Costs & logistics of selling and buying a house- any advice?

[Hayls]

Sorry, virgin home seller here!

What is the average price an estate agent will charge to sell your house? We've had 2 valuations but can't get hold of them today to get an estimate of costs and would like an idea so we can do some calculations before going to view a house later and contact our mortgage provider tomorrow (sorry it's long winded!)

Is 1.5% plus VAT a reasonable charge?

Also, can anyone give us an idea of how much legal costs will be to buy a house?

How many companies would you get a valuation from? We have had 2 with £5k between them and think we should go for somewhere in the middle but we could be wrong... That's what we'd be prepared to accept but should we put it on higher in case someone is prepared to pay it? OR lower to entice them in?

We bought our house 4 years ago and honestly can't remember how much it cost for all this.

Any ideas would be much appreciated

BUMP. (sorry)

The estate agent sounds about normal. A solictor will give you a quote for buying and selling (perhaps £500 to £1,000) and don't forget stamp duty on buying a house. And mortgage/valuation fees?
Might be worth getting a third valuation just to confirm the other 2 are about right. You can check house prices on the net now so if you know of any sales in your road/area recently you can find out what they really got (the one I have used is called ourproperty.co.uk I think and you get 20 free searches a week but there are others or you can use the land registry but I think they charge)

and remember the cost of a survey too.

We are being charged 1.25%. there was a couple of agents who charged 1% but loads who charged more, it depends on the competition in your area.

Also its a really slow buyers market expept for the very fortunate and not many people will be interested in any offers you make until you have an offer on your own house. Not to depress you but I know many people including myself who have been on the market for between 4 and 11 months and have only received very low offers or who had sales that fell through.

Thanks. I had already worked out how much stamp duty and the survey would cost, ouch! Hopefully we'll sell our house quickly, although obviously nothing is certain. A few houses in our street have sold very soon after going on the market within the last couple of months so we are hopeful. Our area is doing ok atm although the estate agent did say that prices are definitely on the way back down now