Fixed price estate agents

[Champagnebar]

Hi
Does anyone have any advice on which, if any, of the budget estate agents are any good? I know of Purple Bricks and Yopa in my area.

We are going to put our house on the market and have had a valuation from a local estate agent. Their fee is 1% which means it would cost us around £6K in fees - I am not sure it's worth that!

We moved just a few years ago, and from what I remember the estate agents didn't put that much in - we did any viewings and most of the liasing with the conveyancing solicitor etc.

None of the online EAs are much good. If you pay them upfront, what incentive do they really have to get your property to Completion once sold? That is harder than selling it in the first place in many cases, especially in a stagnant market like we have now.

I wouldn’t touch PB or YOPA. I’d select my agent from those who had excellent reviews, who had won property awards etc and I’d be asking them for their best price for an excellent service. These online ones really get my goat the customer service is DIRE

It depends how keen you are to sell and how much of the work you want to do. Personally, I wouldn’t touch any of the online ones.

I had several estate agents round and went with the best fee. They ranged from 2% to 0.87%. I chose the cheapest and they did a great job. Agree that PB and Yopa are not great in a difficult market.

Wouldn't touch PB etc with a bargepole. I think it's a false economy- you'll end up losing the equivalent of that 6% by having to market at a lower price to start with. In my experience people see PB as being used to shift properties that are otherwise unmarketable and are ( rightly) suspicious of the seller's motives. In our area the PB properties are vastly overpriced and sit around for ages before ending up at auction.

Lots of buyers won’t even view properties on with PB and Yopa.

1% is standard and not unreasonable!

I wouldn't touch any of those either, along with Strike. The value in a good agent is in helping the sale go through- it's in their interest, unlike PB etc al who are paid no matter what you do.

Thanks for all the replies.

Yes , in the back of my mind I did have that impression on how the fixed fee agents have no need to push for the best price.

I willbe getting at least one more local agent around for another valuation anyway so can see what their fees are also. I understand 1% is standard, and pretty low really but I am tight :)

Although you describe yourself as tight, please believe me when I say it would be a false economy to use PB or similar. They are very unlikely to get you the best price for your house so it's not worth the relatively small savings.

1% is on the lower end and is reasonable.

We used PB about 8 years ago but the house we were selling was a 2 bed starter home and it was a very strong market. It sold very quickly and we found the "aftercare" good as well. I wouldn't really hesitate to use them again in that kind of situation (starter home, short chain, easy marketing etc).

BUT when we sold again recently (our next house) and our house was more expensive (£600k 4 bed) and the market wasn't as strong, we used a local estate agent who we were very pleased with for 1% plus VAT. We did consider PB again but I'm glad we used the "proper agent" as getting to completion was a lot more difficult. We have larger chains around us who I wouldn't touch with a bargepole (ahem.. Romans).

Currently actively looking for a home and I just totally discount any property with PB or Yopa. I just assume the owners are trying to sell on the cheap and it makes me wonder what else they’ve done on the cheap in house maintenance etc.

Bought a property last year that was marketed by Strike, they were a nightmare to deal with, ‘lost’ paperwork sent by e mail, then claimed they had not received it, finally spoke to someone who agreed they had it the first time but it had been ‘allocated’ to the wrong property. Would never view a property again that was with an online agent. We did however pay £25000 under asking . In contrast when we sold we used a local agent at 1.5% and made £40000 over asking price.

We sold with PB because we bought the (same) flat through PB and had no issues with it as buyers. But when we were trying to sell, we struggled a lot to get motivation out of them after a few months. To be fair, I would say our original agent was lovely and she did try hard to push our property, but once she got relocated to another area, we never even heard from the next agent assigned to us and we had to do all viewings ourselves. I think with these kinds of EAs, it can be luck of the draw if you get a motivated agent or not (and suspect it's mostly not). We got our sale in the end solely through our own efforts, and only really involved PB again when it came to reissuing a MOS when we renegotiated the offer after the buyer had their survey back. They've otherwise been pretty silent. I wouldn't go with PB for any future sales.

I found a local agent word of mouth and he’s been great. Bit of a one man band but his marketing was fab and we sold in four days. To be fair the house would have sold with any agent but what I’m getting is someone who is personable and set up a WhatsApp group for me and my soon to be ex husband. It’s the personal touch. He’s fixed fee at normally 2k plus VAT but did us a deal as we knew someone he’d sold for and charged less. Nobody else was under 1% plus VAT and I worried he was too cheap but personal recommendations were high. It’s early days but so far so good.

I would try to negotiate a better rate of commission with a good local estate agent, you may be able get them down to 0.85 or 0.9?

I wouldn’t view a house in with PB, Zopa or Strike unless I was desperate to view that particular property. I would think the vendors would be a nightmare to deal with trying to get every penny of you! Your house is your most valuable asset and I think you will achieve a higher price and best chance of getting to completion.

Thank you for all replies.

It's definitely got me thinking.

We actually bought this house which was marketed with PB - and I did have my reservations. However we had little to do with the EA and mostly liaised directly with the vendor and solicitor. We used a local EA to sell our own house and they did get more involved, particularly so as our buyer was selling their home through the same EA, so the chain was somewhat manageable.

Also the market was more lively a few years ago compared to now.

I think with PB you pay the fee whether they sell or not.

i paid 1% fee for a fantastic local agent who paid for themselves by negotiating a great price and managed the chain brilliantly. Seems expensive at first but often you get what you pay for

It's because the market is harder now as a seller that you would be better using a traditional EA in my opinion.

In a strong seller's market it's easy to sell but not at the moment.