Estate agent fees ???

[Mini05]

hi

Selling house, I rang a couple of agents today to see how much they charge for selling.
They told me it depends on the state of the house!!!! And price to deter %
I live in Manchester, is this the normal thing?? They both said they would need to see it(obviously) to give a price. Surely I'd of thought they have a set fee ie 1% 1.5%

As anybody recently sold/up for sale. What's your fee?

Thanks

[RaphaellaTheSpanishWaterDog]

Have sold a few houses previously (currently SSTC) and have never heard of this.....although not based in your part of the country OP.

When we sold our last house (in 2011) in the SE our EA charged a fixed fee and this time (SW) we had five EAs round, ranging from a small independent to Savills and they all quoted between 1.25 and 1.5% (although Savills charge extra up front for a brochure)......

[Mini05]

Thanks

One said if there were two houses in the same street and one was nicer/better than the other they % would be higher?

So it seems to me the more your house is worth the higher the % they charge!

I will get a few round to see, but it seems a crazy way to charge %
Why not just say 1% of total price

[wowfudge]

We sold recently in Manchester. Local estate agents charged 1.5% of sale price, no fixed period you were forced to sign up to them for. The pushy big boys (red and white logo) told me their valuer would discuss fees after seeing the house and the main contact claimed not to know what fees they charged!

Totally disingenuous but I know from past experience they are more expensive and they refuse to ever negotiate on any fee - they have a min. which is higher than anyone else's too.

I couldn't be bothered to have them do a valuation in the end if they couldn't be honest with a potential customer.

[LizzieMint]

Fees vary quite a bit, we've been quoted between 0.75% and 1.5%.
And don't forget it's always negotiable, I wouldn't expect to pay the first price they offer you. Get a few round to value the house, decide who you want to go with and see if they'll match the lowest rate you've been offered.

[Mini05]

Thanks will defo try that! It's so expensive

[Stirrup]

We sold in Liverpool last yr and it would have been a % of the sale price. We didn't want to pay that much so went with eMoov who charged approx £500 to market it.

They were fab. The only thing they didn't do was the viewings, which I think we were better doing anyway. Just had to organise the viewings for when DC was in nursery or at weekends when one of us could take him to the park!

[bilbodog]

Hi - generally fees are negotiable which is why a lot of agents say they don't have a 'set fee' but want to see the house first. If it is a very saleable house coming on at the right price they will be more amenable to agreeing to a lower fee - if the house is not well presented, dirty, and the owner insists on coming to the market at too higher price (which happens a lot) then they might quote higher fees because it will take a lot longer to sell. What ever the agent quotes you ALWAYS ask if this is the best they can do - you might be surprised....................

[Mini05]

Thanks for all the good advice, still getting valuations!
Plus don't know if to wait till after xmas, keep thinking who wants to buy a house at xmas time? Would you?

[suitsyousir]

We were quoted 1.5% which was 3 grand plus vat. I told them that they could do better and both agents agreed to 2k plus vat. we never sold in the end but both agents we spoke to agreed to reduce their prices.

[dietcokeisgreat]

We have just put our house on the market - 1%.

[enriquetheringbearinglizard]

The last time we sold we went back to the agent we'd bought through, which is an independent. He was confident of selling easily and actually had someone he knew was looking. He was also handling their sale.
Because it was likely to be very little work we agreed a flat fee not dependent on selling price and sure enough the only person who viewed bought it.

Not often it's as simple as all that though.
My only real point is that until you ask and negotiate, you just don't know what you can achieve.