Estate agents - independant or chain?

sportbeth

Hi,

This is kind of following on from another thread but I thought I should clarify my question.

We've had on the market now for 4 weeks my other half's 4 bedroom semi. The agent we're with is an independant, and I'm getting frustrated with the following:-

Their website is very poor in comparison to what we're looking at for new properties
No Feedback on viewings
No updates unless we call into them (they're showing viewings around themselves)
We dropped the price by 8,000 under their advice and they're now saying they're not advertising the drop for a quick sale as it would make us look "desperate"
We've made a few suggestions as to how we would like the details updated and they've been ignored.

My question is, if we had gone with a chain estate agent, would they have
a) more people on their books moving through various areas of the market
b) would they work any harder for us
c) would their marketing be any better for us

It was only when we spoke to them last week that the agents said "Ok, we'll stick it on the rightmove website" I would have thought that web marketing is a huge thing now?

Any recommendations would be useful

lush_walrus

Not necessarily in my opinion. a) no, most buyers register at all agencys in an area. b) This depends from agency to agency. There is no hard and fast rule for this, a bad agency can just as likely be a chain as an independant, both offer staff commission as an incentive to meet sales targets. And both are as likely to sack staff for not meetng targets. Bad staff can therefore appear in either.

C) Again depends on the agents, I have 3 agencys in the SE and we advertise in exactly the same places as the large chains.

But in the case you have sited above, I would recommend you look around for which agent has the most sold boards (Not for sale as this is not an indicator of anything other than a good valuer). Or try to get a recommendation from people who have sold in the area. But I would say move from this agent they seem poor, have bad communication skills and are unenthused by your property.

By the way, if you chose this agent on fees, ask your next agent to match their fees. 99% of the time chain or independant will!

bridiej

recommendations and sold boards are the best idea really, and also look at the type of properties your agent has on his books. If he tends to have a lot of big 4 bedroom type properties at <£300K and you're selling a 3 bed terraced house for £120K then they might not be the best (obviously this is just an example).

I know here we tend to have agents that seem to have more country type properties etc.

Doozergirl

I agree that there is no rule as to whether independant or chain is better, but if going independant, make sure they use one of the big websites! They are especially great for people looking to move into your area from elsewhere - they may not know the names of local agents, so your property gets more coverage.

My experience also is that most agents do not contact me with any new properties. Once I've registered and been given an initial pile of paper, I'm forgotten and have to scour their adverts in the local paper for new properties. I've ended up buying three times through Your Move because fact that I am automatically e-mailed anything new in my price range and can have a good look at the details . (I don't work for them or anything!)

sportbeth

Very good points from all of you, thanks. We had suspected that the agent wasn't particularly enthused by the property and some of theirs are in the higher price bracket. Problem with this one is that it's 4 bedrooms, recently refurbished and very spacious but it backs onto an area that can only be described as Beirut. Think the agent might see it as that as well!