Estate agents

Most estate agents have a clause in contract that states that you can only advertise through them for x amount of weeks (thats what i have found when putting houses on market). To be honest i think having it up with more than one agent can sometimes be a waste of time and money as I would always look in all agents in area rather than just one. You can always try to negotiate the commission - i have tried in past but it didnt work.

Hi there,

It's difficult to be specific as I don't know your area but what I will say is we are struggling even to sell really really good houses at the moment unless they are absolute knock-down bargains. I couldn't give any potential vendor an estimate of how long their property should take to sell so maybe take their estimates with a pinch of salt. Our standard sole agency commission is 1.5% plus VAT. We are very unlikely to reduce much on this at the moment as our big bosses are questioning every single instruction, but it's always worth a try.

Dual agency is a good idea to spread your net - don't go for any more than dual though, as seeing a property advertised over numerous pages of Rightmove is absolutely one of the worst impressions you can give. We wouldn't do a dual agency agreement for less than our sole agency rate (unless it were an existing vendor who was adding an agent) but I can't speak for them - try and see, there's no harm in having a go.

As for 'paper advertising' being on top - is this usual in your area? Is that for additional advertising in the Evening Standard etc., or is that just for the local papers? If so, it's not common for advertising to be charged for separately..

Round here you will always get the agents who will charge you 0.5% including VAT, but to be honest if they are still around today, they won't be next week.. the market is too hard and even good, established agents are closing. So if you are keen to sell in this current climate, I'd go for a long established, traditional agent who's weathered the storm before.

From an EA's point of view, having a property to sell that's on with another agent will make some slacker agents pull their fingers out. If they think they have got all the time in the world to ring their applicants then often they won't - they'll wait for them to come to them - whereas if they think that Joe Bloggs & Co will be ringing their applicants it will push them to do their job properly.

Even from a non-slack agent's perspective, If I get an instruction on that's with another agent I'll ring it out the second I get back.. if I know I've got sole agency then I might do other, more urgent work first.

That's really helpful, thank you. We're in East Yorkshire so property prices are relatively cheap here compared to other areas (we moved from a tiny 3 bed semi in London and were lucky enough to take advantage of this difference)

I am looking at two well established local agents, however I have no idea whether they'll negotiate on price. I did it in London - we had a 0.75% sole agency agreement with a 3 week tie-in, but they did sell the house and offered an excellent service although, like I say, it was a completely different market

Paying for advertising on top is, unfortunately, very normal here - all the agents do it. However, I own a magazine with a distribution of 40,000 so I am at a slight advantage ? Advertising on Rightmove etc is free.

Hi- We're currently on with two. The problem we have is only one offered a free HIB and won't share. the non HIB one wants us to knock it down to a rock bottom price. Last night I asked him how much he thinks we would need to knock it down to to sell (I am so fecking sick of it and very upset my happy memories of a fab house and fab area are being ruined by whats turned into a total albotross)

Anyway he said it would sell if we knocked a further 125k off the asking price. so I asked him how many people he had waiting to look at properties like ours in that price range, and if there are a few we'd knock it down for a week, those people could come and view and we'd go from there. But he has none.

HIB agents are doing nothing, in fact I am suspicious they are on their way out <cough> foxtons <cough>

I don't know what to do, I just want soemone else to live in the blasted place. I am positive agent no2 will not sell it thus I think its daft to continue with two agents. But when no1 probably won't sell it either- its such a hard time. That said, good luck!

I don't see the point in going with 2. as long as the house is on rightmove and in the local paper, i think thats fine.

i ve never met a good agent, i dont think they exist. their primary concern is to get their commission, and in my (pretty extensive) experience, there is very little actual "selling" going on at all, and if anything, they ll try to get you to accept a lower offer/reduce the price simply to make money. - in other words, theyre effectively working for the buyer, yet youre paying them.

in todays climate, i m betting that you can get one to agree 1% anyway on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. if the house is attractive, and priced correctly (ie what you want/need to sell it for, as long as thats realistic) it should sell, but it may take time depending on the price bracket. if its over a stamp duty threshold by say, 30 grand for example it might give you an issue though.

Well - I would disagree with you ? but then I would wouldn't I..! However, I do think that you're wrong to tar everyone with the same brush. I have worked for and with several Estate Agents, and whilst a large number of them no doubt fall into the bracket that you describe, not all do. There's good and bad in every industry.

its a personal view, based on experience, as i said.

