Estate Agent Fees

[MargoLivebetter]

Could anyone who has moved in England in the last 6 months or so let me know what percentage they paid their estate agent please. It is a while since I've moved and I'd like to get a rough idea before I start making appointments for them to bid for my business. Thank you.

1-1.5% is normal, less if a joint agent. They are usually negotiable.
Check any additions for photos.

I'm in sw and we had a few agents come out. 2 were 1%, one was 0.8 and one 0.7

North west a fixed fee of £1500

Brighton 1pc but minimum £5k plus vat

1% including vat

Basically yes - no board, not on Rightmove or agent's website, so agent has to work their list. Benefits are that in a slow market and for a house that has a relatively small pool of potential buyers, the listing doesn't get "old" and you don't get time wasters (we live in a tourist area and in summer you get people on holiday who decide on a whim they might want to move down but actually aren't really serious, just want to see what might be available at a given price).

1.25% in East Anglia.

Very interesting @LaPalmaLlama I'd not heard of that phrase either.

I've got 3 agents coming around tomorrow afternoon, so I am really grateful to everyone who has given me their fee details. Adds a bit of negotiating power to my elbow.

Don't make your decision on cost of fee alone. As with so many things in life, cheap isn't always best.

We paid 1% + VAT which was similar for 3 of the agents we approached (Zone 3)

Foxtons wanted 3%. Obviously a no from us (as they didn’t offer anything the other agents didn’t have).

@Mildura yes, that is very true. My other criteria will be number of recent properties sold and what is included in the fee price. I will be guided by them on asking price. Any thoughts on what else I should be considering?

@MargoLivebetter

• Photos- actual staging photographer with proper camera and lens' or Jeff with his iPhone producing ridiculous stretch that make your bin look 8ft wide?
• Does it include video or virtual tour?
• Who is doing the viewings - agent or you? What days/hours will they do viewings in?
• Are there any other incremental fees that would be payable by either you or the buyer - for example Purple Bricks make buyers pay the money laundering check fees whereas most agents would include this in the vendor's % fee to the EA.

Brilliant, thank you @LaPalmaLlama

The 1% I paid was all-in, so included professional photographs, EPC, all viewings conducted by estate agents etc.

The agent I used dominates the local market for houses in my price bracket, which could be a downside but actually meant that they were better at getting the chain moving as they were also handling the next house down. I think the sales progression side of things could be a weak point for an online agent like Purple Bricks, or even a more thinly spread highstreet one.

may I follow up on this? quoted 1.5+vat for London zone 1 (£1.2m valuation), you think there's a wiggle room to make it 1+vat or 1.5 all in?

I've since sold @Londonbabyland and negotiated 1% with the estate agent.

Ask, we found most were willing to discuss movement on fees.

1.25% in Yorkshire. We had valuations from 3 EA's and, while she was more expensive, we were happier with her approach. She got us 12 viewings booked in the 1st 3 days, we accepted an asking price offer on day 2.
She has been fab at keeping things moving and smoothing over the little bumps, we move on this week, 8 weeks in total.
She was worth her fee.

@MargoLivebetter congratulations on your sale!
on this end they seem to be more stubborn and also add vat to the going rate (and £££ for pictures and AML checks)

0.9 plus vat 700k

0.9 + vat

SE indie agent - did a good job

Wow, the usual agent fee in this part of Canada is 5%. Sigh. You Brits don't know how lucky you are.

What is a whisper dale please? Not heard that term before.

But we do have to pay stamp duty (property purchase tax) on buying houses, which I don't think you have in Canada.

Stamp duty varies from 2% to 12%, depending on the purchase price, and is higher if you own more than one property. On an average 3-bed terraced house in my part of London (nice but not one of the more expensive parts), you would pay stamp duty of more than £60,000, on top of estate agent fees, solicitors' fees, surveyor's fees and so on. Moving house is a very expensive business here.

Not on Rightmove, no board outside etc. Sometimes it is totally discreet, sometimes listings just appear on the agent's own website, but the idea is that it is marketed to select clients who are already on the agent's books without wider publicity.

When I was house-hunting last year, I was shown round a house belonging to a fairly well-known politician. It wasn't listed on Rightmove, and there were no photos online, as he obviously wanted it kept fairly private. The agents were just showing it to people who had expressed interest in houses in a similar style/price bracket (they didn't tell me who it belonged to, but it was easy to work out from photos and stuff in the house).