Awful estate agents

[FrodisCapering]

Our house is on the market. Our estate agent has been awful. The final straw was yesterday. A viewing has been arranged a week in advance. They were crystal clear we could only entertain proceedable buyers. When I called after the feedback was they love it but they've got to sell their house.
We've given notice. They have ZERO viewings lined up for the rest of the term but they won't let us out of the contract.
A friend is an estate agent and connected me to a colleague of hers in our area. He's looked at everything and confirmed the price is more than fair for size and location and that the current estate agents have marketed our house poorly. He's shown us his sale statistics for the past month and he is succeeding.
I guess my question is, is there anyone we can speak to about being released from our current estate agents? We are now in the position of them sitting there and doing nothing whilst we lose our dream home.

Our current EA is on notice, and new EA doing all the admin stuff during the notice period ready to launch on the day we are released from current EA contract. Can't wait, our house was over valued and we didn't know that as Zoopla valued it even higher but we've had no interest for 6 weeks and they were unwilling to reduce it because that would have been them admitting they were wrong, so we have taken action. The new EAs valuation is much more realistic.

Anybody looking to sell their property, when entertaining EA pitches ask them to show you their TwentyEA Insights stats (Check out any UK Property Market Stats show on YT and fast forward to the end section where they review a different area each week and the performance of EA's in that area).

I’ve worked in an estate agent. They do nothing of use.
I would use my online estate agent, do it all yourself and keep your money!

This is great advice! Hopefully it'll help others

This is SO kind, thank you, but I think by the time it's sorted it'll be too late for us to get the house want.
If I say it's GH you might have had sealings with them. Never again!

*dealings

What do you expect the estate agent to do exactly? They put it on rightmove, that's all any of them do these days. Are the photos OK, is there a floorplan with measurements on it, is the description missing anything important. If not, it's probably price, the market is slow.

The amount of money you need for your ideal onward purchase is irrelevant to the price your house is worth.

There's a world of difference between the effectiveness of the best EA and the worst. Just check out the stats program I pointed to. It's not just a question of putting it on RM.

I struggle to believe that this makes a material difference to viewings. If the photos are reasonable, there is a floor plan and the description is broadly relevant (I’d prefer less of the descriptive prose and more factual bullet points), who cares who the EA is. If I was unhappy with the EA’s service on any of the above, I could do it well enough myself and ask them to update the listing with my content.

Where an EA adds value is in the bit between offer and completion when they effectively project manage, but I’ve viewed many houses and if it’s on Rightmove in my price bracket, the EA’s input is a limited factor on whether I view or not.

Even if the photo and listing were terrible, if this is a well priced house in a high demand area, I can’t see why they’re not getting viewings (unless the EA is ignoring callers or not scheduling in people who want to view). If I wanted a house in my town and there werent many available, I’d view them all without any further information. I’ve viewed houses before just from seeing a board outside to say they’re for sale - which is an equal offering from any EA.

It's fact baked into the stats. Did you check the stats?

Exactly.

This is good timing. The guy who produces the weekly stats program interviewed the darling of MN - Charlie Lamdin - about EA's over-pricing and how effective the best EA is versus the worst (£300K on a £1.8M property).

In my defence, I did say assuming it was well priced.

But the stats in that video aren’t about viewings - they’re about sold price. I agree that a good estate agent will drive up value and brings something to the sales process that is worth paying for. I just don’t believe that they materially impact viewings in a way I as the seller can’t control. I decide what price it goes on the market for, I can take decent picture and dress my house nicely, and I can write an accurate and informative description. They are the things that get people in the door. It’s after that that the EA does things that I can’t do. I accept a bad EA might give you bad pricing info and lead you to a bad decision, but you have all the info available to your buyers so a seller should be sense checking this (and getting multiple EA valuations and not picking the highest).