Since Rightmove & Zoopla why use an expensive High St estate agent ?

[Danny_Boy]

I run a business, have done for 20 years. If we fulfil an order and the customer points out he`s saved us a load of trouble and expense (by doing X, Y or Z) we give him a discount. It`s not just good business it`s the right thing to do.

Maybe I`m being unreasonable, but I feel it was Rightmove who sold my house, not the estate agent (any estate agent on Rightmove would have got the same result), that`s my whole point.

I`d have thought it`d be more than 80% (found on Rightmove / Zoopla) now, but in any case, I can`t actually think how much stress the estate agent (Morfitt Smith in our case) saved us. And as I said in the opener, quite soon in the buying/selling of a house it`s the solicitors who are the middlemen. Morfitt Smith were sending me E Mails and sometimes phoning me to simply tell me what I already knew from my solicitor and/or direct from the buyer. We were in direct contact with our seller from the beginning (he`d bought stuff from my shop before) and direct contact with our buyer from the moment the survey came back OK. It saved us (and them) loads of stress and time, but it also saved the estate agent a certain amount of work, which they singularly failed to remember when they (eventually) refused to give me any discount.

Whatever the arguments, £2100 for the small amount of work the estate agent did, is an obscene amount of money.

 

It probably is over 90% now as more and more people go online to search. My Mum worked as a negotiator in an EA back in the 80's and every house was sold by having a board up, people walking in to the EA and looking at properties and the local papers. I worked in an estate agent as an FA 2010-2012 and hardly anyone came in to look at houses apart from the odd nosy git .

 

I can sort of see your point, but in my opinion having recently sold a house that took 6 months to sell with numerous issues I would have been ecstatic to have paid £2100 and had a sale as quick and as stress free as yours.

 

To flip it would you have felt better paying your £2100 if your sale had taken 12 month and you felt the EA had worked hard?

Edited June 15, 2016 by Danny_Boy

[Justin Smith]

It probably is over 90% now as more and more people go online to search. My Mum worked as a negotiator in an EA back in the 80's and every house was sold by having a board up, people walking in to the EA and looking at properties and the local papers. I worked in an estate agent as an FA 2010-2012 and hardly anyone came in to look at houses apart from the odd nosy git .

 

I can sort of see your point, but in my opinion having recently sold a house that took 6 months to sell with numerous issues I would have been ecstatic to have paid £2100 and had a sale as quick and as stress free as yours.

 

To flip it would you have felt better paying your £2100 if your sale had taken 12 month and you felt the EA had worked hard?

 

My point is my house did not sell because of Morfitt Smith. It sold because of Rightmove and/or pure luck a buyer wanting a house like ours came along at the right time and/or we priced it realistically.

 

Your second point has validity, yes of course I would be happier, but if my house hadn`t sold for 12 months it wouldn`t have been much to do with Morfitt Smith. Basically estate agents make less money on houses which take longer to sell and more money (far more money in the case of our house sale) on houses which sell quickly. So, am I to be happy that my £2100 is subsidising those who use Morfitt Smith and their houses take longer to sell * ? No, I`m not happy at all ! At the end of the day buying and selling houses is a bit like arranging a marriage ceremony. People`s perception of how much money they`re paying out goes out of the window, as does what those involved in the buying/selling expect you to pay. I can remember our solicitor saying the £100 here and £200 there we were being asked to pay for various unnecessary (in my view) indemnity insurances "wasn`t much" (compared to the amount the house we were selling), oh yes and the farce of the tree report. It`s "only £240", nobody was bothered, except us shelling out all that dosh ! In the case of our estate agents fees we`re talking £2100 here, the average wage is about £25K per year, that`s about £12 per hour. The average person would have to work for 175 hours to pay that bill, No actually they`d have to work for about 230 hours because that £2100 is coming out of their taxed income. £2100 is a LOT of money.

 

* This could be for a load of reasons including the fact the sellers have priced their houses unrealistically

Edited June 15, 2016 by Justin Smith

[Danny_Boy]

My point is my house did not sell because of Morfitt Smith. It sold because of Rightmove and/or pure luck a buyer wanting a house like ours came along at the right time and/or we priced it realistically.

 

Your second point has validity, yes of course I would be happier, but if my house hadn`t sold for 12 months it wouldn`t have been much to do with Morfitt Smith. Basically estate agents make less money on houses which take longer to sell and more money (far more money in the case of our house sale) on houses which sell quickly. So, am I to be happy that my £2100 is subsidising those who use Morfitt Smith and their houses take longer to sell * ? No, I`m not happy at all !

