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.

When we sold our house our traditional agent was shit, I have no idea what they did for their money. I told our (excellent) solicitor that I thought it was ridiculous that they got less than the estate agent, and that was on a house in the north that cost far less than the OPs. Houses in London sell quickly for lots of money because there is a shortage of housing stock, not because the estate agents do anything special. Rightmove have made their job obsolete and it's obscene to charge £30K for what they do.

You may find you have less people wanting to buy your house if you list with an online agent - as a result of nothing more than the agent.
We previously sold to a buyer who listed with an online agent - let's just say we pulled out of the sale and have said we will never consider being in a chain with an online agent involved. They were completely useless, had no idea what was going on, and caused nothing but issues, which were then furthered by the online law firm our buyers used (a purple bricks must use law firm)

@Puppylucky

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.

100% agree. We sold and bought this past year and our ea held everything together when we thought it would all fall apart.

Houses advertised with online EAs put me off. I knew how stressful it could be (and I was right) and the thought of not having a local estate agent made me anxious. I wouldn't view a house with online EAs, however much I liked it.

I’d look at it slightly differently - not how much of a cut they’re getting in but how much do I value my time. When we last bought and sold I wanted to do the bare minimum in terms of admin and speaking to people and so I was very happy to accept paying a 1.5% fee for the sale. It turned out to be a complicated chain buying our property and I’m far to busy to spend time handling lots of requests and showing people around. Similarly the fee was a large number but I asked myself ‘would I want to do the tasks involved as estate agent on this sale if someone was paying me that?’ and the answer was a resounding no.

strike.co.uk/

This company looks really good It has great trust pilot reviews
Been seeing lots of adverts on tv for it lately

Don't do the viewings yourself. DH and I used to really hate this. We like to look around and make comments about what we like/don't like and it's impossible when the vendor is following you around like a hawk. We also found that vendors talk too much. Sometimes you just want to wander through the house and observe it in semi-silence.

I always wonder if threads like these are an attempt to get people to work out what the ‘lovely house’ in London is worth.

Negotiate to 1%.
I would not view a house with an online agent or sell with one.

Last sale of mine - SW London - not at your bracket - whilst the EA was a pain, they held the sale together when there were problems. They were aggressively successful.

I know people who have paid similar commissions to you and whilst it’s always a bit galling a good EA should not be underestimated. You often find out when things start going less than smoothly how much they hold the chain together.

At your market I think people would be very put off with Purple Bricks and such like.

When we viewed our current house through purple bricks it was relatively easy. As I liased with the seller directly through the purple bricks website. The problems arose when we had our offer accepted, and then discovered that the seller "had" to use a purple bricks conveyancer. It took forever, our solicitor was constantly chasing and we could have completed a lot sooner if it hadn't been sold through purple bricks. We will never use or purchase a property through purple bricks.

We were just offered 0.5% but we had to go to market this week. Huge shortage of new properties around here.

In my experience, estate agents do nothing to secure the best price.
Many times it appears that they just want the quickest sale.

For example, if your house is selling for £3M, and they get 1% commission, then they get £30k. If they manage to bump the price up to £3.2M, then they only get £32k.

In my experience, they want the (example) £30k in their pocket, and won't hold out/do any additional work to get an additional £2k.

Go with the online agent initially. See if it sells. Don't assume that an expensive agent is working on your behalf.

Good luck!

@ThinkAboutItTomorrow

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.

Have you never sold a house before?

Anything between 1%-2% perfectly normal and acceptable.

(Ex-conveyancing assistant).

A lot of people here are confusing the VAT element that’s going to HMRC and not the estate agent.

I once sold a property (via inheritance) through a high end estate agent. The whole thing was a dream - it never even went on the market. They knew the price it might go for, had people on their books who they knew were willing to buy in the area at said price, asked me if they'd mind doing some "pre market" bookings, we had three asking price offers by the evening. Picked the cash buyer, all done and dusted in 6 weeks. They were worth their weight in gold.

