How to choose the right Estate Agent for your property sale
When it comes to selling your property, you need to make sure that you have the right estate agent. Naturally, we would like to think you will come to the conclusion that is us, especially if you have been recommended to talk to us, as so many of our clients have been.
We appreciate every estate agent will say they are the best, so who can you trust?
There are many different estate agents all competing for your business, so it is important to make sure you are comfortable with who you have representing you. Our tips and tricks will help you pick the perfect agent for you, and we hope that will be us!
1. Ask for recommendations
Of course, the most obvious tip is to ask everyone you know who they would recommend. You want to know which friends have moved recently and who they used. Make sure you find out if there were any issues, and which parts of the moving process do you need the most support. The other thing you can do is have a look around the area (or online) and see which estate agents are selling the most and have the most reviews on a free open public review site, such as Google! Online reviews from real customers can be a big help in swaying your decision, so be careful some review sites allow agents to remove reviews to keep their scores high! Google don’t.
2. Check industry credentials
All estate agents are required to be members of the Property Ombudsman so make sure that yours is. Many will also be members of various trade bodies. Memberships of these will mean that the estate agent must follow a code of conduct. This likely implies that they will have higher standard of professionalism and diligence and therefore are going to be better for you. It might also be worth checking the credentials of who is advising you on price! That can be industry qualifications and also length of time in the business, including local knowledge.
3. Go undercover
Another great tip can be to go undercover! This can be done face to face, assuming the estate agent has an easily accessible High Street Office or register for property updates online. You can then evaluate how they treat you and how they market property, as this will reflect on how they will market your property! After doing this, you can ask yourself… “Would you want to buy a property from them?” This will give you a realistic idea of whether they are going to be able to sell your house easily and help you through the process.
4. Have a list of questions
You want to make sure that you ask the estate agents certain questions- things like, if you go for a sole-agency contract what is the tie in period and how much do they charge? Are you open 7 days a week? How will they advertise your property? Who will handle the viewings? How long has the estate agent been established and what is their level of experience in all market conditions? It might be worth making them uncomfortable and ask them; if the property doesn’t sell as easily as expected, what will they do and why? And remember to ask them all the same questions, so you can compare their answers and knowledge, as well as their passion and compassion as both estate agents and people. After all, this is very much a peoples industry.
5. Decide between Percentage or Fixed Fee
This has become a hot topic of late and unfortunately some estate agents will leave the maths for you to work out! We believe you need to be able to quickly identify the difference in “real money” between the fixed fee and what the percentage fee is likely to be at a certain selling price. Cheap isn’t always as cheap as you might think and saving hundreds can cost you thousands, sometimes tens of thousands in net value on completion. Your chosen estate agent must remain motivated to get you the best price at the 3 key stages of selling and then demonstrate how your “net return” on completion is likely to be higher with them.
If you have any questions when you get closer to the time you want to put your home on the market, please just ask us! We are here to help and guide you through what can be one of the most daunting prospects many people will ever face.