Choosing EA...small vs big, video tours

[Potaytoe5]

We've had so far one valuation, awaiting our second one early next week.
Valuation we had so far came a little under what I expected, but still reasonable.

Estate Agent A
The EA is a small franchise, run by a couple.
All viewings are conducted by one of the owners, they advertise on zoopla and rightmove. They also do a little video tour plus all the usual photos / floorplans etc. Fee is 1.2%.
I am not sure about some of the photos they take, such as zoomed in dining table etc, personally I think it's unnecessary. DH likes their videos, I don't really care. Looking at houses to buy I mostly pay attention to the floor plan and photos showing state of the kitchen/bathroom, size of the garden etc. Do people like seeing videos?

Estate Agent B
Local go-to agent. Not sure about the fees yet, likely to be slightly higher than EA A. Lots and lots of houses around sold by them (50-70%), they're selling several of the ones we'll be viewing. Does it make a difference if we buy/sell through the same EA?
No video tour, just a slideshow. Nice, standard photographs. Not sure who does the viewings yet.

Both EA have great reviews online, both on google and fb. Is there anything else I should be paying attention to? Anyone can share their experiences? I'm currently reading through similar threads, but feeling a bit lost as we never sold a house before. Many thanks.

I'm not too bothered by a video in a normal sized house. It only adds value where there are hidden features that you wouldn't otherwise see. Like one I watched last year where they had turned the space under the stairs into a very well organised utility area.

The house we're buying has a 360 degree virtual tour and that's been brilliant. It's probably the main reason we're not hassling the sellers for another viewing. I can zoom around the house whenever I'm planning furniture or paint or flooring.

Fees are always negotiable.

See I really like a video, it makes the floor plan make sense for me.
We’re currently looking at putting house on market and I’m leaning toward small estate agent as I want a more personalised service. But I’m still not 100% convinced.

I buy and sell houses a fair bit.

I'm not interested in videos and never watch them.

However, I am interested in floor plans, measurements, and good photographs.

You'd be surprised how estate agents vary - quite a lot of them have very poor photographs. A good photographer will not just take a photograph but will move furniture around, hide all the general crap etc, in order to get the best possible photo.

Fees are often negotiable.

Choose an agent who sells the kind of property that you're selling. You wouldn't choose Savills if you were selling a bungalow in Burnley any more than you would choose a local one-man band if you were selling Buckingham Palace.

Look at the particulars for the other houses which your possible agents are advertising. If they are badly written (poor spelling and grammar), which a lot of them are, then what else can't they get right?

I never watch the video tour.

I sold/bought through one EA and we had a discounted selling fee due to this. However, they new our exact position when it came to buying the new property and “invented” another buyer who supposedly put in a higher offer nanoseconds before our offer and tried to extract another £10k off us. The house had been on the market for a year and a friend had previously warned me that the EA had form for this so we said “oh dear, first come first served, come back to us if the buyer drops out” which he magically did - but you might not want to take the gamble if your EA does this to you, as they might actually have received another genuine offer.

Oh, and when it comes to photos, make sure that ALL THE LOO SEATS ARE DOWN.

@ThisGirlCab The house we're selling is a very standard semi, no exciting things to be revealed on a video. I am finding it difficult to watch through 2 minute video of zooming above the dining table / peering round the kitchen corner from EA A.

@ThisGirlCab I can't actually find any houses with 360 tours near me, I was thinking about checking any EA who do them.

Is there any advantage of going with the biggest EA, with lots of houses on the market? Would that give me a possible advantage when buying? Would they tell us of any upcoming houses we might want to buy before they're on rightmove??

@Garrard EA A has one house like ours on sale. EA B has 16! They do seem to be getting reduced a fair amount, I wonder if they tend to overprice them. Can't easily compare to EA A in this regard as they simply don't have enough listings to see.

I didn't watch videos.
I absolutely want a floor plan.
I really don't care about the artsy closeups of a bunch of flowers! Slightly less bad when it's something that is staying in the house, but I'm basically bothered about the structure of the house, not stuff that can be changed!
Negioate on the fees (we paid 0.66).

I'd probably go with B due to market share - although have a look at who actually has sold houses, and who has loads sitting around reduced.

Check their sold record on Rightmove - are they actually selling properties?

Good photos and a floor plan are a must. Anything else I don’t really care about at the looking stage.

