How negotiable are estate agent fees?

[BoudiccaRuled]

Would I be unreasonable to attempt to haggle?
For a wider search area from other offices, our EA is suggesting 1.5% of sale price, rather than 1% of asking price for just the local area. (The local area doesn't have many buyers as it's lower paid industries but it's commutable to more affluent areas.)

I’ve haggled in the past.

we agreed that if the house didn’t get the price we wanted it would be a lower percentage.

I'd try and negotiate- you've got nothing to lose

Are you in the UK? Absolutely everyone does their property search online these days via RightMove, etc, so there is no need to advertise the property in multiple physical branches. Long gone are the days when people searched by looking in EA windows.

Just go with the 1% to have it on with your local office. Your EA is bamboozling you, as they all do, of course. It’s a depressingly dishonest profession…

Oh definitely haggle, a 1% on the sale price and make sure you read the small print.

Don’t get tied into them if you have problems selling - no restrictions on going multiple agents and no time delay of going with a different agent if you take it off the market with them. You can also negotiate with having a board, they will of course push for that but you can use it as an agreement to them reducing the fees, also make sure they don’t have a clause about you reducing the price if you want to, or wording that if it’s not sold in a certain time the price will be reduced etc.

also insist that viewings are accompanied by someone who has seen the property .

estate agents have a bad reputation for a reason ( I was one for a few years )

edit to add, you don’t need to have multiple offices that’s just EA bluffing, and if they push you could agree to 1.5% of sale price if the property sells within a certain time scale and it reduces to 1% after that. They will of course then insist you reduce the price at that point but that’s up to you

Wouldn’t occur to me not to haggle.. or at least try.

We used an independent EA and got them down to 1%. We did also consider a larger chain and they weren’t prepared to negotiate. Considering the cost of the photos, floor plans etc and then a very tedious and drawn out sale, our EA actually didn’t make much on our sale despite a high price tag ( expensive area).

I’ve only ever sold my property’s myself. Online agents charge a flat fee of £1k ish which includes rightmove listing. As someone previously said - majority of online buying/selling is done this way now. £1k includes the measurements/photos/floorplan and listing. I then show people my home myself as I can sell it best and manage all viewings etc. I can also gauge how committed people are. I cannot stand EA - they are so so so dishonest.