does one high street estate agent really differ from another

[pud1]

i have had a flat on the market in sunny Lancashire for about 4 months now. in the area the flat is in there are lots of flats that are not selling very quickly. i chose my estate agent on the basis that we have bought from them and they were good through out the sale. but they dont seem to be very good at getting said sale.

they are one of the more well established agents int he town but to be fair i am starting to feel that this is translating to stuck in there ways so i am thinking of changing agents.

my question is that i feel that with the use of right move being the primary place that people look for property are all the high street agents not much of a muchness. will changing agents make that much difference. the photos that we have at the moment are a bit rubbish ( dont want to post it on here as its too identifying as an address ) but TBF its an empty 2 bed flat with white walls and cream carpet. so how exciting can the photos get. its priced right for the market at 105k for ground floor when the flat above sold for 107k last year. we are looking to get about 100k for it

We were on the market for six months with the agent who quotes is the next price at the time. My logic was that everyone bought from rightmove so it didn't matter.

Estate agent got us 3 viewings in six months - no offers. Like you, it was empty / unfurnished. We moved back in after six months and changed the agent to the biggest one in the area. We had a dozen viewings in the first month and sold. Could've been because we were living in it again and it was furnished but I think the agent helped. I think good agents cross sell and scale helps.

Quote us the best price at the time!!

When we were looking there was an estate agent that was attroucious! We had to call them all of the time even though we had money set ready to go, had made offers through them, they knew how quick we could move. The same guy turned up to show each time - I don't want to be mean but he should have been left in the office. Hugely overweight, smelly (we had to put antibacterial gel under our noses), completely disinterested, unable to walk up stairs the list goes on. In the end we stopped even attempting to buy through the company. So I would say estate agents do vary quite a bit!

I think lack of furniture is at least a contributing factor, imo.

I'm in London and looking for a house. Two agents regularly call me, suggest new houses they have on, follow up after viewings. One is competent in person but overprices dramatically (green logo, rhymes with Coxtons). Two wildly incompetent- houses routinely placed on the wrong part of the map, calls not returned, and so on.

So, yes, basically, there can be massive differences.

Go for one that advertises on Rightmove and Zoopla and PrimeLocation - that covers off about 95% of online searches.

You also want one that is open as much as possible, so many agents don't open much beyond office hours when most people start looking / want to view on weekends whereas a lot are shut on Sundays which is no good to a lot of people.

We visited a house at the weekend (which I still have very mixed emotions about) We've been looking in the area for months, this house was up for sale for a while but never came up on our radar. They switched to biggest and fastest growing agency and had 4 viewings booked within the week. So I reckon they do make a difference, but it's probably really hard to judge who's going to be best.
Maybe have a look on zoopla/right move, etc and check who's selling similar properties and if any of them seem to be shifting quicker than others.