estate Agents Vs Online Purple Bricks Type

Becks12

My property is on the market with House Network. It cost about £1350 for the premium package which is premium listing on rightmove, EPC, board outside the flat, all viewings handled by them. I'm in London so all of the online ones were charging a bit more.
I liked them better than any of the other agents which came round. Half of the agents never even bothered to call me back when I was trying to get valuations! One (FJ Lord) booked a valuation then forgot to turn up. When I chased them they turned up an hour later but had high charges and wanted to lock me into a 20 week contract. I looked at Purple Bricks too but some of the reviews online were a bit questionable whilst these guys had mainly good ones.
I've only been on the market two weeks so can't comment on much else but so far I'm happy with House Network. I get stats through from them every week about how many people have been looking at the ad, then getting in contact with them and I get a weekly call with my negotiator. Hopefully they have something to negotiate soon!
On the other hand, I have been viewing other properties and have registered interest with all the local agencies. None of them have ever bothered to follow up after a viewing for feedback (whilst HouseNetwork has called all of my viewers for feedback and passed it on) and none do anymore than send me an email when they get new listings. I'm signed up for alerts from rightmove and zoopla anyway so people selling through local agents aren't getting any more service than I am at this stage!

ashe

fleetingmind wrote: »

20 weeks sole selling rights. I didn't realize that even if you find the buyer yourself you still have to pay the agency fee!

Contract was signed on the 20/03/2018 so have 14 days cancellation period.

My family always have a go at me for taking my time to make a decision so it was most unlike me to rush into it.

Be on the lookout for a waiver they may have gotten you to sign. you get 14 days to cancel but they wont market you in that time eg right move etc, as then they'd be out of pocket but they will tell you you can sign to get put up immediately, which waives your right to the 14 days to cancel, so just make sure on that.

If your fees are gonna be 7k and you are a confident person that feels you can talk through your home then go for it, you can give it a month or two before going back into the EA route?

yes you will still have to pay the fee if you sell it to a neighbour for example, and if you change to another EA then someone else the original EA introduced decides to buy it then they still get their fee usually 6 months to a year later.

note that all the terms are totally negotiable. You can tell them you are going with an online agency and ask them the lowest fee they will offer, and you can negotiate down to 12 weeks, 6 weeks, whatever they will allow. These forms all have hand written fields for a reason (like you, i found out later and i am normally very money savvy!)

Beardmidget

As others have pointed out, it’s probably too late to do anything about it now.

If it helps you sleep any better, though, i’m Just selling (waiting to exchange) and elected to go to a traditional agent rather than online. Our fees will come to just shy of £12k... which I know is eye watering.

I did it for a combination of reasons, including the fact that no matter what others say, Surrey EA makes a good point about the agent doing the chasing up in order to keep things moving. Our buyers sold through PB so our agent is also keeping up with their sale so he can make his commission out of me (well, for £12k you’d bloody hope so wouldn’t you...)

Honestly though, the most compelling one was that you just don’t know what you’ll get for your house on the open market, and I judged that the realistic rock bottom price we might end up with, and which would be acceptable to allow us to move, would have left us with less money than we have now achieved even once the commission is taken away. In short- I can well see that the EA potentially added more value on than I’m paying to them in commission.

fleetingmind

Beardmidget wrote: »

As others have pointed out, it’s probably too late to do anything about it now.

If it helps you sleep any better, though, i’m Just selling (waiting to exchange) and elected to go to a traditional agent rather than online. Our fees will come to just shy of £12k... which I know is eye watering.

I did it for a combination of reasons, including the fact that no matter what others say, Surrey EA makes a good point about the agent doing the chasing up in order to keep things moving. Our buyers sold through PB so our agent is also keeping up with their sale so he can make his commission out of me (well, for £12k you’d bloody hope so wouldn’t you...)

Honestly though, the most compelling one was that you just don’t know what you’ll get for your house on the open market, and I judged that the realistic rock bottom price we might end up with, and which would be acceptable to allow us to move, would have left us with less money than we have now achieved even once the commission is taken away. In short- I can well see that the EA potentially added more value on than I’m paying to them in commission.

That does makes me feel slightly better (Sorry!)

It is proper stressing me out I can tell you. The EA did say that only 10% of house purchases where i live is from people in the same area and the rest is largely people moving out of London areas. The price is slightly hiked up and they reckon they can get it.

I do like the EA and they have and i'm sure will do a good job. But £6.5k difference is a lot of money esp if we're showing people round ourselves.
We've got a few days left but they have put up a board, put it on Right Move, taken photos, and organised one viewing and not sure if these are classed as 'performance of services'.

Beardmidget

Surely you’re not doing viewings yourself for them??
That’s definitely got to be included. (That said we sold after I did a viewing one weekend after they had previously dragged 32 other people round themselves...)

I would guess that their terms included a waiver of the 14 days if you OK’d them putting on Rightmove/ putting up a board, which you may or may not recall agreeing to... they’re usually on pretty good terms with contract lawyers because people would rather not pay them for their old rope if they thought they could avoid it.

I think if I was selling a house of an elderly relative after they had died, i’d use online agent because i’d be happy to sit and wait for someone willing to pay what I wanted.
In my position where I am selling a fully renovated/extended property I was looking for top money for the area (sort of what you’re hoping for) and in that scenario a proper agent may help push the value.

Beardmidget

...My overall point being that if the agent gets you £390k - and you’d have made £385k through purple bricks then it hasn’t really cost you anything extra, but you have had those extra services.

You can’t say “oh but maybe i’d have got the whole amount through purple bricks” because you just can’t prove it!

In a more buoyant market, I might have gone with an online agent but things just aren’t like 2016 in south London any more!

Richard_Webster

Good EAs are useful to solicitors because they can talk to people that the solicitors can't talk to. If a buyer's solicitor hasn't had draft contract papers because the seller hasn't completed the Property Information Questionnaire then the EA can kick him to do that.

Similarly, a seller's solicitor sometimes needs to get EAs to kick the buyers to do things.

A good EA will check the chain properly and will not rely on third hand out of date info another agent gave him 2 weeks ago.

Sadly whether the EA's fault or not there have been so many times that my clients have been quite insistent that "everybody wants to move on [such and such a date -often around a week or so ahead]". If we were ready, I started the process to exchange contracts for that date and later in the day got a phone call back from my client's seller's solicitors saying that 2 above him in the chain the solicitors are nowhere near ready as they hadn't even had draft contract papers from their seller's solicitors.

Sadly wet between the ears employees of some estate agents simply don't know what questions to ask in doing things like checking chains. If the seller has already paid the fee upfront why should their bosses bother to train them?

TamsinC

We sold though Purple Bricks and couldn't be happier - the service we received was way and above anything we have ever received with a normal estate agent.