 

* This could be for a load of reasons including the fact the sellers have priced their houses unrealistically

 

I can appreciate what you're saying but from the agents pov if I say I will sell your house for £2100, you agree, then your house sells very quickly I would expect my client to be thanking me not asking for money back regardless of how much work went into the transaction, you contracted them to sell your house and they did so and very quickly.

 

It's similar with mortgages, if a do an £80k mortgage the lender will pay me on average £280 in commission if I do a £1m mortgage the commission is more like £3500 but the work involved is pretty much the same.

[Justin Smith]

I can appreciate what you're saying but from the agents pov if I say I will sell your house for £2100, you agree, then your house sells very quickly I would expect my client to be thanking me not asking for money back regardless of how much work went into the transaction, you contracted them to sell your house and they did so and very quickly.

 

It's similar with mortgages, if a do an £80k mortgage the lender will pay me on average £280 in commission if I do a £1m mortgage the commission is more like £3500 but the work involved is pretty much the same.

 

Oh I can see the agents point of view ! I have to say I think they`ve made an error. If they`d have offered me a 10 or 20% discount I`d have gone away and, whilst not been exactly happy, I`d not be anywhere near as p****d off as I am. One assumes they didn`t want to set a precedent ?

Edited June 18, 2016 by Justin Smith
Ten or twenty percent !

[Danny_Boy]

Oh I can see the agents point of view ! I have to say I think they`ve made an error. If they`d have offered me a 10% discount I`d have gone away and, whilst not been exactly happy, I`d not be anywhere near as p****d off as I am. One assumes they didn`t want to set a precedent ?

 

Yep suppose had they offered a discount as a good will gesture you might well be recommended them now rather than criticising.

[senwar]

How do you mean "support" ? I`d have thought sellers may find feedback (from viewers who didn`t offer) may be helpful, but Hatched (an Online agent) say they do that anyway. I do wonder how often that feedback does help sell a house, I mean if the viewers are feeding back that they don`t like the house layout or the fact it has no garage (or whatever) what can the seller actually do about it ? ! ? I`d have thought the only time that`d make a difference is if they complained about the décor and the seller then decided to have that redone, but how often would that happen ? How many viewers complain about the décor when asked for feedback ? After all, the décor shouldn`t be a deal breaker anyway, the buyers can always change it surely.

 

Support of us as the seller. Dealing with us during our low period (i.e. times we were genuinely down due to fallen sales). Had it not been for them, we would have given up. And it wasn't about the money as in 'oh don't worry it will sell' etc, they were genuinely supportive but helped us through it and regularly picked us up during this stressful period.

 

I know they're in the business of selling as quickly as they can and getting their own money but they supported me in a way that family would (and did). A couple of them felt like good friends during the process.

 

I would have given up completely as couldn't cope in the end after the second sale fell through but they helped us through it and worked hard.

 

So in this instance, nothing specifically about the house - but how they worked with, and supported, me as a customer. I will be forever grateful for that.

 

In addition to this, they handled all the sales for us, although we did liaise with our buyers regularly too. But due to a later snag in our upward chain, they also managed to appease our buyers and work with them accordingly

 

I don`t think the "list of interested buyers" that estate agents traditionally used is worth much in these days of the internet. You can go on Rightmove / Zoopla and actually draw an area that your`re interested in, then get all the houses (from all the agents) for sale in that area. We were on a few estate agents lists and they kept sending us info on houses which were no where near where we said we wanted to love.....

When you say the local high street agent was more proactive in selling your house, what exactly do you mean ? I`m of the view that there`s only so much an estate agent can do to sell your house, even if they do the actual viewings (and generally it`s the seller doing the viewings anyway) because people know where they want to live and what they want / need in a house. Thus no amount of sales patter will do much to help sell a house.

 

Don't agree here, at least in my case. In fact a few of our viewings were of people who didn't even consider our location but had been talked into going to look as it fitted their needs in every other way. One of our final offers was from someone who came to view the house in that way too. This would not have happened had we gone through a web based one.

 

*EDIT - I will say I understand your frustration and anger given the circumstances but those are the chances you take. Even after everything I say, I could have possibly sold quicker/differently through an internet based one, but will never know. But I'm happy with what I paid.

Edited June 15, 2016 by senwar

[Justin Smith]

Support of us as the seller. Dealing with us during our low period (i.e. times we were genuinely down due to fallen sales). Had it not been for them, we would have given up. And it wasn't about the money as in 'oh don't worry it will sell' etc, they were genuinely supportive but helped us through it and regularly picked us up during this stressful period.

