Photographs of property

[Itsallpointless]

Can anyone tell me if it's normal practice for an estate agent to charge (upfront) for taking pictures of your property?

My elderly parent is selling his home, and has been asked by an independent photographer (provided by EA) for a fee to take pictures to market the property. I've never encountered this before?

TIA

I've never heard of that? Usually the price of all marketing is included in the fee.

Nope, not in my experience - I've never been asked for any fees upfront by an EA, they are all payable if the house sells.

When I sold my house earlier this year my EA tried to sell me a Premium package which he said would provide better photographs than the ones he could take. I said I wanted to see the quality of his photos first, was happy with them so stuck to that which were included in their basic fee. Could it be something like this they were trying to sell? Otherwise I would have thought photos would he included in the package.

No, that should be included in their fees! Which agent is it?

Agree with pp’s. We’re on the market and haven’t paid a penny so far.

Thanks for the replies. I sold my property 9 years ago so thought things might've changed in that time. I'll check it all out tomorrow. Thanks again.

I'd rather not identify the EA before I speak with them, I wouldn't like to give them bad press when it's not deserved.

I'll update when I've heard.

Your Move charged us upfront for photos. Their fee was also astronomical.

We were stupidly naive and I’d never agree to those T&Cs now.

Another person here whose agent provided a photographer as part of the fees. He did a brilliant job of making our house look GOOD!

Yes, one agent charged for the photos, others not. I think it's agent dependent.

I'd look at the costs in conjunction with overall fee. They may sub out the photos but have a lower final sale % fee.

The total cost is what would interest me. But if you pay for photos and then switch agents then I guess that's a sunk cost.

One of my local agents with a reputation for premium properties does charge extra for a floor plan. But I have never heard of one charging for photos.
Perhaps, as a pp has said, they'll do photos themselves, or you can pay extra for better ones taken by a professional.

Ok so, after speaking to the agents, it includes a floor plan and an EPC cert? Never heard of EA doing this? I think it's money for old rope to be honest.

One of the agents we recently had round had very low fees so they charged for their photo package (around £200 iirc) and epc which had to be paid even if you pulled out of a sale, another had a "premium package" which was optional. The one with the highest fees the photos epc etc were included, so if you pulled out or changed your mind there was no cost.

The EA with the higher fees (which were garduated on the price the house sold for) was much more professional than the others. They had selling data and timescales for the local area and similar houses, had researched all previous sales in the area and importantly had a plan for selling the house with contingencies for a slow market.

Have a look on rightmove or zoopla for houses being sold by local agents and asess their picture quality and also the amount of pictures. I don't understand why some EA's don't include lots, or take photos on a snowy or wet day and then don't update (e.g. christmas trees in front room photos still be shown in the summer, indicates a houes has stuck around). On another thread the EA hasn't shown photos of the evndor's bathrooms even though they have been updated. Quite rightly MN'ers piled on to say thye would suspect the lack of bathroom photo meant they were an issue. People select houses to view these days based on the internet photos, they are very important.

I've used online agents in the past and, with them, you have the option to supply your own photos or use their photographer for a fee. They also charge their fees upfront, so you pay whether or not the property's sold, but the fees are a fraction of what High St agents charge.

Knight frank charge for photos.
And 1.5% selling fee!

Some do this as a one off fee and then don’t charge a percentage on the purchase price.

We've had quotes from 5 estate agents. The ones who charge a percentage have been 1%. Fixed fee ranged from £1,300 - £3,000 (average £2,000). All included photos.