[b]We all know estate agents commission levels are too high[/b] but the alternative, online estate agency where you do most of the work yourself and the agents take their fee whether you sell or not which gives them little to [i]no incentive to actually sell your property[/i], especially for a higher price is madness.

That's why we started Moveli. Our Nappy Valley estate agent Paul Clappison has over 16 years experience selling property in the area. Receive a FULL SERVICE from Paul and pay only 0.75% on sale. What's more Moveli agents earn much more than their counterparts on the high street (50% of 0.75% instead of 10% of 1.5%) making them much more motivated to deliver a personal full service and more importantly a higher price for you.

Contact Paul today for a chat about the property market around Northcote Road.

020 3150 0773
paul@moveli.com

[b]http://moveli.com/
[/b]

I sold somewhere 18 months ago, and had the usual beauty parade of agents over.
They all told me these sorts of properties were flying, there would be no problem selling it, but there was then a variance in the fees they wanted (for the self-confessed zero work..!)
Marsh and Parsons and James Pendleton refused to budge from their standard 1.5%
If memory serves me correctly, Marsh and Parsons had some very complicated system where if they got over the asking price, their commission would jump to 1.75%, but if they got under the asking price, they would drop their commission.
John D Wood were rude and disorganised and we discounted them straight away.

We ended up going with KFH for 1%. They were a bit disorganised with viewings, and we had 2 or 3 of their staff phoning us up booking things in, rather than them coordinating between themselves, but they gave us some useful advice on presenting the house, and most importantly, it sold in a couple of weeks.

Honey granola - re your jetting question
I negotiated with the agent and so paid

8% for first year
Dropping to 4% if tenants renewed
Dropping yo 1% on 2nd renewal and then stopping to zero thereafter.

My neighbour negotiated the same desk with their agent ( a different agency) so I think that is fairly standard.

This was with us managing the property.

Hi there,

We've just sold a flat by Clapham South tube and initially had this listed with a local agent (charging 1.5%+VAT) we struggled to negotiate much though James Pendleton did offer 1%+VAT I beleive (we were going to use them after the minimum period was up with M&P).

The estate agent we had didn't manage to sell out property and we had it on the market them then for 8-12 weeks. I can't quite remember.

In the end I used House Network. They charged £500 for photos, floor plans, arranging all the viewings - everything! All we had to do was show people round. They are currently also chasing the buyers solicitors and ours, making sure all goes smoothly. I must admit I have been so impressed with them. For the money I think it is incredible.

I should add that we did reduce the price when we listed with them but as we were saving 10K in fees we were happy to do this!

I'me sure that Jonathan's post certainly is true and that a good agent will help to smooth things out should any glitches arise but we were happy to take the gamble and were very glad we did.

Hope that helps a little!

We also had 1% + vat when we sold a one bed flat in the Shaftesbury estate. We negotiated down to this level, I think there was also a success fee if we sold above a certain level but this was set quite high and really would have been exceptional to achieve thereby justifying the higher fee.

I also would like to slightly jump on the thread (apologies!) and ask people to post about letting commissions also if they can as we are now in that minefield and seems to be a lot more variable than sales!

Thanks in advance!

We paid 1% +VAT (but for a semi detached-house) when selling last year.
We had no minimum contract for the listing. The agent told us though that their service and professionalism would mean we would want to stick with them so he didn't do minimum periods (though I recall on the contract you had to give a month's notice or something of the sorts so it wasn't entirely no strings attached).

I would have a chat maybe with friends/neighbours in the area to see what the reputation is like of various agents on the street. I spoke with friends and neighbours about their experience with buying and selling with various agents. I also remember what the various agents were like when we were looking at for our house.

I think 6 months contract sounds massively excessive. I recall the other agents were were talking to it was about 6-8 weeks the contract.

Best of luck!

I appreciate your comprehensive answer, Jonathan - thanks.

Hi NappyValleyMover,

First and foremost I work for Hamptons so of course I’m going to extol the virtues of traditional agency over online agents. I’m also going to defend paying fair fees. Note the use of the word ‘fair’ rather than ‘higher’!!

As with many things in life, clients want cheaper fees and agents have cut their rates to such a point that it’s a miracle some are still in business, especially given the spiralling cost of rent and rates. Contrary to popular belief, most good agents actually do rather a lot for the money – finding a buyer is the easier bit, it’s the sales progression that takes up 90% of our time. The vast majority of our days are spent dealing with solicitors, surveyors, lenders and buyers, and this is time consuming and tricky, never more so than when a deal goes a bit wobbly. Experienced agents prevent fall throughs (about 30% of sales fall through between agreeing the sale and exchange of contracts) but they cost money at a time when salaries in the industry are the lowest I’ve known.

To answer your question directly, you are likely to be quoted a range between 1% and 1.5%, which when compared to the rest of London (let alone the world) is pretty reasonable. The difference between one agent at 1% and another at 1.5% however is harder to quantify. Yes, all agents will advertise the property on Rightmove or Zoopla, however it’s not as simple as that. About 85% of our initial enquiries come through the internet, however less than 5% of those buyers go on to buy the property they first enquired about. When instructing an agent you are effectively gaining access to their ‘pool’ of buyers so it’s not rocket science to figure out that the bigger the agent, the bigger the ‘pool’.

Smaller, independent agents will of course bring you buyers who search under ‘SW11’, but what about those who are looking in SW4 or SW6 but would be perfectly happy living between the commons – those agents simply cannot find those buyers. In a more tricky market you really do need to spread the net as far and wide as possible and the reality is that to spread this net you need the funds to do so – thus the slightly higher fees of the bigger agents. There’s also other benefits of a bigger company approach – training, International buyers, customer service and an unprecedented three years in a row of Sunday Times Gold awards. Those don’t just happen by accident. #blowonesowntrumpet...!!!!!

Online agents get a bit of press but honestly, do you really want to entrust the sale of your biggest asset to the bucket shop online agent that sticks it on the internet and then lets you do the rest? High street agents are trained, on commission (to get you the highest price) and have the vast majority of the buyers. If we can’t get you more for your house than a faceless online agent taking a fixed fee and leaving you to do all the hard work then frankly I’ll eat my hat.

When it comes to fees I always think of what Red Adair once said: “If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur”.

Sorry for the long post but this is one subject which I think is worth spending a bit of time talking about and explaining.

Have a great weekend,

Jonathan

[b][color=#0000FF]Hamptons International
98-100 Northcote Road
020 7924 2170[/color][/b]

Yes I have thought about it. Downside is the valuation for which I need to get possibly 3 estate agents round to value my property (and take the avg.) and pretend that I may use one of them only to actually go down the DIY route. Problem is, if the DIY route doesn't manage to sell it then I will need to go back to the agents and ask them to market it for me.

Have you thought about selling yourself through the Sarah Beany website?

Easy to do and lists straight on right move for all to see. If your happy to take the calls and do the viewings you could save a huge commission and possibly sell it mic quicker.

....and may I ask who you used please?

we sold our house last year for 1% (plus the vat, so 1.2%)

some estate agents would not budge from 1.3/1.4% + vat - they will argue they will get more for you but I think you have to go with the people you think are the best.

In our case the cheapest were the best

So in spite of the 6 months contract it didn't really matter in the end. Who did you go with? Were you pleasantly surprised by the valuations you received? Who were the friendliest and most efficient agents then?!

Thanks.

SOld on the third viewing!

Wow! Definitely not going to do 6 months. Thanks for the tip off. Did it sell well in the end though?