Does changing agents actually work to sell a property?

[CoffeeSparkle]

Curious as have never been through the process, but see properties change agents on rightmove quite often.

People who've done it, what difference did it make?

It was the difference between not selling the house and it going under offer in a couple of days.

One agent provided no viewings and the contract was voided for other reasons.
The second aged sourced a purchaser, but we were lied to about their position and their finances and they couldn’t afford the property after twelve weeks of delay.
The third agent found a buyer quickly and we moved three months later.

It depends on the reason for the change. If it’s just someone different putting it on right move and showing them round, maybe not. But new agents can put up better photos which can encourage more viewings. Perhaps more notably, some agents are reliable and some aren’t. I’m buying a house at the moment, and when I was viewing there were a couple of similar houses and I wanted to view both. The agent for one of the houses didn’t ring me back to make arrangements after I spoke to them about arranging a viewing, and I couldn’t get hold if them, so I just offered on the other one where the agent got back to me straight away with a time for a viewing. The other one didn’t sell for 3 months and came off market. It recently went back in Rightmove with better photos and a different agent and sold within 2 weeks.

I genuinely might have bought it had I looked round it but the agent was MIA

It can if the original one does a really bad job.

Most people would rather believe though that the reason a property won't sell is anything but the key issue - that it is priced too high.

Appropriate pricing pretty much overcomes all other disadvantages. Bad agents. Non karate chopped cushions. Horrible decor. Even blue garage doors.

Not in my case. A few years ago I tried to sell my house. I tried for 6 months with one agent, 6 months with a different one - not a single, even cheeky, offer, so I gave up.

If I put it on the market tomorrow,, it would probably sell in a couple of weeks whichever agent I chose.

A good agent is proactive and keeps the momentum up between offer and completion.

It's also important that they weed out the time wasters by performing financial checks and proof of ability to proceed before allowing a viewing. It's surprising how many people view houses that they cannot realistically afford in the assumption they will get a massive price reduction.

Your price point is also key. Far too many agents give flattering valuations that are way off what the house is actually worth.

It depends. If the first agent was terrible, it can make a difference or sometimes it has nothing to do with the agent and the market has slightly improved or the buyer is simply lucky.
However, in most cases at present, it doesn't make any difference because so many agents and sellers are massively over valuing their properties so it's like rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic.
I've just seen a property pop back on Rightmove today with a new agent. It was stupidly over priced initially, was reduced a little and has come down a little more with the new agent but it is still very over priced and needs a renovation so it still won't sell.

We were on with one agent for I think 4 months, no offers. We switched agents, kept the price the same, and had two offers in a week. I don’t know what the first people were doing.
The pictures were also broadly the same/

Unable to edit. The seller is simply lucky (not buyer) obviously.

That sort of thing really blows my mind. Like, there are really agents out there who just don't sell houses well...but that's their whole job!

Was the first agent a small outfit - one man band sort of thing? I can understand someone dropping the ball more in that scenario.

No, a really big chain across the area with loads of branches. I think that may have been the issue. We moved to a smaller EA with just two branches.

Sometimes, depends on the agents I guess.

My Mum sold her house last year.

1st agent was terrible, photos were rubbish (Mum had had them out twice to take photos as the first set were even worse), never replied to emails, didn’t return calls, never actually seemed to be in the office. Had about 2 viewings and even those my mum was convinced were fake as they miraculously appeared the day after she’d phoned the agent to find out how they were getting on.

She changed agents, new set of photos, same price, much more proactive agent - sold within 2 weeks.

My friend did this. Was selling her flat in a very nice area and was getting absolutely no interest or viewings. She rang up her estate agent pretending to be a buyer and described her own flat as the sort of thing she was looking for. Was told they didn’t have anything like that so she changed agents and got an offer within 2 weeks.

Usually I’d agree that price is generally the issue, but we sold our house with the third agent for more than we sold it with the second.

WOW

Could it be that it happened to coincide with a pick up in the market? During the Sunak SDLT holidays during the panic or prior to the recent increase in the SDLT earlier this year, the property market had a boost, for example. I'm not suggesting it necessarily was these things, just wondering. When the market is not buoyant, choosing a realistic asking price is more important.

It did for us - alongside a massive pride reduction though so hard to tell if that would have sold anyways with previous agents.

Are you wanting to go on the market soon?

I was the tenant in a flat that the owner was selling. First agent no viewings in a whole month. Second agent 10 viewings in the first week listed. It sold shortly after. So I think it can make a big difference.

Agree with pp about phoning agent to ask about your own property - my friend was trying to sell her flat with no luck. Got her brother to phone agent and ask for two bed flat with parking (very rare in that area) and he was told they didn't have anything! She changed agent.

I noticed the difference in agents when buying a house recently. I contacted a few to view different properties. One was very much on it, professional, responsive, we viewed the property, offered and bought.

A different agent took ages to come back to me, asked questions we had already provided the answers to, booked us to view the wrong property on the wrong day, then continued to contact us about the property even after DH had told them we weren’t interested and had offered on another property the day she was supposed to show us around the original one. I almost wished I could contact the owners to let them know how useless she was.

A different agent wanted to book us in with their in house mortgage advisor before we went on any viewings despite being told we had a cash buyer and a mortgage in principle already arranged via our own broker. I think we bought the second house we looked at, so they missed out due to this.

Aside of the obvious scenario - a terrible agent replaced by someone objectively better - change of an agent means a fresh start for the seller after they got some experience from the first attempt, had time to think again about some stuff the first agent suggested and the seller didn't like, the seller has a chance to choose an agent who matches their new, redefined requirements.

No, not at all. There was less than a week between one agent and the next and it was last August. In fact, the market became very flat at the same time.

Selling FMH, exH insisted on using 'his' agent. When they failed and were out of contract, we changed to my preferred agent and property went under offer in days.

It sounds as if they did a good job then instead of just being lucky. Good for them!

Some agents are just rubbish and others you just benefit from being on the market at a better time.