What would you call reasonable Estate Agent commission percentage?

[wherearemysheets]

I've had a few estate agents round for valuations with a view to selling. The lowest commission I've been offered is 1% plus VAT with no fixed term contract.

What do you think of that? Is it likely that I could get them down further?

What's the lowest commission you've paid?

I'm also looking into Housenetwork so I'm trying to cover all the bases.

The house is in the £150 - £175,000 price range if that helps, and I'll probably put a lot of the work in myself, showing people and so on.

Oh, and it's in Kent.

1% + Vat is about as good as you can expect. You can then negotiate how much they'll advertise in the local press and the style of online advert i.e. no. Of photos premium listing.

Just be careful that theres not a minimum payment of £2500+ vat or similar over 1% clause hidden in the contract somewhere.

Thanks for that - good tip on any 'minimum fee' clause too

Oh and realise that difference in their fee for selling at 150k or 160k is only £100. Sell at 150k = £1500 - at £160K is £1600. They just want the sale. The price is (almost) immaterial to them. If you need above a certain price you could add a price based incentive.

1% is as low as you will get - although the agent that did that for me did the viewings too. As I would expect. (And yes, it sold)

if it is an easy house to sell and not one of the more expensive ones in the area, Housenetwork etc may do the trick. But if the chain is going to need managing, they won't do anything.

It's in a retirement area which is nudging me towards using a local 'real world' agent.

Relieved to hear that 1% is 'normal'.

If the EA's firm is prperly run then they will have a minimum standard for their service.

If they are chartered surveyors - RICS - then they cannot drop the service to accommodate a lower price or rthey isk being stuck off.

If not RICS, then the harder you push them and the lower the fee, the less likely you are to receive a decent service.

To be honest I have learned the hard way that paying a low commission does not equal any sort of sales success. I was with an EA for 1% - four months later and my house has not sold and I have no idea how few viewings they have done.

Have now gone with a different EA (who sold neighbours house) they charge 2% and have now had 9 viewings in 3 weeks....admittedly not yet sold - however think it tells you something.

Fact is - they need to sell the property for me to owe them a commission and I would rather than sell it than not!

I have also listed the property with hatched (like house network I think) hatched have been incredible, they are a national online EA - but really have service at their heart.

It may interest you to know that I have been writing about my experiences and the real life experiment of selling a property with online vs. offline estate agents at my blog whatsamsawtodaydotcom