Changing Estate Agent

[maybeshesawomble]

We have had our property on the market in a very active market, where typically houses are selling within a week, for six weeks. In that time we have had 25 viewings, and one offer £125k below the agents’ original valuation (London terrace valued at £1.275m originally, recently reduced to £1.225m). We rejected the offer and the potential buyer has said she wants to show her parents the house but they can’t make it here for another week or so. We also have another interested party who

I have had several enquiries from other local agents who valued our house originally, expressing surprise that we haven’t sold and asking if we have considered dual agents/swapping. I am struggling a little to understand what a new agent might do differently. Does anybody have experience of what changing agents might mean, and whether it could supercharge our sale?

Firstly, you need you check your contract with the existing agent and see if is possible to change after 6 weeks, often the trigger can be 12 weeks. Going dual agency usually means a higher fee to the agent in the event of a sale so any new agency would need to outline clearly to you what extra they would add to the sales process. In general, any agent will tell you they can improve your sale time but it's not often true! If your house is not selling in a fast market, there's a reason and it's most likely not the agent. What feedback are you getting on viewings? Is your house fairly priced and at a similar level to other houses in the area? I'd be looking at those things before changing agent.

Rival estate agents monitor new listings and if a house hangs around on the market, they will get ALL in touch suggesting they get involved and implying they have the key to selling it. Doesn't at all mean they have the secret sauce, but they just know it's worth doing because some people will sign up. Dual agency fees will be a lot higher. Check your contract. I moved estate agent and the first estate agent sent me a list of names of people they'd shown around, and if one of them bought it within (I think) six months, the original contract would have ensured a payment to the first agent. TBH, I think it's mainly bollocks because I find estate agents load your house on Rightmove and then show people around and that's that. Having said that, I think once a house has got stuck on an estate agent's books, they become steadily less excited with it and put in less effort on selling it. It's all THE WORST. Good luck.

The cutesy "we're surprised it hasn't sold" faux naivete of estate agents made me laugh. Bellends.

We had an unusual property and found moving to a more specialist agent worked for us, we sold much more quickly. However, if that isn't the case for you may not work as well

Thanks all - and apologies for the hanging sentence. Multitasking with kids’ lunch. The other party are from overseas and per our EA it’s taking weeks for them to get a mortgage deal. The fact that due to Covid they’d committed not to showing the house to anyone who isn’t in a position to proceed is another issue!

Your comments confirm my thinking that given Rightmove etc. it’s unlikely a different agent would have different applicants.

Re. price, it is slightly under other similar properties in the area. Feedback has been minimal from the EA, mostly that our hallway is slightly narrow (reflected in the pricing). We are not desperate to move so there is no urgency for us to reduce well below market rate.

Yeah, I simply don't believe that someone's going to buy it because Winkworth list it on Rightmove over KFH or whatever. One lot may manage better photographs than another or something, but I just simply don't believe it makes much difference at all. They'll imply they've got people waiting on their books, but errr if someone's desperate to buy in your area at your price point, in the way they'll suggest, they'd have to be spectacularly thick not to notice your house on Rightmove.

We changed agents after about 2 months of no offers and few viewings, despite others selling on the same street. Had 9 viewings almost immediately and sold within a week, not sure what the new agent did differently but something worked!

Hi @maybeshesawomble, wondering if you changed EA and the result?

It could be how your agent deals with potential buyers too.

We enquired THREE times to view one house and kept getting messed about!

Another place, the EA was about 15 and had zero enthusiasm. This place also never got back to us originally aboit viewing, we had to chase. The house had been reduced so you'd think they'd have made more of an effort!

Another EA didn't get back to us for a day when we left messages saying we wanted to put in an offer! Again, house had been sat on market for 2 months when everything else had been selling.

One agent was such a liar about various things we'd never go through them for a house again.

All the above was in March to May this year.

None of the above houses were recent listings.

It's either price or EA in my opinion.

@BakeOffRewatch

Hi *@maybeshesawomble*, wondering if you changed EA and the result?

Hi @BakeOffRewatch. No, we didn’t change in the end. The buyer mentioned in my OP made an acceptable offer and fingers crossed we should be moving in the next week or two (which is why I’m awake at 3am stressing!!).

Thanks for the update @maybeshesawomble. I’m not sure if to reduce price or change EA. We sold straight away, buyer fell through, so sort of same as your original situation. I think now the listing is “old” we’re not getting enquiries, so should change EA. But I like our EA.

P.s. good luck with the move! Congrats

Sorry to hear that @BakeOffRewatch, good luck & thanks for the good wishes.

@BakeOffRewatch we are in a similar situation and considering lowering our offer to trigger right move alerts etc. Although our house is unusual in many ways, the filters etc on RM means it's in with lots of similar properties so many pages back.
Our Estate Agent has put us on as a "Premium" listing which means we get to the front page on a rotation with other properties.

We had another viewing this week. I really don’t know what the right thing to do is. Is it silly not to change EA? Or is it silly to think you can control it when it really is just waiting for the right person to come along?

There’s a house I really like that’s been on the market a while, I know the housing stock in the area well so even though I haven’t seen it I’d likely make an offer. I’m making myself feel better by thinking maybe someone is watching our listing and hoping it stays available just long enough for them.