Selling a property - fees

[mitch84]

Hi all,

For the first time in my life I’m putting a house on the market. We are having a visit from the estate agent that is representing the house we wish to purchase tomorrow, to attempt to streamline the process. But there are no fees on the website.

Anyone who has sold recently, what are the fees like? Just want to make sure it’s competitive.

In case it helps. It’s a small 2 bed terrace and we are expecting it to be sold for £110-120k.

Do you pay anything upfront or only at completion?

Thanks

[buryboy]

Pretty much all estate agents will have a ‘ rack rate ‘ but some may allow haggling.
We paid 0.75% plus vat on a 280k house
All paid on completion
High street estate agent

[tspill]

Originally Posted by mitch84

Hi all,

For the first time in my life I’m putting a house on the market. We are having a visit from the estate agent that is representing the house we wish to purchase tomorrow, to attempt to streamline the process. But there are no fees on the website.

Anyone who has sold recently, what are the fees like? Just want to make sure it’s competitive.

In case it helps. It’s a small 2 bed terrace and we are expecting it to be sold for £110-120k.

Do you pay anything upfront or only at completion?

Thanks

See more...

I have sold several houses in the past few years.
I pay -
Estate agent fees - 0.9% +VAT
Solicitor fees - 0.5% +VAT plus searches etc. I receive a bit of discount on the 0.5% for higher priced houses.

I am sure you can beat 0.9% on estate agent fees - but the one I use seems to get top prices so have probably gained significant sums by paying a few pounds more.

[tmwalsh]

Remember get a couple of estate agents round at a minimum. I had three valuations and the bottom price was 50k less than the highest with the lowest wanting to obviously get rid asap.

[BevS97]

We were quoted 0.8 last week and I think he is one of the pricier in this area. But we have used them before and know they are good.

He also said the market was extremely hot and properties were selling fast. That matches what I’ve seen on RightMove with anything interesting being snapped up in days.

[Scaramouche]

The best round here was 0.9%

[SMAX]

We have just paid 1% + vat. We did get another agent quote 0.75% but he would have sold the house 30K cheaper. The 1% agent more than paid for his extra commission. This was in Kent.

[mariechez]

We were offered .75% but then another agent offered .5%, I went back to the original agent who matched it. I didn't expect it but thought there is no harm in asking. Most High St agents are usually no sale no fee. Definitely get a few round though.

[tspill]

Originally Posted by SMAX

We have just paid 1% + vat. We did get another agent quote 0.75% but he would have sold the house 30K cheaper. The 1% agent more than paid for his extra commission. This was in Kent.

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And I think this highlights my experience also.

Sometimes when you pay cheap, you get cheap.

Cheap and good value are two totally different things.

When we get agents in, you can tell very quickly with a good degree of confidence how good they will be or not.

[mitch84]

Thanks all. Looks like I shouldn’t be paying more than 1% + VAT.
That’s really helpful.
I don’t think the price of the house variation will be as big a deal here. We live in rows and rows of these terraces, several have gone on recently, all have gone on for £120k, and been sold within the week. None were as nice as ours to be honest, we have only been in 2.5 years and built a kitchen diner in the dining room, and turned the tiny galley kitchen into a utility room. So kitchen, bathroom etc all under 2.5 years old, and we have a little extension to make another storage room.
But we’d be delighted to get £120k, we bought it for £82k, and spent £11k.
So we’re after quick so we can make stamp duty saving, rather than fighting for every penny, but we’ll bear it in mind if it seems a bit low
Thanks x