How much should an estate agent charge to sell your property for you?

When planning a house move, there are many things to consider. Of course, you must speak to some estate agents for valuation estimates on your property and then decide who to instruct to market your home. The agents will all have presented their marketing strategy, including details of their costs and fees. But how much is a fair price to pay to an estate agent for selling your home?

The real question is not how much the agent will charge but what the agent will do to achieve the best possible sale price for your home.

When selling a property, an agent and a homeowner will work together for several months, at least. The agent will prepare fabulous marketing material to showcase your property to their database of buyers. They will harness technology, online marketing platforms and social networks to ensure your home has the exposure to the market it deserves. Accompanying your viewers to show your home in the very best way and expertly negotiating the offers to push the price as high as it can go, capitalising on the marketing and negotiation skills to ensure that you receive the highest offer possible. Once an offer is agreed upon, the agent will be on hand to help you throughout the legal process, acting as the linchpin of your sale, ensuring regular updates and constant pressure to expedite the legal process and prevent delays, culminating in a completion date for you to move into your new dream home. 

If this process is followed correctly, your agent of choice will have spent months working with you and hours each week dealing directly with the sale of your property. 

However, as with all things, there is a flip side. If the agent doesn't spend their time promoting the property across all avenues and doesn't accompany the viewers to ensure that your home is shown off in the best way possible. Perhaps they are not experts in marketing or negotiating and are simply messengers between you and the buyer, passing offers back and forth. Maybe they are not putting pressure on the buyer or anyone else in the chain, and they are not in regular contact with the solicitor. Perhaps you won't even make it to a completion date because there is no one involved that is taking charge. The likelihood is with this scenario that, the agreed-upon sale price will be lower, and the chance of reaching completion of the sale is reduced dramatically. Yes, you wouldn't have a fee to pay to this agent because they would not have ensured that the sale went through to completion, but you would have wasted a very long time and negatively impacted any future attempts to market your home too. 

The old adage, "good isn't cheap and cheap isn't good", is true. Don't compare the agents by their fees but by what they can achieve for your property. 

The end result is the main focus, don't get lost in the weeds comparing a few percentage points in the agents' fees here and there. The most competent agent who can achieve the highest price for your property will be worth every penny of their fee. The agent that quotes a significantly cheaper fee might not even be able to get your home sold at all! If you sold your home for an extra £50,000, would you really begrudge paying the agent £1000 more than the competitors - no, of course, you wouldn't.

At By Design, we harness innovative technology and artificial intelligence to ensure that the marketing of your property is efficient and logical. We can access a connected database of thousands of potential buyers from all over the UK. Our systems allow us to test the marketing price before you go live and publish your property to the major property websites. Discreet marketing is also a realistic option with our technology, so you don't have to tell your neighbours unless you are absolutely sure you are moving. 

To find out more about how By Design agents are different, get in touch with our team of property experts today.