Estate agent and lettings MEGATHREAD - No advertising in here

[cayton 10]

Got Blundells in for valuation - smooth sales pitch - "its great to come to a house which doesnt need work doing to it..... the last house i had to write 2 pages of improvements......mmmm"

 

1.5% commission + £299 advertising fee plus other extras to boot. Advertising fee??? Brochures are printed straight from a colour laser printer now. When I looked in Property guide they took up 5 pages were devoted to their award ceremony and how good they were - is that what they want paying for???

 

Nowadays no one hardly visits branches of estate agents - you drive around area interested in and view online.

 

Key2go seem to be a breath of fresh air. They will arrange HIPs at a local sols for £229 and will negotiate with other sols for completions etc and offer the full package inc mortgage advice. Brochures are top notch to. Best option is £199 upfront and £500 on completion - regardless of value of your property. They have a presence on Rightmove.co.uk - so if went for Blundells would be £2200 to sell my house in total - Key2go £699. For £199 if it doesnt work out then nothing to lose. If you pull from Blundells the cancellation charges are higher than £199!!

[espadrille 10]

Blundells quoted me 1% a few months ago. It might depend on where your house is though - I think they find some areas easier to sell than others. Or perhaps they have put up their prices in the current market. I'm sure they have to put in more hours effort per sale these days.

Not at all.Many houses in S10 that they are selling are SSTC.Take a look at their website.

[wibbles 10]

Got Blundells in for valuation - smooth sales pitch - "its great to come to a house which doesnt need work doing to it..... the last house i had to write 2 pages of improvements......mmmm"

 

1.5% commission + £299 advertising fee plus other extras to boot. Advertising fee??? Brochures are printed straight from a colour laser printer now. When I looked in Property guide they took up 5 pages were devoted to their award ceremony and how good they were - is that what they want paying for???

 

Nowadays no one hardly visits branches of estate agents - you drive around area interested in and view online.

 

Key2go seem to be a breath of fresh air. They will arrange HIPs at a local sols for £229 and will negotiate with other sols for completions etc and offer the full package inc mortgage advice. Brochures are top notch to. Best option is £199 upfront and £500 on completion - regardless of value of your property. They have a presence on Rightmove.co.uk - so if went for Blundells would be £2200 to sell my house in total - Key2go £699. For £199 if it doesnt work out then nothing to lose. If you pull from Blundells the cancellation charges are higher than £199!!

 

I concur. Also alongside this you could also advertise yourself on Homes.co.uk or another one which I can't remember for somewhere around £99. Still comes in way cheaper than your run-of-the-mill-doesn't-do-much-for-their-1% estate agent

[brianthedog 10]

I've used ELR a few times (both buying and selling) and they've been excellent. They seemed to have an excellent understanding of the types of properties involved and offered some very sound advice on possible home improvements when I was just making polite conversation with one of their agents. Will be the first agents I approach when I come to sell my current house.

 

Blundells are also very good, if a little aggressive. They will get you the best price but I would be reluctant to buy through them as I don't feel as if I could trust them (mystery buyer out-bid me on one property only to pull out 3 hours after I refused to match them)...

[gracious1976 10]

Can anyone help me?

 

I put my house on the market with Haybrooks in July last year. The terms and conditions I signed stated I didn't need a HIP until I sold the propoerty - advice given to me by the branch manager at the time (obviously to get my business) and also stated on my contract which is signed both by me and them. The price quoted for the HIP was £299 (when sold) - this is exactly what is written on the contract.

The manager has now left and the new manager has stated that I need a HIP to market the property which I'm not disputing but I took the previous managers word as he's the expert!

 

They have now told me the charge will be £399 and not £299 as previously stated on the terms and conditions. I signed up to their services based on the advice given by the previous branch manager which was obviously incorrect and illegal. They have said unless I pay the £399 then we cannot proceed with marketing the property. The other alternative they offered was to defer the payment until it was sold but this would cost me an extra £50!

 

I have said that they are not providing the service I agreed to in the first instance and by changing the terms and conditions I signed they have a) mis-sold thier services and b) they have backed out of the contract. What I want to know is if they are they in breach of contract and can they back out or change the contract like this - essentially by changing the contract and putting up the price of the HIP and contradicting the advice given when I agreed to sell through them?

 

I've told them I want to pull out of the sale and luckily for me the T's & C's I signed also state that the withdrawal fee is £299 (for HIP) but obviously as I haven't had the HIP done I owe them nothing!

 

They are blaming the previous branch manager for giving me incorrect advice (is this not illegal in itself?) I tried to negoatiate with them - basically I said I would stay with them if they picked up the difference, they've refused this which I feel is very short sighted of them as a) I'm now going to tell everyone how cr*p they are and b) they are going to miss out on the 1.5% commission fee if they'd sold the property!

 

I'm thinking of contacting the ombudsman to see if I have a case against them but thought I'd see if anyone out there has had a similar experience or could offer me some advice.

 

[SAMLAD 10]

Can anyone help me?

