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Original poster

To take house off market

12 replies

Trixiefirecracker · 18/03/2023 19:33

Right, I had no idea where to put this so posting for traffic and help. We have house on market. Someone viewed it before Christmas and loved it but hasn’t sold house so obviously not happening. I want to take house of market for a breather and change some stuff, including Estate Agents who are frankly rubbish.maybe for a period of 3 months. If by any chance these interested buyers come back do we still have to pay estate agents? I’m presuming yes but I actually don’t have a clue and if so how long would that be the case? Say for example… The one buyers didn’t sell it their property until next year but came back to us then and were still wanting to buy, would we still have to pay the original EA? Hope that drivel makes some kind of sense!

OP posts:
Original poster
Trixiefirecracker · 18/03/2023 19:33

*off not of!

OP posts:
Owlatnight · 18/03/2023 19:40

Need to check your terms and conditions carefully if you have changed estate agent and buyer comes back. Likely to be a cooling off period between estate agents so you will miss Easter if you come off market now. Not many buyers around at the moment due to cost of living. If you can wait a couple of years might be more buyers about.

Original poster
Trixiefirecracker · 18/03/2023 19:50

I can’t see anything on the contract but will investigate further.

OP posts:
Original poster
Trixiefirecracker · 18/03/2023 22:43

Nothing I can see unfortunately. I’m assuming they can’t tie me in to this forever!

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MovingandStressed · 18/03/2023 22:47

We are in a similar boat except only been on a couple of weeks and very few viewings no offers. Thinking to ditch current EA and go on with another. But not sure whether the new one is chatting hot air or whether they will actually work harder!

Viviennemary · 18/03/2023 22:48

I agree with checking the t &c's. But if they've done a poor job you can complain, we did this years and years ago and they let us off with paying their advertising fees.

ChildcareIsBroken · 19/03/2023 03:08

It has to be written somewhere. From my limited experience 6 months seems to be a standard.
But what do you think a different agency will do better? They all use the same portals, so the main thing is to get the price right and have good ad ( especially photos). And it's a buyer's market right now, so you won't likely get as much interest as you would a year ago.

Original poster
Trixiefirecracker · 19/03/2023 07:49

I would hope that a new agency would be more contactable, answer my emails. Return telephone messages. We agreed they would do all the viewings but so far have done none ( apparently not enough staff). They charged us for doing the house plan but it was done wrong (twice). They put the house in the wrong place on the online map. They put the for sale sign where no one could see it from the road. I asked them to move it and they put it behind another bush! They are overall not very pro-active. Hard to get feedback on any of the viewings without chasing them. They say the house market is very quiet (which I know it is) but constantly uses the excuse of being rushed off there feet as an excuse for everything. Last week they changed a viewing without telling me so that the prospective buyers turned up two hours earlier ( mid house tidy). I guess I just hope the next EA do a good job!

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ChildcareIsBroken · 19/03/2023 08:24

Ah, they do sound rubbish then. Good communication is very important.

Greenfairydust · 19/03/2023 09:05

OP, as a recent buyer I can tell you that the issue is almost never the agent but the price of your house...

Instead of changing agents I would suggest dropping the price a bit and telling the agent you want to have an open day to drum up interest.

I have found that most agents were often equally annoying to deal with when I was house hunting but houses in the area still sold as long as they were reasonably priced.

I had this experience recently:

  • saw a house but wasn't a 100% sure as it needed a lot of work and wanted to find out more about how much it would cost me to do the refurbishment
  • decided to have a second viewing 2 weeks later but by then it was with another agent
  • made an offer that day through the 1st agent (as I had done the 1st viewing through them). Agent immediately passed on the offer to seller
  • still have no heard back 10 days on and just saw that the house had been reduced by agent number 2 below the offer I had made!
  • so I think what has happened is that the second agent threw a fit and said the sellers would have to pay double commission if they sold to me as I was introduced by their previous estate agent
  • in the meantime I had an offer accepted on another house.

The point is if they had not changed agent they would have had a sale by now and ultimately they will get less money for their house than what I would have given them.

So consider everything before you just move agents and be realistic as to why your house if not selling. Blaming the agent is sometimes the easy way out rather than accepting that the house might be overpriced, needs some work or might not be shown in the best possible way to viewers and needs to be ''re-staged'' a bit.

Original poster
Trixiefirecracker · 19/03/2023 10:54

ChildcareIsBroken · 19/03/2023 08:24

Ah, they do sound rubbish then. Good communication is very important.

Yes. Utterly tiresome. I don’t think they are the only reason that the house hasn’t sold though but just want to deal with someone who wants to do their job!

OP posts:
LlynTegid · 19/03/2023 11:03

Not doing their job in the way they describe sounds like breach of contract to me. I wonder how they would react to a solicitor telling them that.

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