Flat not selling - is it time to change agents?

[WokingOrNot]

We put our flat on the market 3 weeks ago, but have had only one viewing. We invited 6 agencies for valuations and we got four different prices with a £75k / >15% difference. After shortlisting to two companies we went with a higher (but not the highest) valuation, which now seems to be too high given the lack of interest. But now we're not sure what to do. Clearly we need to drop the price, but the agent has recommended dropping it by 10% due to the apparent complete lack of interest. This would make the asking price the same as the lowest of the 6 valuations we received. We could also opt for a 5% drop instead to test the market.
But the bigger question we'd like help with is: is it time to change agency?
Our thinking is that would mean the property listing gets a fresh start on the portals so it doesn't appear stale, and the other agency may have a more suitable customer base (looking for flats in our area rather than houses, maybe). What would you recommend? How could we check that the new agency is actually better suited? The current agency is good at communicating with us, but the lack of interest is worrying. Do all buyers come from Rightmove and Zoopla, or are they more likely to be registered with a specific agency and found this way?
Talking to both agencies is no help as they'll obviously claim they have lots of buyers and argue their case to keep/get us on their books.

Does a 5% drop take you down a price band on RM? If not I’d say there’s no point.

IME most buyers will come via RM, not the agent.

Are your photos ok?

Have you already signed a sole agency agreement though? I thought it was quite hard to get out of those unless you get the new agents to agree to split the commission.
I don’t know where your flat is but I think flats in general are quite hard to shift at the moment. People are after houses with outdoor space. I’d say that’s true especially where the flat is an expensive one (500k from the figures) as you won’t be hitting the first time buyer market as much as cheaper ones.

Are you brave enough to post the rightmove link?

Are you sure it's not just the flat's relative lack of appeal to buyers? where is it in relation to transport links, for example, and what floor is it on?

A price drop will refresh it on the property search websites. Ie. You’ll come through if people have a search on for that price range as dropped or new to market.

@SheWoreYellow

Does a 5% drop take you down a price band on RM? If not I’d say there’s no point.

IME most buyers will come via RM, not the agent.

Are your photos ok?

I agree your buyer is most likely to come through right move. If it's not attracting any interest then I suspect it is overpriced by a lot, especially if there have been no cheeky offers. Or given the lack of viewings something else is putting people off such as the location or photos.

I think it probably is overvalued as that is a common tactic that certain agents use like Dexters. It would be good if you could go back in time and appoint one of the agents that gave you a more realistic valuation but you can’t. I expect you are locked into a contract with this agent now so you need to read the small print or phone them to ask how much notice you would need to give them - it is commonly about 12 weeks.
I would reduce the price by 10 % or to an appropriate band for Righmove as suggested above. Nearly all buyers look on Rightmove so in a way the actual agent isn’t that important. I would be annoyed though at the high valuation paired with lack of viewings - they got the price wrong either accidentally or (more likely) deliberately

Not brave enough to post a link, but the location is great for transport (in London), 30 minutes by Tube to the city centre. It's a purpose-built flat with a designated car park in a gated development. The flat is very spacious (965ft, 89m), 2 bathrooms, big open plan kitchen. Other flats in the area are much smaller, maybe 2/3 or 3/4 the size, and usually don't have parking. Everything is recently refurbished with neutral colours as we knew we'll be selling. The only non-price aspect that might be an issue is it's ground floor which I know puts some people off, but with a newborn we were very happy to have that. We have a short contract with the current agency, so could end that and change from them in a couple of weeks.

Ia all the cladding stuff sorted out for the block of flats with the certificate etc?

@WokingOrNot I’m assuming you’re in England and don’t have a home report valuation to work off of OP?
What kind of marketing is your agent doing?
We met with 4 agents and some were wildly unrealistic about the potential sales value!

We’re in Scotland and our flat is currently under offer. Our agent listed on Rightmove etc with photos and a video tour. They also done great social media advertising as soon as the listing was live. We went on the market at 11.30am Friday, had viewings start at 3pm the same day and had our first offer by 3.30pm. Had another 10 viewings over that weekend with another 4 offers put in. We accepted an offer on the Monday morning at 10% over our home report value (not the highest offer but the highest was tied to a chain whereas our buyer isn’t!)

@Geneticsbunny

Ia all the cladding stuff sorted out for the block of flats with the certificate etc?

Yes, that's all sorted.

Can you get out of your contact with the current agent?

My experience has been that the lower valuations are the more experienced/sensible agents who understand the market better. They are unlikely to undervalue the property, they want the best possible commission, but they know the limitations.

You could always do OIEO a lower valuation so that you're more likely to get a decent offer.

The agents that promise the world (higher valuations) just want you to sign with them and then reduce the price - as you've experienced.

