Inigo estate agent - any experience?

[northchesterforest]

We are thinking of listing our beautiful Victorian home with Inigo and I would love to get some advice if anyone has used them before?

I love their marketing strategy and I feel like going with them would give us a chance at finding a buyer who loves our home and will pay a good price. Their valuation is a bit more than I was expecting which actually was a red flag for me but I don't know whether the market has changed and I'm overthinking it.

They are marketing experts and not traditional agents so the viewers would be done by a local person who is a non-agent otherwise an inigo agent would have to travel up to us, 2 hours away.

I'm getting other valuations to make our decision but let me know if you have any strong opinions please!

It all depends on where you are in the country, and whether using someone like Inigo will attract buyers who would be compelled to move to your area because of the beauty (your words) of the property concerned.

Inigo are the "old school properties" arm of the Modern House. They have great copywriting and photography, they market homes as an architectural experience, almost as a trophy to be collected.

Where I think agents like this work really well is if you want to bring buyers from outside of your area, people who may be prepared to pay top dollar because the want to live in the 'perfect Victorian house' and your area is somewhere they'd consider living.

What can be a downside is when the agent prices it above what people are willing to stomach for the area, and the property sits and sits for a while because no one local will pay that, and no one from outside the area has bitten.

Also people may laugh at you. A recent Inigo property was roundly mocked on our local forum for describing a fairly bog standard Victorian speculative build as having an "enfilade of colourful rooms"

Send a friend to view one of their other properties and see what their experience is like as buyers. I think it’s important in high price brackets that buyers are treated well.

viewers would be done by a local person who is a non-agent

Curious to understand how this works? They surely can't just have a load of random people on standby in various locations around the country?!

They can’t possibly be as bad as Love Property’s descriptions.il

I refuse to believe that is possible.

From our conversation i think that's exactly what they do? They have a community of people who do viewings?

Yes good idea about sending someone on a viewing! They are 12 weeks exclusivity so I'm thinking of trying it out as we aren't in a rush. Worst case scenario we have tried and we will have some nice pictures?

We are in a nice suburb on Birmingham, good train links to London.

I know a young couple who viewed, but did not buy, through The Modern House. They found them rather pretentious, giving them the impression it was a privilege for them to be able to view. They bought a different property through a local, down to earth agent who really knew their patch and were so impressed they would use them in the future to sell.

You can refuse to sign a contract. If they really really want to sell your house and think they can, they should be agreeable as they’re so confident. I suspect they will refuse as it sounds like you already think they have over valued it.

I have never heard of them so am just going on common sense advice.

If you don’t go with them, try to find an agent that literally only sells houses and doesn’t offer any other services such as mortgage advice and conveyancing. Those are the most invested because it’s their only income stream.

Oh and they would have copyright over those photos and you would not be able to reuse them.

If that is important for you, pay for an independent photographer.

Their valuation is a bit more than I was expecting

I wonder what their experience of selling property in Birmingham suburbs is? Their listings seem very focused on London and the home counties, with a bit of the Cotswolds thrown in.

I went on a viewing with a friend to see an Inigo house and the local agent was lovely; very pro-the seller, knowledgeable about the history of the house and firmly but politely made it clear that they expected top dollar for it because of it's history and good condition. I was quite impressed, having just come from a High Street viewing where the agent spent the whole time trying to get my friend to sell her house through them, and knew nothing about the house we were actually viewing! As my own agent has just crashed and burned horribly on my house – and we live in a very old house – I am considering them!

They have local people who like old buildings, often people who have already bought and sold through them! The viewing I went on with a friend was with a lovely woman who looked like she belonged in the house!

I think it depends on who you think might buy it. We’re a family of 2 professionals, 2 kids, decent budget and love old houses so I would have thought we’d be your target market (apart from the fact we’re moving to be a bit more rural) but I don’t browse inigo as a buyer at all, just for some interior ideas! I use Rightmove and usually rely on registering with a good local agent.

As a seller and a buyer the best experiences I have had have been with good local estate agents who know the area well and who often have people on their books already who might be looking for a house like yours (when we sold our Victorian terrace they already had 5/6 sets of people who they knew would like it because they’d missed out on a similar property nearby- we sold it to one of them before it even went online).

That’s great - sounds like you sold through a good agent!

I know people who have bought and sold through Inigo and Modern House and had very good experiences, but all of them were in London.

I thought you had a buyer for your current house and were contemplating trying to complete in 8 weeks?

I went on the Inigo viewing with a friend for their purchase, not mine. The buyer on my house pulled out, then came back onboard and is now demanding a completion of 8 weeks. It's been a real stress and I am still not sure we are going to get there (and the agent has been crap, it's their lack of communication that's caused a lot of the problems, it turns out.