What to look for when finding an estate agent to sell a house?

[MrsJohnDeere]

Haven't done this for 8 years, things may have changed?

Houses very rarely come on the market in our village, so there isn't any particular agent who dominates the area (nearest would be 6 miles away) or knows it that well (ime of talking to them when looking to buy houses).

What should I be asking them?

I know that they must use RightMove, have nice pictures and a floor plan. What else?

Length of contract is important. Don't accept anything more than 1 month's notice to change agent if yours isn't working out (some round our way try and lock sellers into 6 month contracts).

Check the commission fees. My agent charged 1%, but others demand 2% or even 3%.

Find out who conducts the viewings. I prefer to be out of the house and let the agent do the work.

Something good to look out for but not essential is that the EA have people dedicated to keeping the process going once an offer is accepted. Some agents only focus on getting that initial offer - ours (luckily on sale & purchase) are really good at making sure the chain doesn't fall apart, negotiations etc run smoothly.

Top tips, thank you!

Any more?

I would interview a few and if they quote the same conditions and commission I would go for the one that I think likes my house the most. Also go with your gut feeling. I like professional but not too sales person like.

The most up front least slimy got our vote. The most impressive answer they gave me was a simple we don't know instead of making up a load of sales guff. Also phone the office as a prospective buyer and see how helpful/efficient the office staff are. It's the office staff that will confirm the viewings.

Funnily enough they also turned out to be the agent with the highest turnover in our area!

I would seriously consider using www.housenetwork.co.uk

They're an internet agent, we used them and all it cost us was a £600 flat fee )incl VAT) - that was it, no commission at all. We sold our flat in just over a month for a decent price.

You have to do your own viewings but they do everything else: they come and take pics, do a floor plan and list you on all the websites, and deal with the buyers on the phone.

Also once it's live, you can amend your ad yourself without going through the agent (it automatically updates on all the websites). I liked that feature.

There's no contract so you're not tied to them.

They won't value it, but if you've had a few agents round you'll have a good idea of the value.

Personally I got nowhere with online. I suppose it depends where you're selling. If it was a flat in a sought-after area in London, you could just put a "for sale" sign outside and you'd sell in a hour. If on the other hand you live in a rural area I think a local agent increases your chances of selling because they go in the papers and because people "trust"'them to have valued the house correctly. A lot of buyers think that there must be something wrong with a house that's on with an online agent or that it's less desirable. Crazy, I know. Really when it comes to buying and selling how your asset is perceived makes all the difference and for this reason I think online agents can really hold back a sale.

We're in a quiet cul de sac in a tiny village so no through traffic.

I don't want to go down the online route. I want an agent to do all viewings so that I can take the Dcs and the dog away from the scene.

Check them out by going to view one of their houses. Its very enlightening.

Most estate agents in my town (there are 6 normal ones and then about 3 more country estate type ones) can't spell. Even on their own advertising. One doesn't believe in floor plans at all. Another is more interested in selling you a mortgage than a house, and are nasty with it.

So, that all left only two that hadn't already annoyed me. One of them was actually good, so we went with them, mostly because they didn't try the hard sell OTT thing. They sold our house in less than a month. Now I just have to buy a house, which involves dealing with all the sleazy agents again.

"I don't want to go down the online route. I want an agent to do all viewings so that I can take the Dcs and the dog away from the scene"

Fair enough, but do ask yourself if it's actually worth all that money to you?

At our local agents rates, commission would have been £2.5k
That's a lot of money! I'm sure I could find a solution that gets the kids and the dog looked after when buyers come that's significantly cheaper than that.

Food for thought perhaps?

Compare their commission rates. Avoid any that are pushy and slimy - they're very annoying to deal with.

Get them to show you what kind of brochures they do for each house.
The one I used was very professional in how they took the photos - really good photos and very astute choices of which rooms to photograph. Also saved my embarrassment as the neighbours didn't get to see the awful rooms.

There was £100K difference between our lowest and highest valuations so I decided the highest were just trying to get our business and went with a midway figure. So that was a big factor in my choice of agent.

I ended up hating my estate agent. I felt he took the 'buyer''s side all the time, until that buyer pulled out. But they did sell the house (eventually) and they did a reasonably good job (perhaps).

I would only ever have viewings accompanied by the agent. Otherwise you're just letting complete strangers into your home with the flimsiest excuse.

unless your house is going to be sought after I'd def go with a local agent. online agents have their place but from what you've said about location and convenience it doesn't sound right for you. ours charged a fixed fee not a percentage.

Look at which agent is good at selling similar properties to yours. I went with a more expensive commission but made them tier it so if the flat sold for less than certain price we didn't lose out. They had a big market share and plenty of cash buyers on books and they called buyers to get them to view.

That's the problem (but may be a good thing in the long run) - there are no similar properties at all in the area.

We're a 3 bed semi. There are only 2 bed terraces/flats or 5+ bed bouses (for silly money) for sale round here.