[Closed] Selling houses - how much!!!

And don't forget the stamp duty on the new property too....

Our move cost us about £7K in total, and that was going from an £185K house to a £235K house, but that was before HIPS came in last year.

AND it sold in 4 days.... £2700 - £675 per day...

But with their marketting and web hits you might get an extra 5k. We've just bought a house, I don't recall seeing an ad for a single private seller. It is a shame to give someone 3.5k for doing virtually nothing.

RooleyMoor - Member

And don't forget the stamp duty on the new property too...

Stamp duty exempt for the buyers in our area.

And we are off to rented accomodation 🙂

But with their marketting and web hits you might get an extra 5k

Nope, they valued at £10k less and told us we would be lucky than our offer/agreed sale price.
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One of the arrogant valuers sat in our kitchen and told us how she had begun forcing prices up in our area a few years ago, and so had seen prices double. She was rather unhappy when I pointed out that I would not be using her services, seeing as prices have now crashed by 50%, and that we were selling for less than the house cost, and she was clearly responsible as she had kindly pointed out...

I think you'll find that there is a ludicrous mark up on that HIP too. I'm at a complete loss as to why they'd charge you for "advertising" though, surely you're paying them fees for the sole purpose of advertising your property?!

It's about time Estate Agents had to get properly certified and were subject to appropriate regulation in this country. It's ludicrous that we should entrust the sale and purchase of our biggest assets to an industry that is 98% staffed by utter cowboys.....

Our estate agent definitely earned their fee. We'd had an offer on our house that we had initially rejected but then we saw the house we really wanted and figured if we could get it for X, then we could accept the low ball offer on our place. We'd already rejected that offer but knew we could go back to them and agree a sale if we could accept their original offer.

We ended up at an impasse with the house we wanted to buy, stuck within £1700 of our target price but with niether of us willing to give any more. Without prompting, the agent proactively called the people who had made the low ball offer on our place (bear in mind they didn't know anything about our plan) and said that if they could just come up by £1700, then we would be able to accept their offer and we would have a complete chain. Our buyers agreed and we closed the chain out as a result.

In the end the net cost of using an estate agent, given that they got us £1700 more on our place, was only about £400, which more than covered the rest of the work they did.

I know people lump estate agents into the same bucket as traffic wardens and recruitment consultants, but I guess there is a reason they exist - they must do something to justify their existence even if we can't always see it. I do believe that the fees they've been able to charge have been artificially inflated by the similarly artificially inflated housing market, but seriously, right now is the time when they truly earn their fee.

Good luck doing it yourself though!

I think you'll find that there is a ludicrous mark up on that HIP too

Yep.
we are paying £180 odd, not £500...

flat 1% plus VAT for mine

Matt,

That female estate agent...

A famous one in the Sheffield area?
A bit of a cough crappy blunder cough?

we are looking to buy and getting really sick of estate agents spouting utter bullcr@p

anyone have experience of just bypassing the agent and going straight to the seller?

mugsy - damn right there.

Kimbers - yes - this time and 3x previously. Do it.

We are in the process of sell and buying and found our agent to be good. One of the properties were are intrested in the agents couldn't be more helpfull where as those at a different one seem to not want to do any thing and even though we told them what we were looking for (a house in need of work) when one came in we only found it by looking on the net and when contacting them they said " oh it needed work and didn't think you would want it". so it seems like most industries there are good and frankly rubbish ones.

geetee - that sounds like normal practice to me, not "working for your money"? I guess from the outside it seems different.

I could tell some real horror stories about the problems we had with agents a year or so ago when we moved house. Hopefully the whole housing mess will mean that they'll all sharpen up their acts - there are a few good ones but we encountered some real cowboys.

This sort of thing is better in Scotchland

1% plus VAT here too, a few years ago.

Surely they can't dictate their prices with the market so stagnant?

I was shocked as well - I was paying .75%-1% fees 3 years ago...

we just sold ours,1.25% + £350 for the hip + £500 solicitors now that we are in another country they are talking about 30-40k out of a 300k so I think its cheap,providing they do a good job

Makes me laugh when people slag off a business for trying to errrrr MAKE MONEY. Not condoning not doing the job properly but if estate agent X has a good reputation, sells houses quickly and gives a proffessional service why shouldnt they charge more than estate agent Y who takes your money and does bugger all in exchange. Complain about the service. Complain about the staff but the cost is down to the business to determine whats competetive. You dont like it, then maybe they dont want your business either.

I prefer to think like a couple of posters above. A professional and hard working estate agent is worth their money. You just have to find a good one.