 

I put my house on the market with Haybrooks in July last year. The terms and conditions I signed stated I didn't need a HIP until I sold the propoerty - advice given to me by the branch manager at the time (obviously to get my business) and also stated on my contract which is signed both by me and them. The price quoted for the HIP was £299 (when sold) - this is exactly what is written on the contract.

The manager has now left and the new manager has stated that I need a HIP to market the property which I'm not disputing but I took the previous managers word as he's the expert!

 

They have now told me the charge will be £399 and not £299 as previously stated on the terms and conditions. I signed up to their services based on the advice given by the previous branch manager which was obviously incorrect and illegal. They have said unless I pay the £399 then we cannot proceed with marketing the property. The other alternative they offered was to defer the payment until it was sold but this would cost me an extra £50!

 

I have said that they are not providing the service I agreed to in the first instance and by changing the terms and conditions I signed they have a) mis-sold thier services and b) they have backed out of the contract. What I want to know is if they are they in breach of contract and can they back out or change the contract like this - essentially by changing the contract and putting up the price of the HIP and contradicting the advice given when I agreed to sell through them?

 

I've told them I want to pull out of the sale and luckily for me the T's & C's I signed also state that the withdrawal fee is £299 (for HIP) but obviously as I haven't had the HIP done I owe them nothing!

 

They are blaming the previous branch manager for giving me incorrect advice (is this not illegal in itself?) I tried to negoatiate with them - basically I said I would stay with them if they picked up the difference, they've refused this which I feel is very short sighted of them as a) I'm now going to tell everyone how cr*p they are and b) they are going to miss out on the 1.5% commission fee if they'd sold the property!

 

I'm thinking of contacting the ombudsman to see if I have a case against them but thought I'd see if anyone out there has had a similar experience or could offer me some advice.

 

Haybrooks are very good at agreeing to certain things when giving a valuation but change their agreement as soon as they have a signed contract which fails to include their verbal agreements. Consider marketing yourself they useless along with most other estate agents.

[jsmith2009 10]

hi olive tree must should offer 1% blundells at woodseats were good for me good luck jeff

[Kaye2812 10]

We decided to go with Spencers Estate Agents. The house has been on the market for 4 weeks, we have had one offer and also now have someone else interested in making an offer. The service we have recieved has been excellent. If I could use one word to descibe them, it would be professional. We are also looking at buying one of two houses they have on their books and have found this has enabled us to build up a very good relationship with them. I think we made the best choice of EA anyway.

 

We previously bought and sold through Blunders... sorry, Blundells... and would try to avoid them if possible. They can be quite rude and arrogant to you on the phone (we have called about several houses recently) and, as we have found out, are still using under-hand tactics to get business. They tried to persuade me to make an offer on a house, despite not having a sale agreed on our house... they were doing this in order to bump up the price of the house they were selling if you ask me. They said it was so that they could keep me updated on the house... funny because other EA have not needed an offer to keep me informed on the progress of a house. This has now put me off even looking at another house with them!!!

[nerd 10]

I would not use blundells again. when we sold our property we arranged for them to do the viewings, came home that evening after they had done viewings int he day and they had left the front door unlocked!

They had also allowed someone to do a large number 2 in the bathroom and not flushed the toilet.

I was very unimpressed.

[mosaic 10]

Hi, do you know if Blundells tend to put up asking prices? I'm very interested in one of their properties in Hillsborough, but I think it is overvalued. I was thinking of offering about 16% under the asking price, given we have no house to sell, so things could move along pretty quickly. The house has just come on the market, though, but I believe the vendors want to sell quickly.

 

Do you think this offer is OK? Or should I offer even less, to have some bargaining margin? Any info on the Blundells Hillsborough branch would be much appreciated.

[brianthedog 10]

Hi, do you know if Blundells tend to put up asking prices? I'm very interested in one of their properties in Hillsborough, but I think it is overvalued. I was thinking of offering about 16% under the asking price, given we have no house to sell, so things could move along pretty quickly. The house has just come on the market, though, but I believe the vendors want to sell quickly.

 

Do you think this offer is OK? Or should I offer even less, to have some bargaining margin? Any info on the Blundells Hillsborough branch would be much appreciated.

 

I'd offer 25% under. You know they won't take your first offer, even if it's around the price they're expecting. Therefore, you can move up in slight increments towards the 16% discount you refer to. Also, give the impression you've walked when it reaches your price - i.e. if they don't accept it, leave it and say you're not going any higher. They'll be back on the phone before you know it...

[*binty* 10]

Hi, do you know if Blundells tend to put up asking prices? I'm very interested in one of their properties in Hillsborough, but I think it is overvalued. I was thinking of offering about 16% under the asking price, given we have no house to sell, so things could move along pretty quickly. The house has just come on the market, though, but I believe the vendors want to sell quickly.

 

Do you think this offer is OK? Or should I offer even less, to have some bargaining margin? Any info on the Blundells Hillsborough branch would be much appreciated.

 

Given the current situation i'd say you could probably offer what you like, obviously nothing stupid but if it's something reasonable then they make accept it. You never know. Can only try i guess.

 

I sold my property with Haybrook and never had any problems at all. Went fairly straight forward but then again, that wasn't recently so things will have changed i would have thought