How important is the size of the estate agent you choose?

[Hmmph]

We are planning to sell our property and buy a new one. As such, we have had some Estate agents round - small ones and larger ones.

The larger agent claimed we should go with them as they are one of the largest in the area and as such have lots of potential buyers on their books who they can forward the property details on to. They have lots of offices and contacts and can market further afield too. They also said that if you sold with them, they would give you first dibs on houses that came on the market to buy before they advertised them widely.

My question is - in the world of the Internet and Zoopla and rightmove, is this important? Can an agent with lots of customers sell a house faster, better and for more money? Or does that count for very little these days - do people (like me!) generally look at houses on the Internet and choose houses like that and which estate agent they are with is largely irrelevant?

Depends entirely on the market in your local area IMO. In my case & everyone else I know, we find houses on Rightmove/Zoopla.

I'm sure there are some areas of the country where a few whispers from an agent to the right buyer pre marketing could result in a good sale - I imagine with older buyers particularly.

It’s definitely a starter family home/ street so that kind of buyer.

So you think Estate agent with contacts isn’t all that?

I would say it depends on the area too. We are looking specifically in 2 villages and there are a few estate agents but there is 1 that seems to dominate the market. They are small but very localised and all the locals know and use them

I don't think estate agents contacts would make a difference, it just depends on if people see your house for sale on the road or on right move etc. Yes they may be able to "market" 50 miles further afield but whats the point if people aren't looking to move too far, and with the internet I doubt it'd make too much of a difference

My Estate Agent is 6’2”. Can’t say it’s made much difference.

Nobody registers with an estate agent these days surely? We all do alerts on Rightmove and obsessively scroll every day.....

I used a very small, new estate agent to sell our flat at the end of last year. They were cheaper, gave some of the commission to charity, were lovely to deal with, valued it higher, took better photos and got us more than we were expecting for it.

It was great!

Everything is online now anyway so I really don't think it matters. Excellent photos and good negotiation skills are more important.

@VanCleefArpels

I agree with this comment. We only signed up to the estate agents alerts because they were a bit of a monopoly in the area but I don't think it would make a slight difference, we get the same houses popping up quicker through Right Move and Zoopla alerts

Unless you're selling a really expensive house to a niche market, most people will surely find your house through rightmove. As buyers, big agents were the most pushy and irritating - one property we would have otherwise offered on we didn't because of the agent. We bought from a small independent and were so impressed we sold through them a few years later.

Thank you everyone- that was my feeling that I preferred the smaller estate agents, but the larger one gave us such a spiel about how they could deliver all this stuff that others can’t that I started to doubt myself.

As for a 6’2 agent, do you worry he makes your house look small? ;)

In our area what tends to happen is that you contact an estate agent because you’ve seen a house on right move then if it’s already under offer or you view and it’s not suitable they contact you when potential properties come on the market. This is usually a day or two before the right move listing goes live.

When we put our house on the market we had two viewings lined up before the photos were even taken.

I found the big estate agents in my area too pushy.

Even when we chose a small one the big agents kept harassing me to go with them!

I think you get more of a friendly personal service with the small companies.

You can apply the same logic in terms of the quality of service to a restaurant..
A local independent are going to work harder, have better quality ingredients, staff who care and have local knowledge, and more incentive to maintain and build their reputation.
A large corporate is the equivalent of Nando’s. Systems any idiot can work, pushy and have certain targets they need to hit so will say what they need to say to hit those targets

The biggest estate agent in my area is an independent.