Once you get to selling, I want a dedicated progressor who will proactively keep the chain moving and will pay extra for that. Estate agents should do a huge amount after an offer is accepted so make sure they are good at that too!

Hate the videos they rarely add anything, good floor plans with compass detail, good clear photos, not fish-eyed and cut the bollocks with the artsy pics of flower or table arrangements.

I just had a look on rightmove.
EA A has 2 similar properties sold in the last 6 months, 1 on the market.
EA B has 16 on the market, 20+ sold in the past 6 months.

@manontroppo Sorry to sound uninformed, but what would 'help the chaing moving'? What should I pay atention to?

DH liked the EA A guy, he seemed pleasant enough, but I don't care for the videos and absolutely hate the wanky photos 😂Unless they are selling their armchair and coffee pot with the house, I dgaf.
I can always have a look at someone in between the two.

I don't like those funny montage videos that are pretty much just a slideshow. I like guided tours were the agent may do a narration; especially if they have good local knowledge.

Some of the photos are hilarious, one agent near me must use the widest angle in the world. One house I viewed was almost like a different house compared to the photos.

Agent A does the proper guided tour, agent B just the slideshow. I just don't find it either too helpful or good myself and I prefer more photos. Especially since EA A does a lot of pointless photos of things that are not coming with the house. I find it a bit off-putting.

Floor plan is vital, video tour is not (does anyone watch them?). I've never really understood the whole EA showing viewers round thing, I've done that myself. As long as you retain veto of video and photo choice you can go with whom you like. Good property listing photos are factual rather than artistic - the kitchen is the star, not the stunt pineapple. Oh, you might want to check whether the EAs expect you to provide your own pineapple or whether they have one on retainer.

Personally, I would advise against using the same EA to sell that you're likely to use to buy. They'd be conflicted and will hold too much information on the status of your own sale.

As long as it's listed on Rightmove it doesn't matter which agent's name is against it.

@Potaytoe5 Our progressor was on the phone regularly to the other solicitors in the chain (a couple of times a day in the run up to exchange and completion) to see where the hold ups were, and then feeding back to us or the relevant party. It meant that delays were minimal as there was no excuse for someone going “oh I didn’t know we hadn’t filled in this form” and such like, and they could do it during the working day when we couldn’t always drop things at work. They are also somewhat more neutral when dealing with solicitors and other agents compared to overly involved buyers.

The progressor did all the legwork of getting exchange and completion dates agreed up and down the chain - we gave them a range of dates we were happy with and they came back with the agreed date. Their regular calls with solicitors/conveyancers kept our move at the top of their to do pile.

We moved when interest rates had started moving up monthly and everyone in the chain was using a mortgage offer from before rates moved, so everyone was motivated to move before their mortgage offer expired!

I would disagree with DogInATent - our agent was selling 3 out of the 5 houses in the chain. It meant they were very motivated for the chain to work (as they’d make bank), but also it meant there were fewer opportunities for miscommunications.

A good agent will build chains and keep them together as necessary to make sales happen.

@manontroppo I read somewhere that using the same agent to sell and buy might be better rather than worse as well. I imagine it is easier for them to communicate if they are in the same building!

I just found a chrome extension for rightmove, that shows history of price reductions.
EA B seems to have a form of overvaluing properties and having to drop the price a lot!
EA A not so much, but with so few properties available it is more difficult to tell

Had the bigger EA B come to day, his valuation is very similar to the small EA A.
Their fees are exactly the same! I was expecting the bigger company to have higher fees. The rest seems similar, no sale no fee, photos included etc.
I'm thinking of going with the bigger EA, I think their photos are better and I'm hoping for some advantage as they sell so many houses in my town.
I feel a bit guilty for not supporting the smaller company already😓

I went with the EA who dominated our local market. They have a policy of slapping a sold STC sticker on the sales board as soon as offer is agreed so I could see they got quick results. They were brilliant, their sales progressor navigated a difficult chain and kept me sane.
This was last October so the market was already getting sticky.
They were cheaper than others and gave me a discount because I had purchased the property through them 10 years previously. There was no tie in period either. They were local rather than a national chain.
They did do a professional video tour and the photos were amazing. I personally hate close ups of decor etc and would much rather have extra pictures of rooms from different angles. A clear floor plan with measurements is crucial.
I got 3 proceedable offers after the first day of viewings.