to think that estate agents are grossly overpaid for the little work they actually do?

[wannaBe]

so let's see what they actually do:

come out and give a valuation.
take a few pictures
write up a description.
put it up on a website
maybe mailshot a few people.
take a few phone calls to arrange viewings.
sometimes accompany viewings.

And all for between 1.5 and 3% of the value of the house.

Yes, wannaBe....I think all professions tend to rip us of Writer GBS said that years ago, and its still true.

Ours is only charging .65% and did 8 viewings for us within 10 days of going on the market (no way I was going to do viewings with toddler and newborn). We sold for 5% above asking price, so that covered the fees straight away. They're a local independent agency specialising in this area only.

OTOH, the agents we're registered with to find a house... Our criteria are 3+ bedrooms, must have garden, in area X. The few agents that do bother contacting me have been sending eg. 2 bed flats, or 3 bed houses but 2 miles away from area X. And these are the national chains, who are charging vendors 2-3%

"EA's don't normally even want the vendor in the
house at the time of a viewing as they can make it uncomfortable for the purchaser." what rubbish. I think I probably looked at around 25 houses in the past two months, and the agents have accompanied on probably about 25% of those. And yes some of the ones where the vendors have been there have been out of vendor's choice, but in general I got the impression that it wasn't. To the extent that I had one agency tell me that "we don't do viewings before midday during the week" wtf?

When I viewed properties very few of them rang for feedback. some did ring back after about two weeks, but I could count on one hand the ones that rang back within days.

Basically you're not paying to sell your house - you're paying for the houses that don't sell.

Seems like we got off lightly with the fees ? we were quoted 1% but managed to beat him down to 0.9% . We've had eight viewings, two of which appeared after I rang to chase the estate agents so I'm guessing that they were persuaded to view to make it look as if they were doing something.

No offers so far so we've remarketed, estate agent speak for dropping the price, and we've quickly realised that they put a high price on to start with just to chance their luck in case someone is willing to pay it. I just want to sell that place, not play all these silly games.

It may be possible to manage a private sale yourself if you are simply selling your house to a cash buyer or first time buyer, but the complicated elements of a long chain can be much easier and smoother when an EA is dealing with it, particularly if by happenstance they are also the agents for various people in the chain.

Like all "professions" there are good ones and bad ones. I would suggest if anyone is thinking they have an agent who is not doing their job properly, get a friend to go in on a busy Saturday and say they are looking for a property that loosely matches your property in size, price and location. If they dont walk out of that shop with either a set of your property particulars or reasonable pressure to do a viewing that weekend, then fire them and tell them you will not be paying any fees for cancellation or change of contract and that if they try to charge you, you will take it up with the Ombudsman for Estate Agents.

And dont use an Estate Agent who isn't subscribed to the Ombudsman scheme.

Agree, its money for old rope...

"Basically you're not paying to sell your house - you're paying for the houses that don't sell."

Interesting analysis!

In my current experience, yabu.

Our estate agent is currently negotiating for our (now extremely long chain) to be broken and has spent an immense amount of time over the last few days coordinating and speaking to everyone in said chain to get it moving.
Without her I would be clueless about what's currently going on, as the solicitor has been less than useless!

Thus far in our selling saga
~ I have taken the photographs
~ I have pointed out the write up was too vague, exentuated points of little value to the target market, didnt mention ANY of the points that were appropriate to our target market.
~ someone of my aquaintance requested more details of my property from the agent. A WEEK later she got a response that failed to mention my property at all and asked her to come into the office to discuss other properties.
~ has arranged 1 viewing in over 2 month (they put in an offer which we accepted but has since fallen through due to a break in the chain)
~ not once, even since our place was under offer have they asked what kind of property we were looking for.
~ we have not had a word from the agents since the chain broke down.

Best not ask my opinion on estate agents.

YANU

Wannabe it isn't rubbish, viewers spend more time looking when the vendors are out, they can discuss the property frankly without the vendor hearing, get more of a feel for the place than they would if the vendors there. I can't believe some said no viewings before 12, are you sure they meant as company or that particular property? If they did mean as a company I'm assuming they'll go bust soon putting in that little effort. You are half right in what you say re paying for the houses that didn't sell- costs have to be covered, its the same as shop upping their costs to covered any loses, insurance companies increasing premiums due to fraud. But of course you are paying sell your property, estate agencys wouldn't be a viable buissnes if it was solely covering losses.

OUrs did feck all so we went private and sold it in a few days word of mouth

Boiling point I don't want to pay for you to call 50 people a day, I just want you to sell my house. And giving you £20k from my house sale is far too much for that

I'm no enormous fan but I can see for those that sell and get the fee there are many properties that don't. If you don't like the fee, don't list with them. Or bargain. If they won't, then go to the next... or the next.

YANBU. And it isn't a 'profession' at all. It's just a sales job.

Have bought and sold houses with complicated chains and have dealt with the negotiations myself - there is absolutely no need to use an estate agent imo.

Obviously I don't know how much our EA worked to get our viewings, but she was certainly worth the money when our buyers left us in the lurch by suddenly dropping the offer. She 'worked the chain' for a day and managed to get our vendors to drop as well, to make up the difference. Also, we were on the market for a long time yet they never threw us on the 'hopeless' pile and kept pushing and pushing to get buyers to view.

Again this is a local EA and we're paying them less than half vs. what a big national chain quoted us for, so I do think for a good EA you need to shop around, get references, and not be afraid to switch if they are not delivering on their promises.

