To think estate agents aren’t worth the money?

[Thatescalatedquickly2]

We are looking to buy a bigger place. Selling our flat in. London to buy a family home.

I’m told estate agents charge 1-2 percent commission on a sale. Our place is worth about 650k, so that’s going to be hugely expensive for taking a few pics and sticking it on rightmove.

I’ve also been viewing some places and I can’t say I’ve ever met an estate agent who adds value. When we were looking for our flat, they often hardly knew about the property, no idea about the area and didn’t really ‘sell’ a place to us.

aibu for thinking we should just go for cheapest option?

But surely estate agents do more than that?
Don't they also liaise after an offer is accepted to ensure things go as smoothly as possible? (I may be out of date.)

Just list on rightmove yourself then?

You are paying for their time dealing with potential queries & time showing people around.

YABU but there’s no poll.

The one I use is worth every single penny. Their chain chaser is amazing.

So not all agents...

Not sure individuals can advertise directly on Rightmove.

Well then that's another cost for the EA 😂
I'm in Ireland so wasn't sure about Rightmove

When we were selling our parents' house, I actually rewrote the entire spiel, because it was ungrammatical and inexact. The photos were not brilliant, overexposed, but I did not have time to take them again. Considering that, at the time, my time was worth around €100 an hour, I probably should have charged, but she was just learning.
We got 2 full asking price offers, so job done.

I am contemplating doing it myself one day but wouldn't know where to advertise for traffic.

Estate agents negotiate the sale and chase the solicitors a lot more than you might realise! There’s a lot more stuff that goes on behind the scenes once a sale has been made. It’s not just an advertising service.

For a decent one huge amount more to it than that. If you’re too cheap to pay then try Purple Bricks. They are shite.

id only pay 1% however. Maybe fractionally more if they get over asking price. It’s possible to negotiate both the fee and the tie in period. I only give them 6-8 weeks max in case they turn out to be dire

Personally, I wouldn't want to conduct and organise the viewings. Also, some potential buyers don't want to be shown round by the current owner as they can't make honest comments in their presence (eg "good god that bathroom is awful, that would need to come out").

I feel similarly about mortgage advisors.

Ours in London charged 1% and they were worth every penny.

Advertise against your local estate agents? Surely?

We sold our dad's house recently. It was quite run down and needed a lot of work doing, but somehow the estate agent did an amazing job of making it look really good, and it took much less time than we thought it would to find a buyer. No complaints at all, they did a great job.

It isn't compulsory to use an Estate Agent so why don't you save yourself that 1 or 2% and DIY? It's just putting a few photos up on a website.

They vet potential buyers to ensure they know who they are, that they are serious buyers and that they have access to the required funds etc. They show them round so that you do not have to deal directly with them and negotiate when it comes to bids.

No doubt there are some sellers who are prepared to do this themselves but I would be wary of dealing directly with random strangers. Remember Suzy Lamplugh.

I don’t think people actually realise the work that EAs do. They can take all the emotion out of the process and keep things moving when there are issues. You run the risk of losing your onward purchase if you come up against something that you can’t navigate yourself during the conveyancing process which they’d have so much experience of.

I’d also be wary of buying a house that the owner is selling themselves. I’d like some kind of buffer for uncomfortable conversations or negotiations. I wouldn’t want to speak to the owner about anything like that.

My agent had to speak to other agents further down the chain and iron out issues. If you were selling yourself, agents would have no way of contacting you and the whole chain runs the risk of collapsing.

Agents vary in quality and 1-2 % plus vat can easily become a £10,000 plus expense. A good agent can be worthwhile becuase they add value, in my experience this would apply to approx 1 in 3. I would use an agent if recommended and make sure that I could walk away if no offers after 8-12 weeks with no penalty. If you do pick a poor agent, you must at least you are not tied to them for too long.

I’ve had very mixed experiences with EAs. Some good, some bad.

If you feel that strongly that they’re not a service you’d find beneficial, skip the EA and do it yourself, OP.

I think where you’ll struggle though is getting access to property listing platforms. I’m sure some do allow individuals to purchase slots but can’t imagine it’s cheap as a once off.

well, lots of people agree with you, which is why things like purple bricks are so popular. As pps have said, good ones can be worth the money, bad ones maybe not. I've seen a few new ones popping up that offer a flat fee rather than a % which works out much cheaper for more expensive properties - maybe look at some of those?

I would agree that, weirdly for a profession that depends on communication, they seem to have incredibly poor social skills. I'm very used to chatting to anyone but apart from one or two exceptions been incredibly painful trying to make anything like normal conversation with the vast majority of EA's I've spoken to.

Had good and bad experiences, I think its just pot luck tbh. Some know how to do their job and some don't.

They facilitate the sale from beginning to end. The ones I’ve had have always been extremely useful. Conveyancers are notoriously slow and unavailable. Estate agents can aid all the inbetween conversation.

’Take a few pics and put it on rightmove’? Sounds like you’ve never been in the thick of a cabin or medium-weight sale before.

I wouldn't buy without an estate agent involved. I'd be pretty put by an online only agent like purple bricks. I want to be sure everything is being done properly and estate agents have far more ezperience than the general public

Yanbu. They are shite.

Similar prices near me despite them all having loads of unsold properties because they are all insist on overvaluing.

Annoyingly rightmove are in cahoots with them (they were founded by the four biggest corporate estate agents), their pricing structure is designed to make non local agents pay more to prevent cheaper agents moving in on established players in each territory. Its basically a huge cartel.

In reality what makes a property sell is:

• realistic pricing
• the local property market (when its down, everything sells slower)
• the nature of the property - size/layout/location, most of which neither you nor the agent can change.