kitty4

Just preparing to sell. Would be interested and appreciative of anyones recent experiences selling since agent commission caps were deregulated. Were agents willing to negotiate? What is reasonable? Sole or exclusive agency? Any recommendations or pitfalls to watch out for? I'm already feeling stressed!!!!! Thanks.

brits1

Hi,

We had four Agents come and have a look at our last home for valuation etc and each time I negotiated their fee's (it does not come natural to me) and all bar one did drop their fee's as the knew we would not list it with them at the fee's they were mentioning I would of rather sold it myself.

kitty4

Thanks brits. Negotiating doesn't come natural to me either and I wondered if I am going to be up against strong resistance. What I'm currently being quoted from a couple of agents works out more than the maximum cap before commission was deregulated and I have no idea what to aim for. Trouble is the more agents you contact to enquire, the more you feel harassed and bombarded with calls and emails trying to get your business. Hate the whole thing :-(

astera

I take it you can't just list it (naturally at a fee) on one of the major real estate portals?

kitty4

YesI could list it online myself but my circumstances at present mean I really need someone to do it, I know you get what you pay for but also I don't want to get ripped off out of ignorance so just thought I'd ask if anyone has had some recent experience, good or otherwise.

jad n rich

This is so typical it gets deregulated so they want to charge more.

I would be blunt, tell them you was expecting something far more competive , as you say once you contact them its hard to shake them off. Also give them a email reserved for this house selling process. That way you are not bombarded with it day and night. Block the worst of them too.

I have not sold on the SC for some time now, we will be selling again end of year, so will look forward to this thread continuing.

Are you leaving the coast or OZ. We are in melb for 2 more years, the RE market there makes the SC look like a pool of dolphins compared to a bloodbath of sharks. Horrendous.

We have one SC property that I really don't want to sell, we would never ever find anything like it again, so sad, but life moves on.

tomar

My neighbour Pam Court has a very good name as an Estate agent, based in Mountain Creek, please give them a call to compare with others.

We bought through them before they became our neighbours, and couldn't fault them.

GarryP

Frankly I thought the Oz commission fees were insanely high, compared to the UK that was (eg 1.5%+VAT, vs 2.5%+GST)

This article describes what to expect : How to negotiate the best commission

The problem you have is the lower the fee you negotiate, the lower the effort they will put into it. If others are agreeing to extreme %ages, then the RE agent will chase the money and ignore your property.

However 1.5 vs 2.5% on, say, $500k is $7.5k vs $12.5k - or roughly $5k extra. If the extra work they might put in delivered more than $5k, it would still be worth it.

Decision probably comes down to the interest you expect on the property (eg how much work you think they need to do to get a good price). What you are looking for is for 2+ legitimate buyers to want the property at the same time, so you can play them off against each other. Obviously if the market is depressed that's less likely, and the agent would have to work harder, but they also have less to do and so have the time to work harder.

Approach I might try would be to talk them down from their initial figure to a more reasonable one. Then say to them you will pay them that lower figure if the result they secure is less than the top end of your expectations, but will be their initial figure if higher. If they bite on that it gives them the incentive to do well for you (which they generally don't have) but you still win in overall net terms.

Overall, however, the key is getting more than one person interested at once, in the correct price band. Even a muppet could negotiate a good price in those circumstances.

kitty4

Thanks tomar for your recommendation and GarryP for your thoughts and suggestions. I too think the commission rates here are crazy and seem out of proportion to what they actually do. The higher commission for getting a higher price over than what we are aiming for is one to consider, thanks.

brits1

I have had to do it all again here with my Dad's property here in the UK, I have the commission down to 1% with the same service and I did my homework on property prices so knew what to expect and know what offer I will take (if I do get an offer) its not an easy thing to do for me as I have said but I keep saying to myself "better in our bank than theirs". When they also come to value your home make sure its in "showroom setup", you might live that way anyway lol but some homes we use to view in Perth looked shocking and I would certainly not of paid the asking price. Good luck...