Advice about Oxford estate agents

[Sinkingfeeling]

We're thinking about putting our house (east Oxford) on the market shortly and wondered if anyone could recommend (or advise against!) an estate agent.

Thanks in advance!

Yes I would recommend Kemp and Kemp, in fact I'll PM you their details. They seem to be much more on the ball than the rest.

Liked Buckell and Ballard myself. Some of the others were very rude!

We liked Scott Fraser and Finders Keepers.
Heard some not so good stuff about chancellors.

Also experienced bad things with Chancellors.

Buckell and Ballard 'forgot' to convey our offer to a seller

Scott Fraser are good but tend to rely on 'viewers' for weekend viewings (ie part timers who aren't always the best trained).

We're with Hamptons. They are okay. But I wouldn't have picked them.

It does depend what you are trying to sell though - middle of the road houses, go for someone like Kemp and Kemp. If you have something very expensive you may want to go to Hamptons. Best plan actually is to go on Rightmove and see who is marketing in your area to create a shortlist. Check through the specs, see how many have typos in (no I'm not kidding).

Thank you all - that's very useful. Yes, I'd say our house was middle of the road - semi-detached, 4 beds but in a very nice street. Definitely not the top end of the market, but not bad for Oxford iykwim. Yes, whomoved I have seen many, many typos trawling through Rightmove in the last couple of months.

Not heard of Kemp & Kemp! I am also selling in East Oxford, with Breckon and Breckon. They have been v good overall but the market is very slow and nothing's happened yet.

That's interesting, comix. Breckon & Breckon are one of the agents we've had round to value our house. We still can't decide a) which agent to go with and b) whether to go on the market now or wait until spring or c) whether to not even attempt to move at all! Do you mind me asking how long you've been on the market and how many viewers you've had?

We've had lots of viewers (maybe 15 or 20) but it's been on the market since mid April. Everyone says they really like it but... they're going to buy in a different area, or they want a modern house rather than a traditional style of decoration, or whatever. Nothing we can sensibly change in order to fix things - we just have to wait for the right person to come along, so it seems!

Hmm, must be annoying to have comments like that when presumably the viewers had the basic information about your house (location, approximate age etc.) before they came to view! Have you had to consider dropping the price since it's been on the market? We would like to move mostly for school catchment reasons, but just can't decide when is likely to be the best time to put the house on the market. Just get the impression that things are moving so slowly they're static at the moment. Think I need a crystal ball!

I would market now, there is less competition. Also you would need to wait till next Easter to take advantage of the peak selling period (which only runs to July when it slumps again)

Re: school catchment reasons.....how old are your kids. I only ask because I have not yet moved but based my application on living 19 miles away from school and still got a place at an excellent primary in North Oxford. Some just have places - inexplicably the 'satisfactory' one down the road has a waiting list. And I got a place in nursery for my preschool DS as well, with no notice.

WMMC, I disagree that there's less competition now - there are a lot of houses on the market, because things aren't moving quickly. At least that's our experience.

Sinking, I don't mind those comments really, because until you look round a few places it's hard to get a good sense of some of those softer aspects - I would definitely put decor and feel of a neighbourhood in that category. But at least one person has come round and said she wanted a place with a downstairs cloakroom, which she could have jolly well seen from the floor plan it didn't have!

Yes there are a lot of 'stale' houses on the market but there are few newcomers. People tend to look in specific areas. If they are looking say in Headington at a certain budget and have been looking for over a month new houses tend to get more viewings. The estate agents push them harder.

FWIW I have had people come view our place and say 'well it's lovely but could we build a glass tunnel to connect up the two buildings' (umm no it's listed and in a conservation area and the two buildings are 50 metres apart). We also had someone turn up who thought that the space marked 'hall' on the floor plan would make a great fifth bedroom (it's four feet wide).

Comixminx - PM me your house on rightmove and I'll tell you if there is anything glaringly obvious. :)

Ah, OK, I get your point, WMMC. Yes, I suppose a new house would be rarer. But then if it doesn't sell quickly what to do? In any case I would have assumed that quite a few new people start looking all the time, too, because buyers have so much on offer that they are likely to make their minds up fairly quickly (unless they're really picky).

Will PM you a link right now.

Thanks for link comixminx. I was delighted to spot two typos in under 30 seconds in the description

I think with houses that have been on more than four months, it's worth taking them off the market for a couple of weeks, looking at what you can do, telling the estate agent to rephotograph and then relaunch it. This puts a boot up the EA as well. Their common retort is usually 'well just drop the price to get interest' and yes that works but if you haven't covered the basics it won't help.

Hi wmmc, well done for spotting the typo in 'poular' - I normally reckon I'm pretty hot on typos but that one passed me by. St Clement's however is spelled like that.

We may do the thing of dropping the house off the market & then relaunching in, but we're not in a particular hurry in principle. It would give us a breather during which time we don't have to worry about tidying up with short notice but then we might just get slack and lose what little tidiness mojo we've managed to get... To be fair on the EA they haven't suggested dropping the price to get interest - they think the price is about right and the comments from the viewers suggests that is the case - though of course that's from the people who've actually come and looked already, rather than anyone who has dismissed it already on the basis of price.