Remster

What sort of fee/percentage should one be looking to pay an estate agent for a house sale? I have just been advised by a colleague that most are around 2% of the sale price. :gulp:

Also, can you canel with an estate agent at anytime without incurring a charge? (i.e. you change your mind to sell or want to try another agent)

Cheers for any pointers.

davegtt

1.5 - 3%

anywhere in that figure usually, some agents are different to others regarding cancelling etc. best bet is to ask each 1

Philip Attaway

I paid 1% in North London and fixed in with the agent for 10 weeks.

Brit_in_Japan

In a word, negotiate. If you're talking properties in the £100,000's then negotiate for every tenth of a %. Or just agree a fixed fee and what they will do for that fee. And if they do not produce results within an agreed timescale, take your business elsewhere.

Kieran_Burns

iTrader: (1)

We're paying 1.25% - Oh and don't forget to add VAT to that figure.

For a £205K house (ours) this works out as £3000... Ouch.

Drunken Bungle Whore

We're on the market at the moment in Bucks and the going rate for sole agency seems to be 1 1/4 - 1 1/2%. For multiple agency that goes up to 2%. We started off as sole agency and after a month went to multiple as the market is pretty slow at the moment - I've certainly noticed more of a flurry of activity since the rate went up. Put yourself in the agent shoes - you're more likely to work harder for a bigger fee!



Check where they advertise before you go with anyone - look on all the main websites and see who's there. Also worth noting that these days if an agent is on Prime Location, they can't go any of the other websites (Rightmove, Property Finder etc.). Worth knowing as well that Rightmove are planning a big ad campaign for September - and they already have around 10 million hits per month compared to Property Finders 1 million. (Please note, all figures are as quoted by our estate agents....)

Also check out any special deals, one of the agents we're on with only goes down to 1 1/2% for sole agency, but they also pay all the legal fees for the sale of the house.

Lastly - does anyone want to buy a jolly nice 2 bed maisonette near Gerrards Cross.....?

richardg

1.5-2.5% or even 3% in a few recent cases is the norm for us (developers). depends on who, where and type of appointment (sole, joint sole, mutiple agency etc). there are lots of people out there who will negotiate though so give it a try!
- there's one agent near here charging 0.75% i think (could be less actually) - not sure how good their service is though

Diesel

Just paid 1.5% today in settlement of my sale - had it as joint sole agents [sic!] after first 5 weeks with one.

Mistake I made was that they were both with the same web portal - make sure you get different house search web hosts.

They worked hard for this one but I hadnt figured on the VAT on top of the bill and that took out my planned new sofa Still, people need their benefits

GCollier

We had a number of quotes when putting our house on the market in May. Best was 1.25% + VAT. We preferred an agent who was initially charging a bit more, but he matched the price to get our business.

Check the small print, but to terminate an agreement you'll normally need to provide at least 2 weeks notice. Most agents operate on a no sale = no fee basis, and you're only bound to pay them after exchange of contracts.

Gary.

Evil6

You lot are lucky... In New Zealand the agents have real sense of humour. They charge 3-4% on the first $250k then 2% on the remaining balance! Worst of all they want you to pay for your own advertising to which they come up with a marketing campaign which they want you to pay for which will range between $5k to $15k

Well known that they also get kick backs from the newspapers for the advertising as well as run a closed shop with the papers not to carry private ads.....