I see the biggest problem with agents is that the commission level simply does not reflect what they do. the conveyancer involved in the transaction does pretty much all the work for a fraction of the fee. agents dont need to be qualified, need no training, are not regulated etc etc. yes, there are good and bad people in every industry, and i m not suggesting youre a bad one, but in my expeience, most agents want the sale, not the best price for their client.

In a way, I agree with Nick. Estate Agents do not seem to be sales people, not the ones I have met. In any other industry they would be order takers - they'll do what they can to get an order, but not actual selling.

I think the current climate will sort the wheat from the chaff. And now I am happy because I rarely get to use that phrase ?

L
xx

The main thing that gets to me about estate agents is that they lie a lot "oh,, you've gto to hurry up Ms Hyacinth, they've got a bridging loan and its very expensive for them waiting for your mortgage to come through" bridging loan my bum. and they dislike talking to women. But thats a necessary evil.

I have to agree that they don't do a great deal for their money thousands for taking some pictures, displaying them and then showing peopel through houses- but I guess they are more brokers than sales people, you're really just paying them to do the administration for you.

exactly. which is why its a bit of a joke that so many branch agencies call their staff "negotiators"

I agree with Nick. I've never met one who has come close to justifying his fee- they appear to me to offer next to no service to buyer or seller (apart from being somewhere convenient to hold a key)- no negotiation, no specialist knowledge (of the market or of specific properties)- and generally inept in the way that the candidates on The Apprentice are, doing a "hard sell" that makes you want to scurry away as fast as possible. The only ones I've found who are even marginally competent are Savills and even then I only mean that they don't seem to actively screw up, not that they offer anything of value to anyone.

As a woman myself I don't mind talking to other women!

In actuality, the biggest 'selling' challenge of any Estate Agent is to get the business on the first place. As I said in an earlier post, my agency charges one of the higher commission rates in the area (set by my directors, not by me) and I have less flexibility than some. So in order to get an instruction/property onto my books at all I have to be a better sales person than my competitors who can perhaps get an instruction just because they are the cheapest.

As for negotiating - I am sure there are agents who are crap at this, in fact I know there are because I have worked with some. But the good ones are EXCELLENT, and I have worked with people and indeed have myself kept chains together that would have crumbled had it not been for the skill and clever handling by the negotiator involved.

I have also worked with some crap Vendors who are so arrogant and up their own ar$es that they have caused a sale to go bad all by themselves so I suppose it works both ways!!!!

It seems to me though that the term "negotiation" is incorrectly used in the agency business. negotiation is a case of you give something to get something. Most house buying and discussions on price is haggling, nothing more. Simply making calls and chasing things to ensure ones commission does not go south doesnt qualify in my book. Besides, if there is any true negotiating going to go on, i want to do it, not leave it to some spotty 12 year old oik in a cheap, ill fitting suit who doesnt know his arse from his elbow (no offence cjb ?)

Have you been stalking me?!

From what you say, I think that you're probably right - you never have met a good Estate Agent, which is a shame. I think that good estate agents do 'negotiate'.. there is a real skill in negotiating offers - in better times I certainly had a great deal of influence over the prices I achieve for my vendors and I got a real buzz from getting extra cash out of buyers whilst still leaving them thinking they have got the better deal than the vendor. To me, the art of negotiation, in this business anyway, is ensuring you achieve a price that is sustainable and where both parties feel like winners. And I'm really good at that.

So ner ner nee ner ner ?

Ok so how would you define "negotiating for a better deal" ?

(good to see youre taking the negatives in good spirit ?)

In this market Nick the only things that keep you going are a sense of humour and chocolate ? .. I think that may apply to Hitched too!

It is difficult to exactly define the skill of negotiation in estate agency terms, but in my terms, it's about being able to read people and judge how to deal with them individually. It differs every time. I can (almost) always tell when a buyer is bluffing, or when they are serious, or how much they want the property, or who is the decision maker if there's more than one buyer. I can put forward offers to the vendor in the best way depending on their personality, and I can steer them towards the deal that would be best for them. You can go back and forth 'mediating' between both parties if necessary, you can vary the amount of time it takes you to respond to people, you can recommend a vendor refuse an offer and then sit tight knowing that the other party will come back to you (hopefully!). Sometimes it takes days or weeks to tie up a deal.

What I don't do is press a vendor to take a price JUST because I want them to. Because conveyancing takes a flippin long time, and both parties have to be happy with what they've got in order to get to the end.

