How to politely change estate agents

[DreamsAreFading]

Our house has been up for sale since August. We have had to do all of the chasing with our agent and we haven’t had a single viewing. We have dropped the price by a lot even though it was priced the same as other similar properties at the start. We are long out of the 4 week contract with them. The house is at a give away price now - very little over what we paid for it 18 years ago, and we can’t afford to drop the price any further. The only thing we can think to do is fire the agent. But how do I go about that without causing offence? How do you approach another agent without looking flaky? Do we approach another agent before we fire this one?
Thanks.

They're not your friend. Check your contract tho.

You won't cause offence (well, unless you say something actually offensive!). Check your contract then tell them you're going to move to another agent. Get a couple of others in to value it and see what they suggest in terms of marketing it what would they do that the first one didn't?

Why are you worried about offending them? No viewings? They're not doing their job.
Just email and ask them to remove it from their books. They won't be offended, and frankly, if they are they should be doing a better job.

If I were you, I'd wait until after Christmas before going back non the market. No one wants to move now, and itvwill give enough Time fir new buyers to come to market, who haven't seen your house sat there for ages.

I can barely believe what I'm reading. Not a single viewing since August?? You absolutely need to give them notice and relist with a different agent.

Just email them today and say you wish to terminate the contract. I would be tempted like @Seaside3 to relist with a new agent in January.

Did you overpay?
Being on since August at a "give away price" and still no viewings suggests it's still too expensive. Even with the worst agent in the world, provided the price is low and it's on Rightmove you'd get some interest. No interest at all = overpriced.
It being not much more than you paid isn't relevant, you may have overpaid or the market may have dipped enough that you won't get much more for it.
I'd get some agents in to value it, if they agree with the current price then switch, if they come back a lot lower the agent may not be the sole problem.

Are the photos appealing? Is there something off putting about your house?

Just email them and say that you will be terminating the contract. You don't look flaky at all; they just haven't done their job properly if they haven't even achieved a single viewing in 3 months!
If a house isn't selling, there is either something very off putting about it or the price is too high, usually much too high if no viewings.
I would get several others agents to visit and value, have a discussion with them, explain the previous problems and see what they suggest.

Thanks for the replies everyone.
@Seaside3 I agree, we will probably wait until after Christmas to put it back on the market.
@fitforflight Houses similar to ours at the same price have sold recently, but tellingly they are all with different agents to us.
@Imreallytiredandanxioustoday I do think there are issues with the photos, but the agent doesn’t agree. There isn’t anything off-putting about the house. It’s a standard house for this area and we are in an average area of the town.

Just tell them you are taking it off the market so terminating the contract.

Then interview a few more agents.

I'd absolutely get a new agent on the case. There's a house near me that's been on for ages, I've tried to ring the estate agent and they were absolutely hopeless on the phone, this bolshy-sounding teenager (work experience?) told me they couldn't book a viewing because their computer was broke and hung up.

I would view it if I could, but it's a bit out of my way and I'm not going to bend over backwards to chase it up when there are other houses on the market that are easier to view/buy and I think how awful would that EA be to deal with if I bought that house?

Also as a general rule, no viewings = very bad photos (or nowhere near enough) and possibly missing floorplan (or an inaccurate one that makes no sense e.g. windows, doors or walls missing).

Even at a giveaway price a lot of people won't waste time booking a viewing for the property if they can't see what it is particularly well, and then people get suspicious of things that are underpriced, too.

Big issues that put me off viewing:
a) Photos showing power lines, motorway or train tracks in the shot
b) Photos making it look like the kitchen or bathroom are unviable (no kitchen/bathroom usually means it's unmortgagable)
c) Photos making it look dirty or dingy
d) Photos making it look like the house has severe structural issues, mould, roof problems/leakage or plants growing through parts of the building etc

Obviously there are a lot more things you can do photography-wise to get more viewings/interest, but these are the main ones that make me roll my eyes and scroll on.

Also, have you updated the house during your ownership of it, e.g. new windows, new boiler, rewiring, new kitchen/bathroom, removed any ancient conservatory or shed that otherwise look costly to remove? If you've had it for 18 years and done nothing to it, it probably won't have increased much beyond inflation.

Lastly, have you gone on Rightmove and checked it's definitely on there? That's where most people look for properties these days and any EA who doesn't use Rightmove is not fit for purpose in 2023.

