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?

Look cheaper than most countries. The property portals costs a fortune to advertise, they vet potential buyers on chain positions, do the viewings, charge the sale through, mediate with sellers, buyers, solicitors etc, verify identities and do money laundering checks, they do more than you think (I’m not a estate agent but can def see the worth of a good one)

Its the sales progression afterwards when I think they earn their money.
But then we paid 0.66% fees, on a house worth less than half of yours, so totally different fees paid.

We offered on a house. The estate agents went all out for the hard sell to get us to use their conveyancers, trying to make out our offer wouldn't be accepted unless we did, and pressuring me to make a down-payment. I didn't, I had already decided which conyeancer I would be using.

In the end, after waiting two days to hear the fate of the offer, I had to get very firm with them about it and they breezily told us it hadn't been accepted and they'd gone with another offer.

Ours was an immediately proceedable offer at the asking price; we could and would have increased it if asked for best and final offers, but we weren't. I was so annoyed with the agents (local, longstanding and supposedly reputable, not one of these recently sprung up online places) that I walked away at that point. I was seriously tempted to put a note through the seller's door with our best and final offer, but I didn't want to harass them or potentially gazump someone who might by then have started spending money.

I could have understood it if we'd offered below asking and/or not been proceedable, but all they cared about was trying to get us to sign up to their conveyancing whether or not that sale was going to go ahead.

I've just sold my late parent's rental property, which was left in an awful mess by the tenants. The estate agent saved me from spending ages and a lot of unnecessary money getting things fixed and redecorated. He gave me great advice on its value and how what I perceived as drawbacks really wouldn't put off the kind of people who he thought would be interested.

Agents often have a long list of prospective buyers, who they introduce before the property even hits right move, and sure enough, they had a load of viewers on the first weekend. Several make offers, so they looked into each person's situation to advise me on which offer to take up (I needed a quick sale). Having let them know which offer I accepted, they then checked their ability to pay, and chivvied the whole thing along both with the buyer and their solicitor. And of course on completion day they did meter readings, key handovers etc.

It just wouldn't be a viable business if they charged much less. They're not like a supermarket that's making lots of sales every day. I don't know how many they seem a month, but it won't be many. And of course, many are no sale, no fee. So they could put lots of work and time in, and get nothing at the end.

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.

Ive bought and sold property on several occasions and used a range of estate agents from high end chains to smaller independents.

They have mainly been:

• thick as shit. Genuinely. For eg unable to do basic maths, unable to operate a simple key safe.
• useless at keeping anything moving! Failed to follow up sales leads.
• quite poor at "sales patter" - failing to point out obvious selling points like outstanding local school, masses of cupboards etc.

House sale activity is heavily market led. Show me the estate that can sell a house quickly at a good price in a soft/falling market, there are precious few. They make all their money in boom years when you could sell ice to eskimos.

I will say the photos they did of my house looked really good, much better than I could have taken. However there's a disadvantage to that too, in that I've also been to see several that have been VERY creatively/flatteringly taken/edited, and completely misrepresent the state of the actual house.

Now conveyancers? Different. A really good property lawyer is an absolute dream. They will cost you around 3 times what a cheap conveyancer costs but my god will you see the difference.

When I said “keeping things moving” I’m talking more about the conveyancing process and keeping the chain intact, not sales leads. Although they clearly do that too or sales would never be agreed.

You won't get on Rightmove without a registered agent. How would you advertise the property?

The estate agent selling our house was useless. Not worth a penny. The estate agent selling the house we bought was amazing and definitely worth the money. It’s all down to how good they are at their job. Negotiations, follow ups, answering questions, liaising with the other estate agent/solicitors etc.

I think agents do more than appears on the face of it. An agent who takes the time to know your property and can show the advantages to potential purchasers is a necessity, as is one who doesn’t tie you into a lengthy contract and communicates well with you.

in my experience that’s likely to be a smaller local agent.