 

I know they're in the business of selling as quickly as they can and getting their own money but they supported me in a way that family would (and did). A couple of them felt like good friends during the process.

 

I would have given up completely as couldn't cope in the end after the second sale fell through but they helped us through it and worked hard.

 

So in this instance, nothing specifically about the house - but how they worked with, and supported, me as a customer. I will be forever grateful for that.

 

In addition to this, they handled all the sales for us, although we did liaise with our buyers regularly too. But due to a later snag in our upward chain, they also managed to appease our buyers and work with them accordingly

 

 

 

Don't agree here, at least in my case. In fact a few of our viewings were of people who didn't even consider our location but had been talked into going to look as it fitted their needs in every other way. One of our final offers was from someone who came to view the house in that way too. This would not have happened had we gone through a web based one.

 

*EDIT - I will say I understand your frustration and anger given the circumstances but those are the chances you take. Even after everything I say, I could have possibly sold quicker/differently through an internet based one, but will never know. But I'm happy with what I paid.

 

You lucky chap ! (and no I`m not joking)

[senwar]

You lucky chap ! (and no I`m not joking)

 

My process lasted 7 months, included 2 failed sales and a lot of time spent. Over that period, it was definitely money well spent

[Tomjames]

Really, please tell me more about this "internet". As a web developer I've not really heard of it before.

 

I thought the same, that most buyers just use the internet these days, but it doesn't seem to be the case, some still use estate agents in that they walk into the high street places and tell them what they want then wait for a phone call about appropriate houses.

I got many more viewings once I switched to the high street agent.

 

Many buyers see a sign on the street. There's one on my road now with a mobile number on.

If you live in a sought after area, why on earth pay thousands to an estate agent to market for you?

 

---------- Post added 15-06-2016 at 14:33 ----------

 

It happened with my last house. Someone walked in off the street the day we signed up to an estate agent and said they want to buy. Still had to pay the agents 3 grand but what a waste of money.

 

---------- Post added 15-06-2016 at 14:34 ----------

 

They hadnt even put a for sale sign up...

[Cyclone]

My point is my house did not sell because of Morfitt Smith. It sold because of Rightmove and/or pure luck a buyer wanting a house like ours came along at the right time and/or we priced it realistically.

 

Your second point has validity, yes of course I would be happier, but if my house hadn`t sold for 12 months it wouldn`t have been much to do with Morfitt Smith. Basically estate agents make less money on houses which take longer to sell and more money (far more money in the case of our house sale) on houses which sell quickly. So, am I to be happy that my £2100 is subsidising those who use Morfitt Smith and their houses take longer to sell * ? No, I`m not happy at all ! At the end of the day buying and selling houses is a bit like arranging a marriage ceremony. People`s perception of how much money they`re paying out goes out of the window, as does what those involved in the buying/selling expect you to pay. I can remember our solicitor saying the £100 here and £200 there we were being asked to pay for various unnecessary (in my view) indemnity insurances "wasn`t much" (compared to the amount the house we were selling), oh yes and the farce of the tree report. It`s "only £240", nobody was bothered, except us shelling out all that dosh ! In the case of our estate agents fees we`re talking £2100 here, the average wage is about £25K per year, that`s about £12 per hour. The average person would have to work for 175 hours to pay that bill, No actually they`d have to work for about 230 hours because that £2100 is coming out of their taxed income. £2100 is a LOT of money.

 

* This could be for a load of reasons including the fact the sellers have priced their houses unrealistically

 

So you're unhappy about paying what you agreed to pay... Despite you having agreed to it and signed a contract to state that you agreed to it?

 

---------- Post added 15-06-2016 at 15:18 ----------

 

Oh I can see the agents point of view ! I have to say I think they`ve made an error. If they`d have offered me a 10% discount I`d have gone away and, whilst not been exactly happy, I`d not be anywhere near as p****d off as I am. One assumes they didn`t want to set a precedent ?

 

I'm pretty annoyed at Tesco. I picked up a sandwich priced at £2.50, and when I got to the till, they charge me the full £2.50.

I told them that I'd done all the work, I'd chosen the sandwich, I'd selected a filling that I liked and carried it to the till, and I was even planning to take it away and eat it without their help. But they refused to give me a discount and I was forced (forced I tell you) to pay the price they'd initially advertised it at. This is an outrage.