Just to add to what a pp said, I dealt with an agent this year whereby the only way I could secure a viewing was to phone their head office instead of their branch, because they didn't return our messages or calls four days in a row.

Another one are so thinly stretched that they can only offer viewings in 7-10 days time.

Sometimes, it's not the house, it's not the price, it just just shit agents.

I would recommend you a) again either insist on a four week or even no contract again and b) get a friend to mystery shop arranging a viewing to see if the new agent is putting any obstacles in their way.

@monpetitlapin and @KievLoverTwo This has been my exact concern regarding people contacting the agents. Our house is a FTB priced house, so I do wonder if the agent is prioritising the more expensive houses for viewing where they will get more commission. The agent also snapped at us once that he had 40+ other houses to sell when we questioned the lack of people viewing. I do wonder if he is over-stretched.
Thank you for taking the time to write a detailed reply @monpetitlapin . The list of things you as a viewer avoid luckily don’t apply to our house. The photos have been taken at strange angles that make it look smaller than it is. Our house is a good size for the style of it, but the photos don’t reflect that. It doesn’t look much like our house. I showed my 7 year old the photos and they asked if it was the house we were going to move to!
@KievLoverTwo I like the plan to get a friend to mystery shop for our house and see if they can get a viewing.

Do you have a Rightmove link we could look at?

The other houses that were priced similarly and have sold - have you spoken to the owners to see what price they've actually sold for?

It's been the norm in recent years for most houses to sell for asking price or over, so it's easy to think that if a house was listed at X and has sold that it achieved close to the asking price. The market is very different now so it could be that these sellers had to accept a price that was lower than they had hoped to get a sale.

You say the house is priced similar to 18 years ago, but that was around the top of the market for the GFC. It could be that prices have not risen in your area for that type of house since, especially as it may be new build. It's what the market is like in your area now that counts, not what it was like 18 years ago.

If a house is placed on Rightmove at a "giveaway" price then someone will detect that and be interested.

My guess is that your estate agent is detecting that the property is overpriced for the market and is not putting much effort in.

The lack of interest is saying that the price is too high.

I'm shocked by how shit agents can be. When we were looking, there were many houses that I discounted because of the photos, and then months later, in desperation, went to see it only to discover amazing houses that were nothing like the photos. Also agents who didn't reply to emails, didn't want to show houses. There was one amazing house who only took photos of the worst rooms- There was a huge, lovely kitchen that wasn't in the photos. One agent forgot that we had booked a viewing and didn't turn up. Madness. It made me wonder why we don't do it all ourselves really, I'm sure the vast majority of people would do a better job than the very expensive EA.

OP, houseprices.io should tell you what your house is worth now, just purely with inflationary rises.

Perhaps you should mystery shop the existing EA so you are in no doubt as to what is going on.

I would have ripped a strip off them for shouting 'I have 40 other houses to sell' - that's their own fault for taking on too many.

I am afraid they do take some houses on just to bolster the numbers on their books, and they don't ever really care if they sell them, they care what a future buyers sees when they go online and see how many people have trusted them to sell their home.

Clinky link please. That's the first rule of Property/DIY club.

I’d just give them notice, pointing out that, with no interest you feel it’s time to try another approach with another agent.

A difficult market really separates the wheat from the chaff. In an excitable market, all EAs have had to do is take a few photos and list on Rightmove. Now they are actually having to market and sell, and it turns out that some are really rubbish at it.

Really grill the next agent about their marketing and sales strategy for your house (not just in general). And if they waffle, say thanks but no thanks and move on to the next.

I’m not brave enough to put one on. I’m feeling quite low about it all, and I’ve seen threads before where people just pile on with criticism or unrealistic things like rip the kitchen out, make all the rooms magically the identical size. I don’t think it will be helpful!

I haven’t spoken to them, but what they got for it is irrelevant really. The fact is, they’ve had viewers and offers, we haven’t even had someone view and offer peanuts. We’ve had nothing, and that’s the strange thing. Our house isn’t in dire need of work. The kitchen is a bit dated, but that’s all.

You could be right. There is no way of knowing. We are priced well under the online estimated value of our house though.

I’ve thought this too, paying commission to a middle man/woman who does very little!

Be decisive and take action. You haven't liked the photos all the time it has been on RM?

Just put it on with a new agent. Ask if they will be getting a professional photographer to do the pics.

Yes, I’ve looked at that one, because I saw someone mention that one on a thread. We are priced under their estimate by 20k.