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.

Haggle, haggle, haggle. Get their rivals in. You should aim to pay no more than 1% and I personally have never paid more than 0.75%.

Our house has just gone on the market for the same as yours only in the SE outside London. We negotiated a .75% fee which equates to 6500-7000 depending on what it sells for. That is plenty for what estate agents do. They are ripping you off. Walk away and choose someone else.

We bought and sold through HouseNetwork. The only thing they don't do is viewings but I was more than happy to do that part, I know my house better than anyone.

HouseNetwork did all the photos, video tour, floorplan, arranged viewings I just had to let people in.

Had a dedicated person with direct phone line for my sale and the same with the buying. My house was on Rightmove and all the online portals.

In this day and age does anyone walk down the local high street to browse an estate agent's window to find a house? Doesn't everyone just look online?

Foxtons don't negotiate. Other London agents will negotiate on fees.

Foxtons might be worth paying extra for if the house will be difficult to sell for some reason, as they are very pushy and have lots of buyers on their books who they can contact.

If the house is standard and you don't anticipate any problems then go with someone cheaper.

Also note that Foxtons often over value properties at the quotation stage in order to win your business at a high % commission. They then lower your expectations later on when the asking price initially quoted can't be achieved. Best to get the views of a few different agents before choosing and setting an asking price.

We're in the process of buying a house that's on with Purple Bricks. The viewings to offer accepted part worked really well. The people we are buying from are also using Purple Bricks for conveyancing, and that aspect hasn't been great. Very slow, almost impossible to actually speak to someone, incomplete/inaccurate answers etc. Don't rate that part at all.

Estates direct - Estatesdirect.co.uk seem popular around here, and they were very helpful when I was going to list our house with them.

You just need to get it on Right Move at the cheapest price possible really - it's certainly worth doing it that way to start.

Read some online reviews of Foxtons from sellers. Some of them are horrendous. They promise the earth and secure a high commission and then try to bully you into a lower sale price. They seriously are scum. Their basic salary is something like 12k so all their sales staff are desperate for commission. Shop around- even if Foxtons overvalue (which they massively do), you will not get that price.

I used to be a divorce lawyer in London. Generally, the courts would not take any Foxtons valuation to be a serious indication of the property value because of their tendency to massively overvalue and the very remote possibility that their price would actually be achieved on sale.

I won't even start on their horrendous reputation for lettings.

Shop around with other agents. They will be more realistic with you.

There are various EAs that are renowned for using this tactic. I wouldn't be surprised if they are all part of the same umbrella group or if previous directors have branched off alone and drilled the same tactics into their next company venture.

You really do need to be wise to some of the stunts EAs will pull before you blindly sign a contract. I would also never agree to go sole agency for more than 6 weeks.

We had positive experience with house network

What do they actually DO for their money?

Know the local market inside out
Create good qualty particulars
Chasing progress up and down the chain
Vet prospective purchasers for financial viability
Point of contact for day time viewings
Key holders on completion day

The list goes on. A bit like Monty Pythons sketch "what did the Romans do for us"

We used a local family business not a corporate. They were worth their weght in gold

House simple here.
They were fantastic. We used our own local solicitors.
£500.
They put us on right move and zoopla.
We lived in a reasonably desirable area, made the house spotless and decluttered. They sent a photographer but we also took our own and wrote a description of the house.
Sold on the first day on right move within 3 viewings...
The series of arse estate agents that we had to tolerate whilst we viewed other houses made us even more glad we hadn't wasted our money.

We've just sold in SE with 1% plus VAT fees, which included professional photos, staging advice and full viewing coverage. Our agents were beyond excellent, calling after every viewing to provide immediate follow-up and then a couple of days later once they had followed-up with the viewers. We sold within two weeks in a slowish local market.

Negotiate, it doesn't cost them that much, try a flat fee, I've just sold in se London, pm me if you want details of my EA?

Many years ago Foxtons came and put their for sale sign in our garden in the night,when we hadn't even agreed to them being our agent.

I sold my house last year using Visum for around £250 (they charge a set up fee and monthly charges to advertise on Rightmove/Zoopla etc). I did everything myself: wrote advert, took fabulous photos, put up for sale board, did viewings, negotiated, and liaised with my buyers estate agents when my solicitors were being difficult.

In fairness, I knew I had a house which could sell well, had the time to do it myself, and used to be a buyer so dealing with arsey people and asking very potentially rude direct questions is water off a ducks back - although it never really came to that, my buyers were lovely. I sold in a month for 6% more than the estate agents valuation whilst other houses on same side of the street took 4-6months.

I don't know anything about the London property market, but we have been looking for an investment property and the results the estate agents round here send me bear little resemblance to what we asked for so I do all of my own searches on Rightmove (as do most people I know).

Good luck!

I was trying to remember who I used for online EA as it was a few years ago and think it was house network. They were very good and I saved thousands in costs.

I don't know why anyone would use Foxtons (or Fuckerstones) as we call them. They have a dreadful reputation for all sorts of reasons.

