RoShamBo

iTrader: (1)

All

Any ideas ?
We put our house on the market a few weeks ago & not a sniff (nice house too)
We just feel that the Agent isn't going out of his way to sell the house & also - I dont want to pay him any commission (bah humbug)
Are there any publications where we can advertise ?

Ro.

druddle

why dont you register

fast bloke

Advertise with two agents. Make sure they both know about the other one. You only pay comission to the seller, and the competition between them should cover the comission.

RoShamBo

iTrader: (1)

I think the piece of paper I signed gives the Estate Agent sole rights to sell for 8 weeks. Will know better next time !

Ro.

AlexM

Hi,

I was in the same position - we were selling through KFH (one of the large multiples), and we had around six viewings in as many weeks...

Eventually I said that I wanted out to the office manager, and they agreed despite also having an eight week lock-in..

When I engaged another agency, I told them that they would have a clear run for four weeks, after which we would go for dual agencies.. Luckily they have been much better so this hasn't been required.

Big tip - go for the Agent with the largest number of 'sold' signs in your area, not the number of 'for sale' signs!.

Cheers,

Alex

jon hill

mmm... i'm having a 'mare at the moment. Put the flat on with a local agency, was told it would be gone in two weeks as its a very desirable area (its an "affordable" flat in wapping). So three months later the exclusive clause ran out... So we moved to another agency, who told us the same crap. Three weeks later still on the market.

In the meantime we've lost a grand on a house on which we put an offer, on the strength of an offer that didnt materialise.

Loads of general crap - for example. Come in on friday to find a message on the phone saying we have an offer, but no mention of what it is. Cant get hold of them saturday (was away, but tried phoning ~12 times). Call first thing tuesday (bank holiday monday) only to be told that I was too late - the person that had put the offer in had found something else. The guy reckons he left the message on thursday. But he didnt bother trying any of the other numbers, and i find it very unlikely that someone wouldnt wait over a weekend etc, etc

I'm not really given to ranting, but kinhell, estate agents - unbelievable.

jon

blubell

Before you sign up with an agent you can sometimes do a deal... we got agreement that their commission would decrease by 10% for every fortnight that they had it on the market.

This appears to work quite well, not lease because they makesure that they put it on at a realistic price rather than the usual trick of putting it on at far too high a price 'just to see what happens'. Do need to watch that any offers are genuine though!!

PS We NEVER give the estate agent that we are buying through more than a couple of hundred pounds deposit as they are allowed to earn interest on it and do not have to keep it in a seperate 'client' account. Any big deposits are held by our solicitor, whohas to have a non interest earning client account. This gives the Estate agents an incentive to keep things moving as fast as possible in order to get thier fees ! although sometimes you do have to explain this to them

[This message has been edited by blubell (edited 30 August 2001).]

robski

haggle over commission, you WILL pay more if you go multi agency

try advertising at work, family members offices etc

just be patient, it will happen in the end

when we were selling ours, we gave the agents notice before we could, so that they knew it was coming, worked miracles, we were getting average 1 viewing per week, within a couple of days of me giving notice we had 4 viewings arranged, 1 of which bought

you need to get the agent to push your house, so you need to focus his mind

robski

GM

I don't envy you

All this makes me very glad that in Edinburgh 84% of houses are sold without using an estate agent

gadge

sorry folks put my house up for sale on the Friday and the estate agent had sold it by 16.30 the same night . just have to find a new home now.