When I sold last year the 1st (very pleasant but passive) agent that we picked did nothing for weeks. We swapped to a 2nd one who was much more aggressive and got it done quickly. Ironically we ended up buying from the rubbish agent who was equally passive at keeping the chain moving.

It is expensive but unless your property is particularly special or in a very hot market , you will more than likely end up using one. Flats are harder to get sales completed on so also try and find out how any agent's post offer assistance works . Ime the passive agency just got the main point of contact do it but they had moved onto their next sale. The more aggressive agency had a dedicated person do it and they were more keen to stay involved.

Estate Agents are a necessary evil and as thick as pig shit. I learned this working as a secretary in conveyancing. They’re forever chasing their commission and will lie through their teeth. They don’t listen when you try to talk them through the conveyancing process eg we’re not at completion yet.

I agree with this. If you go with a cheap conveyancing solicitors what you get is paralegals being overseen by conveyancing solicitors. If there are issues they can’t or will take far more time to deal with them.

YANBU but no poll. Never dealt with an EA that did more than I could do myself. Everyone I know has always conducted viewings themselves.

Useless at chasing up and their listings are usually full of spelling and grammatical errors.

Completely agree. They are a complete rip off and are always mildly rude, clearly interested in the quickest chain so negotiate for their interests. Often offering silly valuations to dupe homeowners into signing.

We used a local company to try and support a non national, they used a mobile phone with really bad light reflections, got aggressive when I pointed out that the description of our village was vastly outdated and incorrect in terms of facilities listed, they didn't show anyone round despite that being our specific fee arrangement due to personal circumstances.

They were incredibly pushy and when we had survey questions on our purchase property, they said to be careful not to ask questions on a survey as it is "annoying"!! They wouldn't take our keys so we had to sort all of that out.

They ruined our experience of our 3rd purchase and it was just after the birth of our child. Never again will i use a local firm. We had marginally better experience with a national firm before but had to correct spellings and again they barely did anything with our buyer contacting us directly for much 9f the process.

In my mind with AI to be used for photos, wording and with homeowners doing the viewings i cannot see what lies ahead for them with the extortionate fees. I can't even say that they negotiation is something most do well as I've increasingly heard of homeowners and even solicitors taking over.

A good local independent agent can be fabulous.

We used one to sell a probate house - asked her for a probate valuation, and within a few days she approached us saying that a local family had been into the office, the house would be perfect and could she show it to them?

Because we didn’t have to go to market she volunteered to drop her fee, put us in touch with brilliant cleaners and just made the whole thing go through with minimal stress.

Yabu. Ours was worth their weight in gold....the sellers one... awful. Saying that I wouldn't look at anything not listed with estate agent

Our estate agent wasn't worth 50p. Having had the spiel and signed up to them, we had a roll call of Saturday jobbers who showed 2 or 3 people our home and knew nothing... After getting repeated queries about our 'position' from potential buyers, we ended up making a laminated sign and sellotapibg it to the living room window... (bullet points: 1. We are leaving on thus date. 2. We are moving abroad so chain free our end. 3. Epc is A. 4. Boiler last service 2021. 5. Boiler service certificate in kitchen drawer by cooker etc... 6. Nearest primary school St Andrews, 200m away, 3 min walk.

The agents were embarrassed as our sign was massive and fluorescent yellow with black letters (looked like a road sign) .. But it ended the endless queries.

Truth of the matter was we signed up with a manager but all viewings were via minions, with neither talking to each other.

It got v annoying. Did they earn their commission...? No. I don't feel they did.

As a PP has said, bar the rightmove ads and some OK photos I could do on my phone, I don't really know where the money went. There was nothing really that we or our solicitor couldn't do ourselves bar the rightmove ad, especially as we worked from home.

Agree with PPs. It’s not the advertising, photos, etc it’s pushing the sale through where they earn their money. Without our EA and the one further up the chain keeping the whole chain together and negotiating and getting the solicitors to talk to each other nothing would have happened. Although I grumbled about the 9k cost at the beginning, it was worth every penny in the end.

