How do you choose an estate agent when selling your house?

[Monr0e]

We are putting our house on the market soon and I've been in touch with a few estate agents.

2 have been today to give us a valuation and I have another 2 tomorrow.

They all seem to say pretty much the same thing and I'm wondering how you go about choosing one over the other.

Is there anything in particular you look for in your estate agent? Any questions I should be asking?

We booked four as well.

Housesimple could not seem to book the time we wanted and kept returning an appointment for another time, then cancelling the one we'd chosen... we figured if their admin was that bad at the start, it wasn't a good sign.

Emoov - gave local agent wrong time, he then wanted us to enquire about his diary appointments with the admin team instead of doing it himself - sacked them off.

Local agent turned up 15 minutes late, provided a valuation calculated by adding xx% on to last year's prices with no other justification or explanation. Then did not send the valuation report.

In the end we chose Purple Bricks because the lady who came is an ex-EA manager locally and was the only one who had her sh*t together. She turned up on time, and she came to the valuation by looking at live and sold prices, examining the features in detail with us and looking at why things had/hadn't sold. We felt this was the most thorough approach and her valuation was roughly in line with the local EA firm.

The golden rule is not to go with the highest valuation but to get an average from all of them. Use the appointment to get a feel for how organised and punctual they are as well. If they are late/ crap with paperwork when trying to get your business, maybe they don't want it that much!

If you plan to invite an online agent, check the terms thoroughly when it comes to fees. Purple Bricks' fee is non-refundable and you have to pay extra for accompanied viewings. Also, you're paying mainly for the platform they offer whereas a local EA is probably more personally available to you.

Check Twitter/ Facebook as well as review websites.

If you aren't sure, go with an agent that does not tie you in to paying a fee if it doesn't sell (so that rules out Purple Bricks!)

Thank you, some good advice.

Both agents today turned up on time, had a good look around and brought many examples of properties that had recently sold. They both have the exact same figure as a starting point to market it at! So not much between them at present.

Will see how the next 2 are tomorrow and compare fees etc

Not what you're asking I know but we have bought and sold with House Network and found them excellent, if you want another option. We paid about 800 quid flat fee in advance and did the viewings ourselves. I think it's a bit different if you need someone to really 'sell' the house iykwim but we knew ours would sell quite quickly so we didn't need to pay for the extra bits a normal estate agent would do.

We went with who we felt was most likely to actually sell the house - all the agents gave the same valuation. We also made it clear we wanted to sell and gave our reasons for moving. We thought that the likely buyers would relate to the particular EA too. We too had someone cock up their appointment time. We told them not to bother. There was another pushy EA who claimed to be the expert at selling on our street except we couldn't see that they had anything which particularly set them apart and it was just coincidence they had had 3 successes in a couple of years.

We asked about sales progression too: we wanted that to be dealt with by someone who had been to the house and met us and the buyers. Lots of EAs with multiple branches have that dealt with by a call centre. We didn't want that.

Try using them as a potential buyer. There's one small local agent I've been dealing with who are utterly useless, I called them yesterday morning to view a property and I'm still waiting for them to get back to me, this is the third house that has happened on. Arranged to see another with them a while back, had to call and cancel that morning as my child was poorly but then got a call at the cancelled appointment time telling me they were lost and couldn't find the house. Their communication is terrible and I've no idea how they sell any houses!

(meant to add they've also never called me for feedback after any viewings I've done with them).

I also wanted to avoid any agents that charge even if you don't sell.

We popped into the EA on a Saturday, it was really busy and we could have been time-wasters but the EA was lovely.

The rate was higher by a little than the others but I liked him and I knew others would too which I thought was important.

Sold before officially on the market in April this year.

Well worth the £250 difference between the EAs not to have to do any viewings!

Thanks everyone. 2 more valuations, 3 all the same amount, one slightly less.

They were all punctual, friendly, knowledgeable about the area.

The one I liked most was the company that did both a fixed fee and no sale no fee offer. The fixed fee is cheaper but some have said not to do this. Can I ask why? We are confident it would definately sell

Do you pay the fixed fee up front? If so, where's the incentive for the EA to sell the house if they've already had their money?

Yes the fee is up front.
It includes all the marketing, professional photographs and premium listing on right move. But yes, completely see your point.

Not sure if this would work in your area but when I came to sell I'd already found the house I wanted to buy. So I used the same agent who was selling the house I wanted to buy to sell mine. He then had a huge incentive to keep it all going.

Estate agents need to be good at progressing the sale to completion too, reading the 'waiting to exchange' thread shows what kind of issues can crop up. Like wowfudge says if they've already been paid there's nothing driving them to push through to completion.

I was convinced our house would sell quickly (fell for the estate agents compliments!), 3 months on and still on the market. My biggest regret is not negotiating on the tie-in period.

They sound terrible @jgm. What do the terms and conditions state they will do? If they haven't kept to them you could have a conversation about how they haven't done so and are therefore in breach of contract but you'll accept being released from the contract? Have you tried speaking to the manager or owner?

@wowfudge we're almost at the end of tie-in now and I've given them notice, to be fair the market is very slow around here in general and they have been proactive in taking new photos etc to keep the listing fresh. It was more a comment to the OP that every seller believes their house will sell quickly but the 'sellers roll call' shows how tough it can be so maybe not best to go with a pay up front agent just in case - and a note to self to negotiate on tie-in when I change agent!

Ah - I understand. Where we are none of the high street agents has a minimum tie in, it's clearly the rule around here.

That's interesting, all the agents do around here!

Thanks again. I know everyone hopes their property will sell quickly. The house next door, which is almost identical, had numerous viewings and offers within a week of going on the market. There are also very few properties on the market in our area at present and they do seem to be selling like hot cakes but obviously this can all come to halt at any time.

Also, good point about moving the sale along. That's something we found very frustrating last time with the estate agents we used then. I think I'll go back to a few with some more questions. Thanks again

We sold our fully renovated (by us) semi in a great catchment area, no through road, lovely aspect to the rear in a fast moving market via Purple Bricks after initially opting for a local agent who sent us particulars to approve which they'd copied from the blurb the agent (not even the same agent) had used to sell the house to us in its unrenovated condition. We were very unimpressed and felt that if we were going to do all the leg work we might as well pay less. We put it on at more than Purple Bricks valued it at and sold 45 mins after first viewing for full asking price. I'm happy with the decision we made and would have done the same in hindsight but the agent did nothing to progress the sale, our solicitor did all of that (I absolutely adore our solicitor) although to be fair the issues were with the one we were buying, not the one we were selling/our buyers.

We are now selling a much more expensive, 'niche' property which has a more limited market. We've gone for a traditional, very well known high end agent. Their fees are more than any one else quoted us and they valued it the lowest of all the agents we had over. We felt the valuation was fair, the agent has sold many of the other properties on this street over the years and we had viewed properties with her when purchasing this one. We knew she was proactive as she'd talked us into viewing a few things then that we wouldn't have otherwise and sure enough, we had several viewings before we were on the market. We did go on to Rightmove but accepted an offer from someone who had viewed it beforehand within a couple of days of it going live. The sale is ongoing so it ain't over yet but I have nothing but praise for the agent so far.

I think it depends on the property, the market etc. If there's not much between them in terms of valuation/fees then I'd look at how they treat buyers, as others have said.