To think estate agents aren’t worth the money?

Estate Agents are a necessary evil and as thick as pig shit. I learned this working as a secretary in conveyancing. They’re forever chasing their commission and will lie through their teeth. They don’t listen when you try to talk them through the conveyancing process eg we’re not at completion yet.

When I sold last year the 1st (very pleasant but passive) agent that we picked did nothing for weeks. We swapped to a 2nd one who was much more aggressive and got it done quickly. Ironically we ended up buying from the rubbish agent who was equally passive at keeping the chain moving.

It is expensive but unless your property is particularly special or in a very hot market , you will more than likely end up using one. Flats are harder to get sales completed on so also try and find out how any agent's post offer assistance works . Ime the passive agency just got the main point of contact do it but they had moved onto their next sale. The more aggressive agency had a dedicated person do it and they were more keen to stay involved.

I think agents do more than appears on the face of it. An agent who takes the time to know your property and can show the advantages to potential purchasers is a necessity, as is one who doesn’t tie you into a lengthy contract and communicates well with you.

in my experience that’s likely to be a smaller local agent.

The estate agent selling our house was useless. Not worth a penny. The estate agent selling the house we bought was amazing and definitely worth the money. It’s all down to how good they are at their job. Negotiations, follow ups, answering questions, liaising with the other estate agent/solicitors etc.

You won't get on Rightmove without a registered agent. How would you advertise the property?

When I said “keeping things moving” I’m talking more about the conveyancing process and keeping the chain intact, not sales leads. Although they clearly do that too or sales would never be agreed.

Now conveyancers? Different. A really good property lawyer is an absolute dream. They will cost you around 3 times what a cheap conveyancer costs but my god will you see the difference.

I will say the photos they did of my house looked really good, much better than I could have taken. However there's a disadvantage to that too, in that I've also been to see several that have been VERY creatively/flatteringly taken/edited, and completely misrepresent the state of the actual house.

I don’t think people actually realise the work that EAs do. They can take all the emotion out of the process and keep things moving when there are issues. You run the risk of losing your onward purchase if you come up against something that you can’t navigate yourself during the conveyancing process which they’d have so much experience of.

Ive bought and sold property on several occasions and used a range of estate agents from high end chains to smaller independents.

They have mainly been:

• thick as shit. Genuinely. For eg unable to do basic maths, unable to operate a simple key safe.
• useless at keeping anything moving! Failed to follow up sales leads.
• quite poor at "sales patter" - failing to point out obvious selling points like outstanding local school, masses of cupboards etc.

House sale activity is heavily market led. Show me the estate that can sell a house quickly at a good price in a soft/falling market, there are precious few. They make all their money in boom years when you could sell ice to eskimos.

I've just sold my late parent's rental property, which was left in an awful mess by the tenants. The estate agent saved me from spending ages and a lot of unnecessary money getting things fixed and redecorated. He gave me great advice on its value and how what I perceived as drawbacks really wouldn't put off the kind of people who he thought would be interested.

Agents often have a long list of prospective buyers, who they introduce before the property even hits right move, and sure enough, they had a load of viewers on the first weekend. Several make offers, so they looked into each person's situation to advise me on which offer to take up (I needed a quick sale). Having let them know which offer I accepted, they then checked their ability to pay, and chivvied the whole thing along both with the buyer and their solicitor. And of course on completion day they did meter readings, key handovers etc.

It just wouldn't be a viable business if they charged much less. They're not like a supermarket that's making lots of sales every day. I don't know how many they seem a month, but it won't be many. And of course, many are no sale, no fee. So they could put lots of work and time in, and get nothing at the end.

We offered on a house. The estate agents went all out for the hard sell to get us to use their conveyancers, trying to make out our offer wouldn't be accepted unless we did, and pressuring me to make a down-payment. I didn't, I had already decided which conyeancer I would be using.

In the end, after waiting two days to hear the fate of the offer, I had to get very firm with them about it and they breezily told us it hadn't been accepted and they'd gone with another offer.

Ours was an immediately proceedable offer at the asking price; we could and would have increased it if asked for best and final offers, but we weren't. I was so annoyed with the agents (local, longstanding and supposedly reputable, not one of these recently sprung up online places) that I walked away at that point. I was seriously tempted to put a note through the seller's door with our best and final offer, but I didn't want to harass them or potentially gazump someone who might by then have started spending money.