A good EA accompanies viewings and keeps the chain together with a pokey stick. All whilst potentially not getting paid if the sale fails, or no offer is ever accepted.

I suspect Rightmove isnt cheap either, given how they've currently got the market tied up.

They probably do better than they deserve when the market is booming but selling now is probably pretty damn difficult

I think you're in for a shock. Leasehold properties aren't that in demand and they're harder to sell. They take more work also the valuation figure is that from Rightmove? Again they can be wrong.

The likes of Foxtons, Felicity J Lord, Hunters all the 'corporate ones' do tend to be worse from experience of buying.

Take a look on eXp estate agents I've found smaller independent are better. Or if you're in Tanya Baker's area sell with her, she's fab!

If they want to lock you into a long contract run and be careful of overvaluing if they overvalue especially a flat it will be sat on the market a while. Price competitively

My Mum got 15k over her asking price ( North Yorkshire) …without the estate agent that would never have happened…..the photos were brilliant…..worth every penny

Obviously, like most professions, there are bad and lazy ones out there; but a great EA is easily worth their fee.

Even if you're happy to write the particulars, take the photos, upload them to Rightmove (assuming they accept an ad from an individual), pay for Rightmove, deal with all of the emails and phone calls at all times of the day M-F 9-5, and show people around yourself...

You will find it extremely awkward to ask people for proof that they are ready to proceed and have the funds - and be insistent when they try to lie or swerve telling you about their true circumstances.

Potential buyers will try to offer you less, purely because there's no EA middleman; and they will have their eyes on the amount that you're saving by not paying a cut to the EA when they negotiate the price with you: they will expect their 'share' of that saving, so you might only save half as much as you anticipated. They will also likely massively overplay the 'huge' savings that you're making with no EA.

The EA will know the local timewasters, chancers and trouble-causers very well. Have you really saved anything if you end up waiting 6 months for your 'buyer' to resolve this issue and that issue and the other issue, when they know all along that they're playing the long game and aren't serious/able to proceed - either at all or without 'suddenly finding' that they can only go ahead by knocking a huge amount off the price they pay you, so you either take a huge hit or lose the house you're buying. These people can be very persuasive indeed when stringing you along, knowing that individuals will be far more likely to browbeat and overcome than a professional intermediary.

I'm obviously not suggesting that this will always happen, but when we were selling a deceased family member's house, the EA called us 'off the record'. It turned out that a local dodgy bloke had approached them with a remarkably good offer - as he usually did for each new house they listed - and tried to offer them a bribe to 'persuade' us to go with him. Apparently, his usual MO would be to pretend he was the buyer, but then the actual buyer would end up being somebody completely different. Also, he would come in with the best offer, fully intending to pay far, far less once he had his foot in the door.

Once, he'd gone to the EA's office and physically held him up against a wall, with his hand around his throat - in his determination to get a house for a song - and the police had to be called. Our EA - who was very friendly, professional, helpful and honest throughout (even when it would have been more profitable for him to have lied) - spoke to us (he wouldn't put it in an email for fear of potential repercussions) to say that, although they legally had to pass on all offers and that his was the best, just do not go with him, whatever we did.

Of course, then it became his problem to have to explain to this unpleasant, angry man that we had not accepted his offer - and to fend him off when he demanded to know what offer he had to make (clearly never intending to actually pay anything like it) in order to secure the house. If we had swerved the EA and advertised it ourselves, we would have gone with him, completely oblivious, and ended up with a huge amount of delay, heartbreak, awkwardness and possibly even threats and violence.

Personally, I wouldn't ask the question "Why don't I just sell it myself?"; rather I'd spend time to research the options, ask around (somebody did just that the other day on MN) and ask "WHICH EA shall I use?".

My friend sold her house recently. She used a good estate agent who got her £50,000 more than she'd expected. Yes, the fees were £15,000. You have a choice .