Estate agent want to charge £30k

[ThinkAboutItTomorrow]

I get that estate agents are on commission to incentivise them to get the best price but surely there's a better way?

We live in London and are very lucky to have a lovely home. estate agents want 1.5% + VAT commission which would be £30,000 if we get the asking price.

But they don't do any more work for the £30k from me Vs the £7.5k they'd get selling a small flat. Do they? With Rightmove etc the benefit of the flashy high street office must be negligible.

IABU - there's more to it and the service and experience justifies the cost
YANBU - just use an online seller and pay £1,500 there's no way a local office can add £28.5k of value.

You could probably negotiate that down to 1%. Whilst it might seem that they don't do much, to me the real value is the protection from having to give out your number to potential buyers, weeding out time wasters and nosey parkers and not having to give up your Saturdays and evenings to do viewings yourself.

I assume your property is worth around £3 million? You are trying to attract a wealthier subset of buyers and I am guessing many may not want to try negotiating with online estate agents. I think a normal EA should offer a better service and present your property better in terms of photographs etc. They will also have a list of people looking for properties who they can try and steer towards your property. A percentage of the sale is normal for an EA to take. They are then motivated to get the best price for you.

YANBU we used an online EA and they were excellent. Saved us a fortune.

Don't the online guys handle the queries? So it's their number?

And I'm fine to do the viewings.

Last time we sold I found our agent really unhelpful. It felt like they were working for the buyer more than us, wanting us to move into rented to complete sooner when our onward purchase was taking ages.

It's far easier generally for an estate agent to sell a £500k property than a £2m one for quite obvious reasons - because there will be a far, far bigger pool of potential customers.

I think EA fees are generally a rip of anyway because ime they do little to earn them. But in terms of charging a % of house value, yes I think that's a fair approach.

They will at least screen interested parties to make sure they have the means to buy your property before arranging viewings. Not sure how on line EA's work but you could end up with hordes of nosy buggers with no intention of buying just wanting a look around. I'm sure it would be easier to fake your ID on line too which introduces lots of other concerns.

I got a lot of estate agents to quote and asked a lot of questions. Their valuations ranged by £150k.
We decided to use an estate agent as we had a property that was slightly difficult to value and I didn't feel confident in its value. I worried I'd accept a lower offer doing it myself. We negotiated to pay them on a sliding scale. So if they got the top valuation (aspirational in my mind) then we paid them a higher rate of commission. If they paid X amount we paid 1.5% and anything lower than Y was 1%. We didn't mind paying them more for getting a higher amount.
If I had of been confident of the value and had a standard property I would have done it myself/ using an fixed price agent rather than a traditional one.

They should also be offering to advertise in the Sunday papers property pages, mailing out a brochure to possible interested buyers, using a professional photographer, shots using a drone perhaps. All that is where your money goes.

Try it with Purple Bricks (or similar) first - who assign an agent and are excellent, we've used them twice.
If it doesn't work, you're not going to be down much comparatively if you end up using a traditional estate agent.

Well the expensive (1.5%) estate agents sold ours for £50k more than the online agent even wanted to put it on the market for, so I guess they earned their fee in that instance at least!

The Purple Bricks agent effectively did everything a normal estate agent would do - she advertised the property, answered the calls, took queries, did the viewings etc etc etc.

I like the sliding scale approach @stoptheballs

Even at 1% it's £20k

I see the point but not sure big houses round here are that much harder to sell. The time it takes on average is a actually less, if the online reports are anything to go by.

My worry is time wasters but for ~£28k I think I'd put up with a bit of that.

Ha! We lived in the USA and when we sold our house we had to pay 5% commission to the realtor.

It’s like a cartel there and almost impossible to get on the MLS (multiple listing service) without using a realtor,

@Pinotpleasure we bought in Italy once and both sides pay 7% each!!!

Thanks @FlimFlamJimJams it's good to know they are a realistic option. Think we might test the water with them

I think YANBU.

When you are talking the sort of prices some properties go for now, the amount the EAs are taking as a fee is phenomenal.

You’re right it’s ridiculous. Your solicitor, who has professional qualifications and expertise, will do all of the work in getting it to completion and be paid a lot less.

@thisplaceisapigsty

They should also be offering to advertise in the Sunday papers property pages, mailing out a brochure to possible interested buyers, using a professional photographer, shots using a drone perhaps. All that is where your money goes.

Do people look in the Sunday papers still? It's not included in the price.

Both will use professional photographers. To be fair a similar property nearby doesn't have great photos so maybe one to push on if we get them round to value.

I would never try and sell a house using an online only agent. Its not just, or even mostly, about getting viewings, it's about successfully managing through to completion. The last time we sold we had a nightmare with chains falling apart left right and centre and it was only the expertise and sheer grit of our agent that got us over the finishing line. Purple Bricks just don't offer that kind of support.

6% in France (on property over 1,000,000Eur.)

A high value house marketed by a budget estate agent would make me feel uneasy about the vendors tbh. I'd probably give it a miss if I could afford something that expensive.

I was just going to say what @rainyskylight said. The solicitor will get a fraction of that amount and assumes literally the entirety of the risk in the sale and purchase of a property. And they are qualified professionals. And people then complain about the fees…. But i know that this is completely not what you are asking!!

We once agreed a deal of 0% up to a certain amount and then 10% of everything over. We had viewings every day and sold for over asking price. We paid them a bit more than we would have done on a flat 1.5% deal but I think it was money well spent.

Make it worth their while to get you a good price.

I paid 0.85% when selling my London property. 1% was the standard fee for most agents. Agents tend to offer a fixed fee for properties at the lower end of the market. I wouldn't recommend Purple Bricks. 1.5% seems a lot and I would shop around before agreeing.

@Pinotpleasure

Ha! We lived in the USA and when we sold our house we had to pay 5% commission to the realtor.

It’s like a cartel there and almost impossible to get on the MLS (multiple listing service) without using a realtor,

5% omg!!