I would find it very hard to even view a house they had on for sale as the thought of dealing with the smarmy gits that tend to work there just puts me off.

So many EAs are struggling just now. If I was selling I'd use a local independent one - as long as they can advertise on Rightmove/Zoopla/can't remember the other one.

Experience of what estate agents do differs somewhat from my own
Know the local market inside out
Tried to imply property was new to the market despite the outside photo having a competitors sale board on view / tried to persuade me to view a property where 3rd bedroom was accessed through 2nd and wasn't aware of this until I pointed it out despite being clear on published floorplan
Create good qualty particulars
Generally littered with spelling mistakes and phrases such as 'like a tardice(sic)
Chasing progress up and down the chain
No chain
Vet prospective purchasers for financial viability
Didn't do this

Point of contact for day time viewings
Didn't turn up/ turned up without keys/ made owners do viewings
Key holders on completion day
They handed some keys over - amazing!

We used Purplebricks. An estate agent carried out the valuation and got the property sold in 3 weeks, and we saved £14,000 in fees. Don't listen to all the negative comments, they are probably disgruntled high street Estate Agents. If you really are having doubts read the trust pilot reviews, 12,000 people can't be wrong. For goodness sake don't suffer commisery!

We sold our 2 bed E1 postcode flat with Foxtons last year. 2.5% commission. However, they got us the top of the market price, and sold within a week, before it even went on zoopla or rightmove. An identical flat in our building was on with another agent at the same time and sold for £30k less. I think they were the right agents for the property at the time.
However having now sold, rented and bought property with them, I would avoid dealing with them again. When the time comes to sell our current house (SE London), I will go with a local agent who all charge 1% as standard.

I used to be a divorce lawyer in London. Generally, the courts would not take any Foxtons valuation to be a serious indication of the property value because of their tendency to massively overvalue and the very remote possibility that their price would actually be achieved on sale.

This chimes with my experience of Foxtons. I watch my local market very closely. If three other high street agents price a property at £500k, it'll be £575k with Foxtons. And they are not selling - because we're not in one of those "stick a For Sale sign in a gold-polished turd" periods of the London property market, because buyers are wise enough to look at comparable properties, and because Foxtons has a reputation for wild overpricing.

I'd try one/two other local agents OP, and negotiate down to 1% or thereabouts. There isn't enough on the market (near me, anyway), so they'll want to sign you up at almost any cost.

We also used housenetwork to sell our last house, saved ourselves thousands and it sold within two weeks for the asking price. Fairly smooth process we had a dedicated agent who we could phone or email.

House Network all the way! We sold with them, can't fault them in any way. Do an advanced search on Mumsnet for them and I doubt you'd fine a negative review.

In my opinion, House Network is a bit more of a solid 'brand' than Purple Bricks (which I perceive, from their TV adverts, to be a bit low-rent and gimmicky). You want buyers to take you seriously if you are selling a house of that value, and I think Purple Bricks would make you look a bit amateur.

We found our house through Gumtree. The previous owner thought she would give it a go before using an estate agent and she sold it to us pretty quickly. Also our neighbours sold theirs by using local Facebook selling pages.

So we have sort of accidentally used Foxtons twice now, having sworn that we would never touch them.

When we bought our first house, I found the perfect property on right move but was hugely put off when I saw it was marketed by Foxtons. DH rightly told me to get over myself. We viewed, loved, and ultimately bought the house, and I'm confident that we didn't pay over the odds for it. The whole experience was fine as a buyer.

When we were leaving London we got half a dozen agents to value. Most came in £25k either side of £450k. The awful Foxtons one gave me a stupid spiel, valued it at £500k, and then sat back to watch my reaction. Needless to say we didn't use them. We signed with another London agency who were, frankly, poor; it is worth saying that Foxtons do not have the monopoly on being a bit shit.

We couldn't sell the house in time to relocate as we had to be in our new city for jobs within a month or two, so we let out the house with a local, family-run small lettings and management agency. All tickety-boo for a couple of years, but the owners then decided to retire and sold the lettings side of their company to Foxtons. Foxtons honoured the favourable management rate that we had been paying and their admin was all pretty professional from our point of view as landlords. They were keen to value our property and encourage us to consider a rent rise but we refused. We later realised that they do make a lot of money from selling hugely inflated add-on services to landlords - smoke alarm installation, cleaning services, inventories etc - at the start and end of tenancies.

Our tenants then gave notice a few months later and we decided to sell. At this point, we were living two hundred miles away and it wasn’t practical to get back to London to field loads of valuations - so we went with Foxtons. The higher rate was worth it in our particular situation as the lettings and sales teams were pretty good at communicating and they took care of most things under my (admittedly assertive) remote direction. It is worth noting, however, that they were quite pushy with their high valuation of £500k+. We were adamant that we wanted to market at £475k, which turned out to be about right.

So they were fine for our particular situation, but for OP who is presumably selling her own home I would use somebody local. Do get local, personal recommendations if you can, but specifically from people who have used them to sell. Our disastrous agency were recommended by a friend who had bought with them and it was a mistake to assume that this would translate to a good experience as sellers.