We were on with Purple Bricks, the only viewings I got were by me advertising the listing on local selling groups on Facebook and were all a waste of time.

Put my property up with a local agent after a few weeks of nothing with Purple Bricks, it was under offer same day it was listed. They also helped a lot in chasing the buyers solicitors etc through to completion.

When we were buying our current home, we encountered a few Purple Bricks/ online estate agent types.

Generally, they were awful! I mentioned once that we would offer over asking which was standard in our area. The woman looked at me as if I had two heads! She actually tried to get me to start with a lower offer. Despite the fact that every single property of that type was going to closing date within a week. She had zero idea of the local market.

Obviously this is just one example, but we decided then to use traditional EAs when we came to sell ours.

I should add, the house we were discussing went for near enough 20% over asking

Can you not go to an estate agent with fixed fees ? I got valuations with a few of the local bigger estate agents and about half were fixed fees and the other half a percentage of the sale price ?

Or is that not a thing for houses above a certain price ?

YANBU we recently used Hamptons Internation for my mother's house - they were shit from day one, I suspect Purple Bricks would have been better.

Yes, this pisses me off about estate agents too. I don't see how it's more work to sell a more expensive house, although size of the house and time its likely to be on the market need to be taken into account.

They all do this though

My advice would be to negotiate down to 1%, or even .75%.

@OakPine

In my experience, estate agents do nothing to secure the best price. Many times it appears that they just want the quickest sale.

For example, if your house is selling for £3M, and they get 1% commission, then they get £30k. If they manage to bump the price up to £3.2M, then they only get £32k.

In my experience, they want the (example) £30k in their pocket, and won't hold out/do any additional work to get an additional £2k.

Go with the online agent initially. See if it sells. Don't assume that an expensive agent is working on your behalf.

Good luck!

This is very true. We recently sold a house for 530k which is what I would have valued it at. One estate agent told us to put it on at offers in excess of 500k in hope of enticing a bidding war - wtf?!

I hated this idea and to me it showed the desire for a quick sale. Also, what a way to treat prospective buyers. Offers in excess of put me right off as a buyer, just say what you want for your bloody house - you'll only get what it's worth anyway! Anyway I digress......We ignored him, went with a different estate agent and got £530k which was just slightly under the asking price.

For anyone thinking of using an online estate agency like Strike, forget the sales pitch and read the contract offer terms very carefully. My recent dealings with Strike have been very poor and I wouldn't trust them to sell a wendy house, let alone the portfolio of houses I offered them to value this week. They have made critical mistakes on the valuation documents, their EA failed to mention the legal tie in to their legal service in the verbal offer (so free rightmove isn't so free after all), or the hard sell extra's they throw at you like organising professional photographs. Various staff members leave voice messages with no direct reply line and when you ring the office they haven't a clue how to connect you back to these named people. It doesn't inspire confidence that potential buyers would be able to contact them either. No one rings back as promised, and I have asked my agent to change the mistake on the valuation form FIVE times by text and email...with no reply...when I am potentially putting £1.8m of property their way, and the promise of more in the future. All estate agents are evil in my opinion, but to borrow from George Orwell, some are more evil than others...

‘ Good agents have a little black book of buyers who are looking for property in particular areas (in our case, our road and the one next to it)’

That’ll be prospective buyers who are cash ready & keen to buy. Expect serious offers & a smooth sale.

Don't put it on with an online EA! Not a property of that value . That's madness.

I actively discount any properties being marketed by purple bricks or online EAs. They don't see process through in same way.

Had a house sale chain break down before due to ineptitude of purplebricks, who were selling house we tried to buy - months wasted and we'd already paid for surveys and searches. We walked away in the end. Never again

Go with EA but negotiate and get what you want.
Put in a higher percentage if they get you over XXX or complete within a timeframe

A good agent will get you a good sale through their contacts and reputation