To balk at £27k estate agency fee and consider the online alternative

[lemsiptime]

We live in silly-house-price land - aka Greater London, and the modest Victorian mid-terrace house we bought 14 years ago, and extended, is now worth an eye-watering £900K.

Our DCs are approaching their teens and shooting up in height so we want to move to something a little bigger, slightly further out. We've had one estate agent round so far, and their fee is 2.5%+VAT which works out around £27.5K . To me that seems completely excessive, and could influence whether we're able to afford the step up to a bigger property.

I've read loads of bad reviews here on Mumsnet and MoneySavingExpert about Purple Bricks, and they don't seem to have many properties around our way (3 in a 2 mile radius) suggesting they're not exactly booming in popularity, but there's a huge difference between their flat fee (£1199) and £27K. I'm aware there are other online agencies too. AIBU to be tempted by that route? If so, please tell me what the more traditional estate agent will do for their money as I need to be convinced.

If you think the house will sell itself and all you need is a board outside then I'd be tempted to try the cheaper option first.

If you live in a desirable area then the norm estate agent fee is 1% plus VAT. Less desirable areas command higher fees as estate agents have to work harder. Just get another estate agent round to value and play them off each other.

Although I'm not in London, 1.5-2% is standard, and your can usually haggle them down to 1%, so that seems extortionate to me!

Don't know anything about Purple Bricks but for £27k, I would expect at least a month week of absolutely mind blowing sex thrown in.

Tell them if they want you to give them your business, they can have 1% fees. Get other agents in too.

If your property and area sells well, go solo, however we've had pretty bad experiences with pretty much every owner we viewed with who was going solo. Will you have someone available during the day with a key for viewings for example? We found it very hard to arrange times that matched up with the ones we came across, so TBH we often gave up.
Also would advise you use a separate phone number if you do, some "buyers" are actually mental - estate agents do a lot of buffering of that for you! It also helps that they can't ring the EA with random nonsense quesions at 11pm at night, but they can ring you if you use your regular phone number.

In some ways EAs earn their keep.

We had an estate agent round to value our place today and he quoted 1%. We're also in London. I think you should shop around.

Hmm, we paid more than other quotes because we liked the chap from a well known agent who came round. Well we didn't butcwe felt he'd do a good job.

He made a few suggestions, we carried them out, he got the asking price, the differential between the outfit who undercut on commission more than made up for it.

You need to negotiate. You should aim to get close to 1%.

We paid a lot less than that when we sold our £1m+ SW London house a couple of years ago - 0.75% plus VAT. DH did negotiate it though, they agreed to do a deal where they got 0.75% up to the asking price and 10% if anything over it.

We'd pay no more than 1% in our area of London, lots of houses well into 7 figures here so they get many tens of thousands. 2.75% seems very high indeed!

I've just had an estate agent card through my door offering to sell my house for 0.5% (not London though). Definitely haggle them down. When they call you tell them that they are too expensive and are in discussion with other agencies who are cheaper!

We had a staggered arrangement with ours - less than asking price 1%, asking price 1.5% , more than £10,000 above asking price 2% (property advertised as offers above).

As it was they got asking price and were invaluable when it came to issues in the chain (purple bricks were further up the chain and all they did was cause problems and made empty threats they couldn't possibly follow through with).

In your case it's an eyewatering amount but why not see if you could set up a similar arrangement and make them work for the money??

Yes, absolutely. 1% is the norm. You need other agents to quote and then negotiate.

We had one who wanted 20% if they got above asking price - on the amount abovecasking !

Was it Foxtons? I can't believe for a moment that any London agent would seriously expect to get 2.5% on a standard £900k house.

We are oop north but sold with 2roost.co.uk which sounds similar. They were fab and it cost us about £750. They came to the house, Works have done the photos included in the fee (but DP's mate did them), it went on all the usual websites, and we got to check and edit the text. Sold quickly, just as it would have at the time with a traditional estate agent. Obviously I don't know the market where you are but I would definitely recommend giving it a try.

Sold our 500k house online. Cost £1k no more.

I find it hard to believe but agree it smells of Foxtons.

Higher end properties get special rates.

That's an eye watering amount.

I cried over my £3000 on a sale of 170000

Paid 1% when I sold my house last year (North London). Get more estate agents for quotes and avoid Foxtons.

Use tepilo. We sold in London and Kent within a week both times using online estate agents. Saved a fortune.

Do NOT try Tepilo. We were with them 6 months, 1 viewing. Friends and family tested their booking system for us as we were perplexed at the COMPLETE lack of interest (checked pricing/pics, all the usual). The test enquiries got zero response from Tepilo. It's been very demoralising, not yo say has now made our house look 'stale' on the market.

PurpleBricks are also about to be sued for false advertising.

I've sold a few times in London and never paid more than 1%. Wouldn't touch Purple Bricks with a bargepole as we looked round a few houses with them and they were a right pain and put us off the houses. Also if you put it on with them and then give up and use a normal agent they may well charge you more as it's harder to sell a property that's always been marketed.

Good estate agents are worth their weight in gold. Would definitely haggle to 1% or lower.