Note: this is all academic, because in the current market there is NO negotiating to be done.. not in my office anyway!

Thats my point though. what you describe isnt negotiating. its being a broker.

Wow that is a lot to knock off ! You think they'd be people snapping your hand off

The Manager of the last EA we used in London WAS very good - he was polite, diplomatic and reassuring. However, like Nick says, that's not sales in the sense that I know it.

To illustrate the point, we took on an advertising saleswoman on a commission only basis, who had previously been a "sales manager" at an estate agents. I asked what the difference was between a 'sales negotiator' and a 'sales manager' (her promotion at the EA) and she looked offended and garbled. Essentially the difference (in her place at least) was admin - the Manager does more of the sales admin.

Anyway, she lasted 3 days in our job and then quit because she wasn't up to scratch ? That speaks volumes, I think.

According to my dictionary it's negotiation!

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/negotiate

Not to me ?

I'd argue this out on another day, but i haven't got the energy today. i was an EA until the end of August (after which I started teacher training). Good estate agents do exist, and they overwhelmingly support the idea of agents having to be qualified to practise. i first worked in conveyancing, did some conveyancing exams, then moved to estate agency. as a graduate trainee, i moved through various roles at the firm, which was a cerntury old local independent. i took my exams, passed those, had lots of sales training, but ultimately the firm understood that there's no point in trying to harass people into buying the wrong house. my last role in the firm was sales negotiator. our firm ran differently to most as we had specified admin people, receptionists, negotiators, valuers etc rather than everyone doing a bit of each. as a negotiator i dealt with the original negotiating (i think there's more to it than just haggling, particularly when things arise as the sale progresses and you're struggling to keep people on board), chased solicitors and kept clients up to date. and on a number of occasions i had to politely suggest how the conveyancing might proceed to some conveyancers who didn't know which way was up. it was stressful but rewarding, but i take the point that this isn't always the case with estate agents, as i did receive an astonishing number of beautiful bouquets of flowers, boxes of chocolates, bottles of wine, cards, near tearful phonecalls and letters (sometimes addressed to my boss, always good ?) passing on sincere thanks, and not just from vendors.

am i smug about it? obviously ? but the idea of estate agents is an excellent one - someone who wants the sale to go through for the best possible price, knows how it all works and keeps on top of it for you so you can sleep at night. so many things can go wrong, and you only need one half-arsed solicitor or uppity vendor to piss on the whole chain. it's just a shame that so many cheesy salesmen in cheap suits get to carry the banner and make everyone hate us. or them, now. you have to actually care about people to do the job well. which obviously led me to teaching shakespeare to riotous adolescents ?

Well, after my busy day of non-sales I am now off to collect small children, feed them, bath them and then get to a Parents Teachers meeting by 6.45pm .. that, believe me, will require some negotiation!

CJB

Senior Negotiator ? (note 'senior', ooh, look at me ?)

Good luck with your house sale Clairy.

WSS ? far better than I did ?!

Ta very much cjb ?? i'll be your tag partner ?

A dual agency agreement can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, it increases exposure, as two agents will be actively marketing your home, which could lead to a quicker sale. On the other hand, some buyers and agents may perceive it as a sign of desperation, and agencies might be less motivated if they know they have to split the commission.

Regarding negotiating commission, it's definitely possible to push for 1%, especially if you have a desirable property in a high price bracket. The key is to make the agents feel like it's still worth their time. Here’s how you can approach it:

1. Leverage Competition – Tell the agents you’re speaking with multiple agencies and will go with the most competitive offer.
2. Offer an Exclusive Short-Term Agreement First – Some agents might agree to a lower commission if they have an exclusive listing for the first few weeks.
3. Negotiate Based on Speed & Performance – You can propose 1% if sold within 8 weeks, 1.25% if longer, as an incentive.

Should You Go Dual Agency?

• Yes, if you want broader reach and don’t mind potentially lower agent motivation.
• No, if you want a single agent to be fully invested in pushing your property.

If you’re in an area where homes are sitting longer on the market, agents might push for higher commissions, but if they believe the home is an easy sell, they may agree to a lower rate. Have you already chosen your preferred agencies, or are you still shopping around?

Real estate is all about networking and referrals, so it makes sense that real estate affiliate marketing programs are becoming more popular. I saw that RentRisk offers a program where agents can earn commissions by recommending their tenant screening services. Have any of you realtors or investors used affiliate programs like this? Would love to know if it's worth it!