We had an an agent value 30k over what we eventually got for a property and I knew houses bigger than ours on our road weren't even going for that. It just put me right off him because he was either a) lying b) stupid and neither option was someone I wanted to sell my house with.

[quote BaffledMum22]@WokingOrNot I’m assuming you’re in England and don’t have a home report valuation to work off of OP?
What kind of marketing is your agent doing?
We met with 4 agents and some were wildly unrealistic about the potential sales value!

We’re in Scotland and our flat is currently under offer. Our agent listed on Rightmove etc with photos and a video tour. They also done great social media advertising as soon as the listing was live. We went on the market at 11.30am Friday, had viewings start at 3pm the same day and had our first offer by 3.30pm. Had another 10 viewings over that weekend with another 4 offers put in. We accepted an offer on the Monday morning at 10% over our home report value (not the highest offer but the highest was tied to a chain whereas our buyer isn’t!)[/quote]
That sounds great. Nothing like that happened here, unfortunately. The listings went live, the agency called potential buyers (at least they say they did), and that's it.
We had one viewing on the first weekend, but they said that they didn't want a ground floor flat so were a time waster. Since then we were told there'd be another viewing but they "rescheduled" and over a week later they're still nowhere to be seen.

Post lockdown flats aren't as popular as they were. My brother is selling a flat in London and his has been on the market for a year with only a few viewings. If you aren't getting viewings and then the only thing to do is drop the price.

Does the listing clearly state the service charge and ground rent? In a purpose built block, many people assume it’s going to be high, so if it isn’t it would be good to display that info upfront.

Other people think differently but unless you have evidence that your agent is actually shit or blocking viewings (or you have a niche property in a unique location), I’m not convinced the agent makes much difference. People see a listing on Rightmove and request a viewing if they’re interested. The days when e.g. the agent with the most prominent position on the high street where everything in the window got the most attention are gone.

Would a 5% drop move the price into a different search criteria? (I.e. from “up to £600k” to “up to £550k”)? That would give you a different audience. If not, I’d drop lower and see whether the attractive price generates interest and more than one potential buyer who can then be encouraged to bid.

@WokingOrNot

Not brave enough to post a link, but the location is great for transport (in London), 30 minutes by Tube to the city centre. It's a purpose-built flat with a designated car park in a gated development. The flat is very spacious (965ft, 89m), 2 bathrooms, big open plan kitchen. Other flats in the area are much smaller, maybe 2/3 or 3/4 the size, and usually don't have parking. Everything is recently refurbished with neutral colours as we knew we'll be selling. The only non-price aspect that might be an issue is it's ground floor which I know puts some people off, but with a newborn we were very happy to have that. We have a short contract with the current agency, so could end that and change from them in a couple of weeks.

Being ground floor shouldn’t be too much of an issue if the flat is correctly priced. If you aren’t tied into a long contract with your agent I would give them notice- that will certainly concentrate their minds on trying their best to get people through the door in the notice period. I would be thinking about which agent would be your new choice - someone who gave you a more realistic valuation and seemed like they would be good at communicating

Thanks, a lot of helpful advice.

If the price drop is too small it doesn't refresh the Rightmove listing. Check with your agent but 5% might not be enough to send you back to the top of the list, in which case its not worth doing.

Will you be able to exit your contract? I ditched some estate agents and they told me that if I sold within 6 months they would
be entitled to their %.

We're not in a rush to sell but, given the price increases in the wider market, are not sure if waiting will work in our favour or will actually make things worse.
One option is to try a different price and potentially a different agent too and if we're not happy with the result, take the flat off the market and try again in a year. We definitely want to move eventually (planning a second child), but we don't have to move this year.

How bads the service charge?
London flats arent great to sell at the moment- I have friends remove them from market as they would have made no profit in the time they've owned them (2015 bought).

@ilovebencooper

Will you be able to exit your contract? I ditched some estate agents and they told me that if I sold within 6 months they would be entitled to their %.

From our understanding it's only if a buyer was introduced to us by a current agency and we have a right to ask for a list of those buyers. But as we only had one viewing we'd argue if they put more than one name on that list. Has anyone successfully changed an agency?

@OnlyFoolsnMothers

How bads the service charge? London flats arent great to sell at the moment- I have friends remove them from market as they would have made no profit in the time they've owned them (2015 bought).

The service charge is actually reasonable, 1600 per year (includes water), no ground rent. We own part of freehold.

What area of London? We sold our flat in SW London this time last year - it had a communal garden so sold pretty easily and we had quite a number of viewings BUT everyone wanted a bargain. There was a real feeling of buyer power which I haven’t felt when selling before. We sold in the end for an ok price, wasn’t brilliant but we wanted to be in our new area in time for school deadline applications etc.
Our agent was KFH and every few days sent a report with how many people had opened the rightmove link/ how many people they had contacted/ how many people they had mailed the property etc - can you ask your agent for these sorts of stats to see how active they’ve been?