Been living in my first house for 7 years … Now gained a wife, 2 dogs, 2 cats and a baby in the past few years (busy) so it’s time to move.

We have a 2 valuations lined up next week with local agents.

Having never sold a house I’ve no idea how to choose an agent to go with ….

What should I be looking for? What should I be asking?

Are they all out to shaft ya?!

Came across the phrase ‘lock in period’ – what’s that then?

I’ve got some research to do but no better place than here to start ..

I can confirm from first hand experience that 100% of estate agents are douche-nozzles

As first home owners, we only have experience of one estate agent who sold us our house, but if you can ignore the small sample, the stats are solid.

Olly – Member

I can confirm from first hand experience that 100% of estate agents are douche-nozzles

😆 I have learned new expression everyday.

They are all jokers.
Don’t trust anything they say.
I think you do get better service if you go with a “premier” agent. But they will want a high % of the sale and may only deal with expensive houses.

We went with one that offered a reduced rate as they said they could sell it in a week as it was desirable. They did sell it quickly, but tried to sting us for more money. Threatened to take me to court. I called their bluff.

As I say, just don’t trust them.

Find out what commission they charge, assuming they are equal chose the agent with the middle valuation for the best guess price.

Ask them what advertising is included.

Ask them what else they will do to try to sell your property.

Chose an agent that specialises in selling your kind of property.

They;re all crap, will promise the moon on a stick, but struggle to deliver a shitty stick*.

(*Just my personal experience obviously, other people’s experiences may differ)

Ignore what they say/promise, as it just won’t happen.

Sliding scale regarding % take. I.e. If it ain’t sold in X weeks we want your take to go down. Do they know average time to sell in your area? Do they know values houses in the area have sold for in the last 3 months? Quiz them ruthlessly.

Every last one of them is a burden to the planet. I have no advice to give. (Been selling two properties for over a year. About to fire our second lot of agents)

Excuse me if i’m being naive, but why use an estate agent at all?

Get your estimates, work out what you want to get for the house, and get busy with some marker pens and a piece of plastic boarding on a post?

Seen a few people do that on our road.

Surely the better question is whether to use an estate agent?

Edit: Olly got there first. There are agencies you can pay to host your advertising on Rightmove and Zoopla for not much.

We are in the process of buying our first, and the people we are buying off are using an online agent, house network I think. They pay a fixed fee so there is no interest in ramping the price for their commission, and all of the dealings I have had with them have been excellent. All of the other agents we dealt with were complete spivs.

Steps in the house-move process:

Step 1
Decide to move house

Step 2
Assassinate everyone who is likely to be involved in the process

I’m mid house-move and things are just unbelievable at the moment. Too much to go into here, but it involves twitchy buyers, a new neighbour with some kind of Kevin McCloud complex and a precariously balanced sale.

Good luck with your choice of estate agent. I doubt you’ll speak highly of them if and when it is all done. What they actually do is money for old rope, so I cannot understand for the life of me how long they take and how much they charge. Maybe if you look for a YouTube video of a leech feeding you can simulate the experience of being involved with estate agents. And solicitors for that matter.

Yours,

Disillusioned and just wanting a quiet life of singletrack.

Agents can end up selling faster and getting a better price than you could without using one. All agents I’ve sold or bought through have been fine – on 3rd house now. Last one sold my house within a week for full asking price, he came up with the highest valuation, which I questioned, but gave me a 2 week tie in and sliding commission scale. Agents should have lots of buyers lined up so worth tapping into them IMO.

As the option not to use an agent has been covered, I’ll go against the grain and say that there are some very good agents out there. Very good.

Tips – selling
1. Look for the agent with the strongest rep, best local knowledge of your area
2. Understand the fee structure (sole v multi agent). Some folk will advise against sole as multi creates an incentive. If point 1 goes well a lot of the arguments for multi disappear and you’ll end up with a higher fee for nothing,
2. Negotiate the fee (and bear in mind you will need to add VAT )
3. Read the t&cs carefully – especially around the fee and cancellation. If there is anything in the contract you don’t like, redact and negotiate.

Always be polite and professional toward the agent. They are there to serve you and get the most for your property that they can and if you build a relationship you can gain an insight into the area and how agents work.

Shop around talk to at least 3 or 4 agents and get their valuations. The highest valuation isn’t necessarily the best.

Tips buying
1. Never reveal your financial info or your absolute max. Give them a loose target and view houses at the top end or over budget with a view to negotiating. Be prepared for potential disappointment depending where you are in the country.
2. The agent is not your friend. Their job is to get as much info and cash from you as possible.
3. Be aware of point 2, build a relationship with the agent and get as much info from them as you can

My own experience in trying to book viewings with some of the larger nationals is that they don’t get back to you with an appointment and don’t chase for viewing feedback. I would not want some of these agents selling my house. However, some were great and good fun to negotiate with.

You could also look at sale by tender where the buyer picks up the fee on your place. Not too common near me but I have seen them up and viewed. IIRC the one I looked at cost the seller £125 and the buyer £3k (+VAT).

Lock-in period.adj 1.length of time you’d leave your estate agent in the autoclave before opening the door. 2. Length of time during which you are prevented from advertising the property with someone else.

Curious, but what is the “normal” realtor fee for selling in the UK?
Where I am in the US, it’s usually 6% of selling price. Some real estate agents will negotiate and some won’t.

~1%+ vat or £1500, whichever is higher. Vat is our equivalent of gst & runs at 20% of the transaction value. The fact that all estate agents fail to quote the actual price is another irritating quirk of their profession.

We don’t have the VAT tied to a real estate sale. Property tax is paid each year, but some cities/towns/counties re-evaluate a property upon sale and ramp up the tax rate for the new owner if the property has, over the years, fallen behind in tax evaluation (which is usual). Here locally, the new tax valuation has become lovingly become known as the “lightning tax”

Can be 2%

Ah we have “land property tax” colloquially known as stamp duty. Paid by the purchaser at a rate of 1% >£125000 or 3% > £250000, 4%>£1/2 mil…

We also have council tax which is payable yearly, based on property value.

I used housesimple (one of the newish online agents – no physical prescence) 200 + vat, they do pics and base ad (which goes on main house search sites), you tart it up and get all calls – so you do your own viewings, patter and price negotiations. Worked for me. At that pricepoint it imho falls in the worth a try category and surprisingly imho out of about 12 viewings only 1 set of tourists.

If you’ve seen a couple of houses you like, go with the same agent (within reason). Its quite interesting when you are putting an offer in and the agent is working for both parties, obv it is a conflict of interest but they’d rather sell both houses than get that extra £1k for the seller.

Haggle the percentage, then only let them put a board outside in return for a premium listing on Rightmove 🙂

Make the house look like DIY SOS have just been round, they can’t take good photos if there is crap everywhere. I removed six bikes from the dining room which helped…

I’d look around the local area and see which one has the most sold signs as they’re most likely the ones putting in the effort to get the sales. Insist they do the viewings and make them work for their money.

If houses around you are selling well. There is no need to use a traditional estate agent. Just use an online estate agent. We used housenetwork. Viewing that first night. Sold in two weeks.