I could have understood it if we'd offered below asking and/or not been proceedable, but all they cared about was trying to get us to sign up to their conveyancing whether or not that sale was going to go ahead.

Its the sales progression afterwards when I think they earn their money.
But then we paid 0.66% fees, on a house worth less than half of yours, so totally different fees paid.

Look cheaper than most countries. The property portals costs a fortune to advertise, they vet potential buyers on chain positions, do the viewings, charge the sale through, mediate with sellers, buyers, solicitors etc, verify identities and do money laundering checks, they do more than you think (I’m not a estate agent but can def see the worth of a good one)

Yanbu. They are shite.

Similar prices near me despite them all having loads of unsold properties because they are all insist on overvaluing.

Annoyingly rightmove are in cahoots with them (they were founded by the four biggest corporate estate agents), their pricing structure is designed to make non local agents pay more to prevent cheaper agents moving in on established players in each territory. Its basically a huge cartel.

In reality what makes a property sell is:

• realistic pricing
• the local property market (when its down, everything sells slower)
• the nature of the property - size/layout/location, most of which neither you nor the agent can change.

I wouldn't buy without an estate agent involved. I'd be pretty put by an online only agent like purple bricks. I want to be sure everything is being done properly and estate agents have far more ezperience than the general public

They facilitate the sale from beginning to end. The ones I’ve had have always been extremely useful. Conveyancers are notoriously slow and unavailable. Estate agents can aid all the inbetween conversation.

’Take a few pics and put it on rightmove’? Sounds like you’ve never been in the thick of a cabin or medium-weight sale before.

Had good and bad experiences, I think its just pot luck tbh. Some know how to do their job and some don't.

well, lots of people agree with you, which is why things like purple bricks are so popular. As pps have said, good ones can be worth the money, bad ones maybe not. I've seen a few new ones popping up that offer a flat fee rather than a % which works out much cheaper for more expensive properties - maybe look at some of those?

I would agree that, weirdly for a profession that depends on communication, they seem to have incredibly poor social skills. I'm very used to chatting to anyone but apart from one or two exceptions been incredibly painful trying to make anything like normal conversation with the vast majority of EA's I've spoken to.

I’ve had very mixed experiences with EAs. Some good, some bad.

If you feel that strongly that they’re not a service you’d find beneficial, skip the EA and do it yourself, OP.

I think where you’ll struggle though is getting access to property listing platforms. I’m sure some do allow individuals to purchase slots but can’t imagine it’s cheap as a once off.

Agents vary in quality and 1-2 % plus vat can easily become a £10,000 plus expense. A good agent can be worthwhile becuase they add value, in my experience this would apply to approx 1 in 3. I would use an agent if recommended and make sure that I could walk away if no offers after 8-12 weeks with no penalty. If you do pick a poor agent, you must at least you are not tied to them for too long.

I don’t think people actually realise the work that EAs do. They can take all the emotion out of the process and keep things moving when there are issues. You run the risk of losing your onward purchase if you come up against something that you can’t navigate yourself during the conveyancing process which they’d have so much experience of.

I’d also be wary of buying a house that the owner is selling themselves. I’d like some kind of buffer for uncomfortable conversations or negotiations. I wouldn’t want to speak to the owner about anything like that.

My agent had to speak to other agents further down the chain and iron out issues. If you were selling yourself, agents would have no way of contacting you and the whole chain runs the risk of collapsing.

They vet potential buyers to ensure they know who they are, that they are serious buyers and that they have access to the required funds etc. They show them round so that you do not have to deal directly with them and negotiate when it comes to bids.

No doubt there are some sellers who are prepared to do this themselves but I would be wary of dealing directly with random strangers. Remember Suzy Lamplugh.

It isn't compulsory to use an Estate Agent so why don't you save yourself that 1 or 2% and DIY? It's just putting a few photos up on a website.

We sold our dad's house recently. It was quite run down and needed a lot of work doing, but somehow the estate agent did an amazing job of making it look really good, and it took much less time than we thought it would to find a buyer. No complaints at all, they did a great job.

Advertise against your local estate agents? Surely?