On a sidenote, when their salesman came to do his pitch, he said 'we will sell your property because we're a small business and quite frankly, we can't afford not to'. To me that sounded refreshingly honest and very logical, so that's why I chose them.

Housenetwork. Brilliant. Fab photos, brilliant feedback, you do the write up - £750 job's done.

We are moving and have an extremely precise list of requirements that include land, stabling, menage, annexe, large house and right in one very particular location. There are three properties only that meet our brief. I spoke to a overpriced reputable agency with our brief.
Some weeks later a friend of a friend told me about one of the three only houses coming on to the market so I went to see the vendor and agreed to buy. Meanwhile he had gone through this reputable agent.

I have NEVER been contacted by them even though they were asked to market a property that couldn't have fitted a very, very difficult brief more perfectly.
I am very glad we are doing a deal privately as I would hat efo rthem to get a penny of my vendor's cash. Useless feckers. They were handed it on a plate and still couldn't join it up.

What pisses me off about them is that they simply dont understand the concept of "conflict of interest". How can someone who is effectively working for both the buyer and seller at the same time possibly be working in your best interest? That and the fact that they are completely unregulated and any shyster can call themselves an estate agent and start touting for business with no professional oversight whatsoever.

As a FTB i'd be quite happy to deal directly with the vendors and bypass the estate agents completely.

I'm not sure exactly what they do for their money, but it doesn't seem to involve having any knowledge of the local market or the houses they're selling.

EA: There's this property I want you to look at on X street
Me: You mean the one that's described as a 3 bed but the bathroom is actually accessed through the bedroom?
EA: Is it?
Me: Yes, there's a floor plan on another agent's website and you can see this and it's visible from the pictures
EA: Oh

EA: Just wondering what you thought of the house
Me: I'm not sure, it was perfectly nice but there was no gut feeling
EA: Well, think about it, it won't be around for long
Me: It's been on the market at that price for 6 months
EA: It only came on the market last week
Me: It's been on with another agent since August
EA: Oh

Me: Hi, we're meant to have a viewing at 5:15
EA: Is the vendor not there?
Me: The house is empty, you told me you were going to do the viewing
EA: Can I ring you back in 5 minutes
(5 minutes later)
EA: X has got the key but she's held up I'll have to drive to pick up the key from her and then I'll be there in 10 minutes
Me: OK (we only stayed because we had another viewing up the road twenty minutes later)

Can you tell I'm not too fond of estate agents?

We had to pay our estate agent more than the solicitor when we sold our house.

SerenitySutton i would be telling them 50 people about your house on the market........

If (please please please let this happen) our sale & purchase goes through as planned next week then I will sing the praises of our estate agents from my new roof top! Yes they're expensive, but they sold my flat for the price I wanted THREE days after putting it on the market. I hadn't even signed off the details so of wasn't online or in the window - it must have been one of those 50 calls! They've since helped us find our dream home and held my (shaky!) hand every step of the way. So YABU. Sorry.

YANBU. Most EAs are total knobbers.

I sold my old house, and bought my current one 10 years ago. The sheer incompetence of the EA is still seared into my memory. I paid 3% for nothing. The couple who bought my house lived in the next street. They walked past and saw the For Sale sign. I could have spent £10 on a bit of wood and some paint, made my own sign and saved the £4k I put in the agent's pocket. Everyone who came for a second viewing were locals (as in lived within a couple of streets and walked past my house all the time) so all EA advertising, calling round (if they even did it) etc had no effect. I had no feedback on viewings. Their only advice was to suggest I dropped my sale price. When I finally got an offer below the asking price, I had to tell them how to negotiate an increase (which I got, thanks to my own input!).

The EAs I was buying through were even worse. Our chain collapsed twice, and both times none of the agents had a clue what was going on. I spent hours on the phone trying to sort it out which should have been their job!

Now I was prepared to think that was a long time ago, practices must have changed now etc. Not likely. Friends tried to sell their house recently. One viewing EA forgot to lock her back door. Another time they let a viewer rip off a strip of (slightly peeling) wallpaper 'to check for damp'! Weeks passed without viewers til they said they wanted to take the house off the market, whereupon EA would suddenly drum up 10 viewers a day (mostly fictional). Friends gave up after 6 months and are now selling privately.

I also had a shit experience a couple of years back when looking for an investment property - house came on market I was very keen to view as extremely low price and ideal size/area. Phoned agent on Friday. Was told owners had asked agents to do viewings (fair enough). Agents didn't do weekend viewings as this was their 'busy time' and they needed to be in the office! Asked about weeknights - they could only do before 5pm as that's when their office closed. Really wanted to see house so took afternoon off work. Morning of viewing got a call to say house had gone under offer. Agent refused to tell me if vendor knew I was viewing (which made me think they didnt!) or to allow me to view. I pointed out it was nearly a week since I'd asked to view and called them obstructive - and a few other words. House sale fell through a few weeks later and vendors then sold at auction. I felt some pleasure at the agents losing out on their 3%!

An american friend told me recently that in the USA the agent you choose to "list" the house gets a fee for doing the details, etc but then selling attracts a seperate fee and can be done by any agent so you can visit just one agent of your choice and get details of ALL the houses in the area rather than traipsing around all the estate agents.

If I have understood that right it sounds brilliant as the agents would have to compete to sell and treat buyers well to keep up their reputation

1 in 3 sales falls through in this country, so a lot of the time the Agent is working for no fee whatsoever.