Which estate agent to choose?

RoyalDad

My house went on with Hunters (York branch) on Tuesday at £450k - I was happy with this valuation. The pictures and video look amazing as does the write up. We had 5 viewings on Saturday and 3 full price offers. Have a further 5 viewings today and then it goes to best and final on Wednesday as 12pm. I am delighted with Hunters and all the viewers they quickly lined up.

ironlady2022

Just briefly looked at contract with Manning Stainton (fixed fee of £2k+vat) - it's tied in for 12 weeks - guess this is negotiable.

I think I will maybe speak to WHB. If she can sell me/guarantee me my dream home which I am due to view on sat - I will give her my business. +£1300 is a lot of money, but in this market, anything goes at the moment.

steve866

mayling03 said:

Just briefly looked at contract with Manning Stainton (fixed fee of £2k+vat) - it's tied in for 12 weeks - guess this is negotiable.

I think I will maybe speak to WHB. If she can sell me/guarantee me my dream home which I am due to view on sat - I will give her my business. +£1300 is a lot of money, but in this market, anything goes at the moment.

What is the situation with this house you want to move to? Is it for sale with WHB? They certainly won’t be able to guarantee you the home but they will naturally be motivated to try and make it work for you as they will be on double commission. 

Why don’t you offer 1% fee rising to 1.25% if they achieve £300k or above?

newsgroupmonkey_

mayling03 said:

Just briefly looked at contract with Manning Stainton (fixed fee of £2k+vat) - it's tied in for 12 weeks - guess this is negotiable.

I think I will maybe speak to WHB. If she can sell me/guarantee me my dream home which I am due to view on sat - I will give her my business. +£1300 is a lot of money, but in this market, anything goes at the moment.

Would she not do an "offers over" £280? Then let everyone outbid each other.

peterhjohnson

mayling03 said:

 When I mentioned £300k, they seemed ok and their valuation was more in line with my expectations. 

So at the moment, I'm inclined to go with EA no 2.

Whoa! The EA would rather have you selling through them - even if the asking price was too high - than having you sell elsewhere. That's why they were OK about it. It's not ideal but it's OK for them.

If your property doesn't sell at £300k, after a few weeks, the agent will have a conversation with you about lowering the price. It's not their favourite sort of conversation but they've done them many times in the past. To understand the reason that agents are used to getting sellers to reduce price  happens right back at the beginning.  Agents "value" property a bit high because they know that the agent that "promises" the highest price will likely get the business.

Flugelhorn

seems houses will sell get offers by themselves at present - they don't need the fancy photography etc - the key bits are how well they progress chains and sales and how they cope if there are suddenly any glitches or the market stalls a bit.

when I sold a probate bungalow I had 4 valuations, 3 were identical - all charged exactly the same 1%+Vat (then one knocked the VAT off ) - I went with them, not because they knocked the VAT off but felt they could get the job done - the office and team were large enough that they could be flexible with viewings (bad experience with v small companies)