scissors

just wondered what you guys have paid for estate agents fees,ive had 2 round for valuation so far, and another due very soon,one was 1.5% and another was £2000 flat rate which for us works out a lot more,WHAT A RIP OFF,any views on the subject,before we put it on the market? :scared:

tracey.

Amazulu

1.5% is about average, it's usually between 1-2%. We have just sold a flat & we paid 1.25%.

scissors

Im sure we should be able to get it cheaper than 1.5 seems a lot to me,for a few adverts and a few phone calls,i might be being tight but every penny counts doesnt it?

tracey.

Deb

OMG, that is shocking Tracey, they are certainly taking advantage of the current situation...

I sold my house last year and I have been renting since, so I don't have to sell a house before I go to Oz. Can't remember what the rate was at the time but I can remember forking out quite a bit, what annoyed me more was the second viewer bought the house so they didn't really work for their bloody money...

Good luck and I hope you get sorted..

scissors

Thats the piont,when ever we ve sold a house before the estate agents havent actually had to do much because they ve sold fairly quickly,i think we re in the wrong job

tracey.

Pauline

We have got ours on the market as well, our is 1.5%. That is about the norm we have had ours on since October have now also on Monday gone dual (not multi)with another agent. And the original agent is still 1.5% if they sale. The other is a flat fee works out about of about £9,000. Alot of money for making a few phone calls etc... :scared: :scared:

Good luck anyway, they say the market is picking up I wish it would hurry up.

Deb

LOL...


I agree Tracey, we are definately in the wrong job....

Amazulu

From today's BBC online:

House prices show slight increase

Nationwide's survey suggests "subdued but steady growth"
Prices of homes in the UK rose a seasonally adjusted 0.5% in February, says the Nationwide building society.
The figure means the annual rate of increase in the UK is down to 10.2%, the lowest rate since June 2001.

The annual rate has halved since August last year, as interest rises have cooled the housing market.

At the same time, the number of mortgage approvals fell in January to a near 10-year low, official Bank of England figures have shown.

'No collapse'

Nationwide said that in January house prices went up by 0.4% on the month and by 12.6% on a year earlier.

"We are not seeing the market collapsing in the way some had feared," said Nationwide economist Alex Bannister.

There have been a number of warnings that the UK housing market may be heading for a downturn after four years of strong growth to 2004.

In November, Barclays, which owns former building society the Woolwich, forecast an 8% fall in property prices in 2005, followed by further declines in 2006 and 2007.

And last summer, economists at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) warned house prices were overvalued and could fall by between 10% and 15% by 2009.

Interest rate rise?

The price of an average UK property now stands at £152,879.

Homeowners now expect house prices to rise by 1% over the next six months, Mr Bannister said.

He said if the growth continued at this level then the Bank of England may increase interest rates from their current 4.75%.



"I think the key is what the Bank expects to happen to the housing market. We always thought we would see a small rise, they thought they would see a small decline."

House prices have risen 0.9% this year, Nationwide said, and if this pace of increase persists, prices would rise by just under 6% in the year to December. This is slightly above the 0-5% range Nationwide predicts.

Mortgage approvals fall

Further evidence of a slowdown in the housing market emerged from Bank of England lending figures released on Tuesday.

New mortgage loans in January fell to 79,000 from 82,000 in December, the bank said. The past few months have seen approvals fall to levels last seen in 1995.

The Bank revealed that 48,000 fewer mortgages were approved in January than for the same month in 2004.

Overall, mortgage lending rose by £7.2bn in January, marginally up on the £7.1bn rise in December.

wargod

A chap opposite me sold their place literally within 3 or 4 hours of it going on the market - he was originally quoted 1.5% but phoned the agent up and said that as it was only on the market for a few hours they couldn't have incurred much expense. Cuting a long story short the agent agreed to revise their rate down to 1.25%

scrubbedexpat020

as advised on moneysavingexpert.com I got a few in and said the deal is 1%, 1 weeks tie-in and multi-agency. Signed one up and six weeks later signed another one up on the same deal. make sure you read the small print as some tie-ins are for 6 months! Some give you some balloney about 2.25% and why you should pay that even though you have others happy to take 1%. Both estate agents are big players locally in Nuneaton, not that Nuneaton is big.
Ian

scissors

This is intersting ian,ive just had another one round and he said 1.5% as well,i cant quite believe the difference in valuation as well,makes me wonder if there just quessing,i could have guessded that myself.So do you think its worth negotiating?have anyone else done this?i% sounds much more realistic to me,we ve done alot of work on our house and we only want a realistic price,all the agents we ve had round have said ita a very marketable property.

tracey.

tracey.

Fog on the Tyne

i think its about time we all got together & decide to just do it ourselvs via the 'net' or a magzine, i know you can do that now & some people have but we ALL need to do it for it to be affective, i bet there commission % would soon come down then
anyone with any experience of ' DIY' house sales it would be interesting to hear what h appened, good or bad
Andy

smood

Where I live an agent was quoting a flat rate of £1000 although this wasnt the agent I wanted to sell with. So I mentioned this to the agent I wanted to use (who was quoting 1%) and he agreed the same + vat.

Just beware of the flat rate fee if your house is in an area where sales are moving slowly. For a flat fee the agent does not have the same incentive to sell your house for the best price he can find.

If he has similar properties on his books then I think if he is on a percentage with them, yours will not be as important for him to sell.

scissors

ive seen some adverts in our local peper people doing it themselves,but the adverts are only small,i wonder if you used a half page and put a few picures in it,what it would cost,would this be possible?

tracey.

smood

I remember a lady on a tv show last year (one of the many property shows)
hanging a massive banner from her bedroom windows stating 'for sale' and giving her telephone number. It sold within a week.