How much did you haggle off your EA fees?

[Activemum81]

How much did you manage to haggle off your EA fees?

Around 15% back in 2013. We didn't ask for the direct costs off though, but got the EA to agree to a sliding scale - so, if they sold for 15% over asking then we'd pay full whack (2.5% plus VAT) dropping down from there. The house ended up selling roughly where we thought it would at about 5% under, so using that tack saved us a few thousand in fees.

They did push back at first, but I pointed out that if they were confident on the asking/likely selling prices, then sliding scale shouldn't be an issue for them...

Negotiated down to 0.9%. I do think they were then in a hurry to get us to accept silly offers though. I don't think they held out to get us the best price at all. It all worked out though because we wanted to sell quickly to get the house we wanted.

Think original fee was 1.4% but then took them to the Ombudsman because they were utterly useless who upheld my complaint and discounted it by 50% (so I suppose 0.7% in the end)

Normal fee is 1% but we got them to deduct what we previously paid to Purplebricks off of their fees so in real terms it amounts to an over 25% reduction. I have always negotiated on fees & length of contract with EA. Don't ask don't get!

Acorn have just quoted me 2% for a 12 week contract. I’m in London but seems very expensive to me.

What are other agents asking MrsWhirly?

I was in a fixed fee of £2500 and have just managed to negotiate a deal of 0.7 with new agent.

We’ve not long sold but EA offered 0.75% on first go so we took that without haggling as they undercut everyone else.

MovingThisYearHopefully I’ve had two others round, one big name 1.5% and an independent 1% but that one does advertise on the internet so won’t use them.

Oh wow! I'm shocked that any EA wouldn't advertise online nowadays. At the end of the day it comes down to who you think will do the best job of selling your house. If you like the 2% agent best then tell them you'll go with them if they do it for the same as the other agent charging 1.5%. I doubt they'd say no.

We did similar to Moonlight and sold for over asking. I'd rather pay more for a higher sale price than have the house the agent has least incentive to sell. But you never really know, maybe it would have sold as easily and they made a mint from us.