To think this is a stupid marketing strategy for selling?

[Felixss]

Had our house valued. One particular EA charges 2 percent they brought out their slick marketing brochure and bespoke plan. As part of the plan he said we should have a marketing price with offers in excess and an actual price we would accept. Get block viewings in etc so buyers compete. It's not an offers over area before COVID unless priced ridiculously low. I noticed this agent has multiple listings reduced one by 75k combined with his 2percent fee it's high I thought his valuation was over ambitious but he said with dressing and photography it's doable.

DH seems a bit taken it in with it all , I think it's bullshit and buyers are looking for more of a bargain they will haggle below OIEO figure because that's the market. No amount of dressing and photography is going to want to make buyers pay vastly over the odds. The boom is finished.
I've told DH I want to go with a less fancy EA I don't think we will make any extra money from the higher fee.

I think it’s a the new thing these days!

We’re FTBs and had to cancel viewings multiple times when agents pulled that sort of thing on us. It seems to be very popular to try and cause the rush, fake interest. They would call us tell a lot about property, leaving some details out, even though we’re very clear on what we’re looking for. And always lie that they don’t have floor plans etc. We’re busy people and rather would spend our weekends resting, than roaming other peoples houses we have no interest in. As basically most properties would have historical floor plans etc. on the internet, so now we always research before turning up and that’s when we end up cancelling, since they always leave out details we won’t compromise on. And sadly all of those properties would end up on rightmove the week later.

OIEO I don’t try to view, unless very very competitively priced. We’re looking into 700-800k properties in SE London.

2 percent is INCREDIBLY high, especially in this market. We’re paying 1 percent for whizzy London agency with fancy pictures!

Agree with Wanderergirl. OIEO. I don't even look at those properties. I just think the seller will be a nightmare and unrealistic. Waste of a day viewing.

Also we all know the estate agent's tricks. "Lots of interest", "already had an offer at asking", "will be sold today". Then you see it reduced on RM a few weeks later.

Look on rightmove within 5 miles of your house for houses of similar size and price range then tick sold/under offer to be included. From that you can see which agents are actually making sales in this current market.

@maxi2100 Right? I get the same feeling or that sellers are just trying their luck with properties that are not worth the money, because there’s a bit less properties on the market.

from personal experience I find KFH and Hamptons who has most unrealistically valued properties. And they don’t seem to be selling much either.

We have had an offer accepted recently. Saw a few properties that looked lovely in pictures but seemed very overpriced. On seeing them they were obviously very over valued for the area, mentioned it to estate agent and they said as long as they get viewings they keep it at that price. They are still on the market at the same price and it has been ages now. We might have considered it more seriously if it was priced right.
Buyers know when estate agents are trying it on. Most buyers are quite savvy about the market and EA tricks and I was drawn more towards the straight talking ones than the pompous fluff ones.
Our property we are now going forward with was offers over, but it had come down 50k and only when it got to sensible figure did we bother going to see it.
I think you are being sensible but I can see why your partner would be drawn in, they are good at selling after all!

Their attitude just doesn’t match the current market and their lack of awareness would worry me.

We had our offer accepted April 2022 after months of queueing down the street for block viewings, OIEO prices and endless rounds of best and final. When it looked like our sale would fall through at the end of 2022 we started viewing again and the market had switched - viewings whenever we wanted, reductions, guide prices. I’m hearing similar stories from friends trying to buy and sell in other areas, the budget and rising interest rates have really slowed everything down.

Our sale is a cautionary tale on picking the wrong agent too - we sold a 1 bed flat before we bought our house. It was never going to be easy to shift but my partner chose the agent with the best spiel and highest valuation. We had hardly any viewings and no offers so changed agents after 6 months, with a significant price reduction as we needed to sell by this point. We accepted an offer 7 weeks later from his next door neighbour - he drove a hard bargain and had waited until it had sat on the market for ages as he knew we’d then accept a much lower offer. Fair play to him but I reckon we could have got 5% more if we’d priced it keenly to begin with.