What do estate agents actually do?

Mr_Singleton

Anyway..... with rocketing house prices and a commission based on a % of sale price what are EA's doing to justify there increased earnings?

If your house has doubled in price over 10 years from £125k to £250k is the EA doing twice as much work to earn his/her double the commission?

Smodlet

Please tell me this is a wind up.

Mr_Singleton

Smodlet wrote: »

Please tell me this is a wind up.

I'm making a perfectly valid point..... are you an estate agent??

diggingdude

The estate agent can charge what they want if someone is prepared to pay. Your parents agreed to pay them this to sell the house. If they sat still and still managed to sell then they earned their fee. For future reference you may want to look at this to stop them being taken advantage of again https://www.gov.uk/courts-tribunals/court-of-protection

kangoora

I bet some EA was dancing around the office when this sale completed. They probably paid for some dancing lessons when the initial sales contract was signed also.

:j :j :j :j

Mr_Singleton

Apologies if I gave the impression that my relatives were finding dealing with money matters difficult. It's more that they are at an age where they know they have limited time left and screwing around trying to save a few pounds on an EA's commission doesn't rank very highly especially as they have more than they'll ever know what to reasonably do with.

Anyway back to my original point.... why do people think that the EA's commission on the selling price hasn't moved with the times. Why are people with more time and less money putting up with it?

Mr_Singleton

kangoora wrote: »

I bet some EA was dancing around the office when this sale completed. They probably paid for some dancing lessons when the initial sales contract was signed also.

Oh bless..... thing is they made a huge loss last year and things aren't looking too good for next year either.... profit warnings and all.

davidmcn

Smodlet wrote: »

Please tell me this is a wind up.

I'm sure it's as serious as the OP's recent outrage about why you're not allowed to call smoked salmon "carrot".

onwards&upwards

Mr_Singleton wrote: »

Relative bought a London house in 1974.

The person that they bought the house from would have paid the estate agents a commission of around £5,200 adjusted for 2019 prices.

Skip forward to 2019 and the house has been sold again, through an estate agent.

Am trying to understand what the estate agent did to justify the increased commission of just under £130,000 to sell the property.

About the same amount of work as your relative did to earn the increased equity they will get from the sale.

kinger101

Mr_Singleton wrote: »

Your completely missing the point the number of people that can afford to buy a £4.5 million home is miniscule. The reason that you'd pay 1% on a £250k house is because the market is huge and there's loads of EA's competing for the business forcing rates down. Not so in the specialist high value market.

Long story but Seville sued for its commission on a £6.8 million property
sale which they won for a rate of 2.4% commission..... did they see them coming?

What. Are you seriously telling me there's a shortage of agents willing to sell a £4.5 million home :rotfl:

You obviously expect to pay less on a £4.5 million home. For the very reason that it doesn't take 18x the amount of effort as selling a £250,000 home.