Bradshaws or Tucker Gardner?

[MarronGlace]

We've decided to move to Cambridge (we currently live in a village near Comberton) and we really can't decide between TG or Bradshaws to sell our house. They both valued out house at the same price and they're both equally lovely. TG has a much better website with a brilliant school catchment area search facility whereas Bradshaws don't but their fees are a bit lower.
Considering we live in Comberton VC catchment the facility on TG's website coul be useful to attract buyers. On the other hand, don't most people just get on Rightsnet if they want to find a house?
Any advice greatly received!

Rightmove not rightsnet!

We bought a house in Cambridge last year, and agree we used Rightmove to track down houses we were interested in.

We saw houses with Savills, Bidwells and Tucker Gardner. Savills were the most proactive - suggesting houses we might not have considered, Bidwells were good at viewings, not so good at suggesting other houses (the house we eventually bought was from them, but when we went in to talk about what we wanted they only offered us the houses we mentioned from rightmove, our new house had come on the market that day so we hadn't seen it before meeting them and no one thought to suggest it - I saw it a couple of weeks later and put an offer in next day). We saw a couple of houses with TG - the person doing the viewings was underwhelming, but in his defence the houses were a bit odd and had been on the market a while and I think the vendors were not taking his advice, so don't think he expected to sell them.

If you like one agent better will they match the price of the other one. You could suggest you will pay the full percentage for asking price or above, but the same as the other agent wants for less than asking price?

We have just moved out of Cambridge to Cambourne. We used Rightmove and Zoopla for our searches, but often visited the website of the estate agent as sometimes they had more photos and info. For that reason I would choose TG. Bradshaws website is appalling. We'd see a house as we were driving past, try to look it up on my phone, and fail. This never prevented us viewing a house if we really wanted to have a look, but it's a big negative for me. TG always seem professional.

There wasn't much on the market when we moved (started looking last September), and it slowed down a lot, so we saw everything that was on the market. So I don't think even with a bad website people would miss your house if it was in the village they wanted. Or even in the area. The market is so quiet that we looked in all sorts of places, and ended up somewhere we never would have even considered before.

Good luck with it.

We used TG fairly recently. They were the most competitive in terms of commission and had sold plenty of similar houses in the area. I'm sure they'd match Bradshaws if you were up for a bit of negotiating.

At least they gave similar valuations. We had a huge spread from the 4 estate agents who quoted for us. TG's valuation was pretty much the mid point.

Thank you all for your suggestions! I didn't even consider Saville and Bidwells because the properties they sell are well above the value of our house. TG and Bradshaws seem to have a wide range of prices and ours would probably be somewhat mid range. I tried Cheffins too and had a very bad impression of them.
I think ultimately I'll go with the one that I feel liked the house the most which is TG in this instance. Having said that, I suppose it depends on who actually conducts the viewings at the end of the day as the person doing the valuation is not necessarily the one doing the viewings.
Would I be better off not trying to negotiate a lower commission in case my house is then their lowest priority though? The difference would be in the region of £500 which is not much in the grand scheme of selling a house. Also, the market being so sluggish at the moment, do you think I'm better off waiting for April? We're in no hurry to sell really.

I'd also have a look at which agent is used the most locally to you. If people are specifically looking for a property in your area you may benefit from the agent referring them on to you when they've shown interest in another property. And if you end up wanting to use TG, negotiate - you don't have to accept the fee they quote, so tell them you'd rather use them but have been offered a better rate by Bradshaws and see what they say... I'd ignore Saville's and Bidwells unless you have a large country pile to sell, and Cheffins often gets bad press around me (over-valuation, chiefly).

Agree that Cheffins totally overvalue and that's probably why people chose them, not because they're better than the others!

Marron - I don't think the market is that sluggish - I am house hunting that moment and that is not my impression - I have negotiated commision before - not round here though - and don't think it made any difference to the services - I agree I think TG have the edge in IT -they also send you reminders about your veiwing by email which is good

There are very few houses on the market in Cambridge in the price range I'm looking for - 5 or 6 perhaps? There were dozens at a time only a few years ago. I suppose few houses on the market could be good for selling as equally in my village there are only 2 other houses for sale at the moment! The trouble is, they've been on for months and one of the two has been reduced but still not selling
Of course my house is better than that and people are gonna love it

well where I am looking - the reason there is not much on the market is that as soon as something goes on the market it sells -and I think the same applies in Cambridge itself -but ask the estate agents of their view of your area

TG pretty much have our local area sewn up (Shelfords/Stapleford). We hated dealing with them when we bought (2007 so totally a seller's market) but in all honesty I'd probably use them to sell and found the guy I spoke to when we recently revalued to be professional, informed and sensible.

It's a while since I was looking at houses in earnest but I do scan the CEN property section and I have to say my (uninformed) first impression is that Bradshaws are a little more downmarket. In the days of Rightmove etc I supposes in some ways web traffic for individual agencies is less important but I still think I'd plump for TG.

Agree that you should ask them to match the commission and doubt that that would make them deprioritise your house.

As for when to sell, Easter weekend is meant to be a busy time for viewings so why not aim to put it on a week or so before?

We're aiming for beginning of March so hopefully we'll be in a position to offer when a lot of houses come on the market in April.

Good luck!

Thanks

Go back to TG and negotiate the fees. We sold with Cheffins last time and they offered us higher rates than TG, but we went back and said this is what we have been offered can you do a similar deal and they said yes

We bought in 2011 (didn't have anything to sell) and TG treated us like we were a massive inconvenience. Didn't inspire confidence at all and we were quite glad when the house we finally bought wasn't sold by them! Bradshaws were reasonable to deal with as a buyer; the house we bought was sold through Haarts who seemed to do nothing for their money (no floor plan on rightmove for example) but were at least polite and could manage to arrange a viewing.

We have used TG and found them to be very impressive. Their IT is excellent and so is their marketing.