Estate Agent Fees

mathie

I was quoted anything from 1 to 1.5% by roughly 8 different estate agents.
Some included VAT some didn't.
Some included listing on myhome (300 I think) some didn't.

I played them off against each other and got one for 1% all in.
Including VAT and myhome.

It really pays to shop around and ask if EAs can 'price match'.
It's surprising how quickly they do.

Works for solicitors too.

May result in slaps if you attempt this while buying something for your girlfriend though
M

Glenbhoy

I got 0.5% from an agent, with a an agreement to increase that to 0.75% if a certain target price was reached. Whilst you may not be able to get 0.5% anymore, you should be able to negotiate a structure with the agent that rewards them for hitting a certain realistic price.

esmeralda

On the subject of estate agent's fees, my partner is selling a cottage in County Leitrim (I presume you're talking about Dublin sales here, so I realise things might be different up in Leitrim), and has been sent an e-mail from the agent he talked to asking acceptance of conditions that sound outrageous to me. Maybe such conditions might hold in an area where there is not such a high density of agents but I wondered if anyone here could shed any light... The agent is asking for 2% of the final selling price, exclusivity for 6 months and - this is what REALLY gets me - an inconditional payment of almost 800€ for advertisements they will place, whether the house sells or not!!!!!

Only the 2% commission was mentioned when the agent viewed the house and agreed to take it on.


Any comments are very welcome!

esmeralda

Glenbhoy wrote:

I got 0.5% from an agent, with a an agreement to increase that to 0.75% if a certain target price was reached. Whilst you may not be able to get 0.5% anymore, you should be able to negotiate a structure with the agent that rewards them for hitting a certain realistic price.

Sounds like you did some good negotiating! Again, I presume this was in Dublin - any ideas if things could work like this in rural areas?

Glenbhoy

esmeralda wrote:

Sounds like you did some good negotiating! Again, I presume this was in Dublin - any ideas if things could work like this in rural areas?

It was in Dublin and it was negotiated 1 year ago, just at the end of the boom, although the agent obviously didn't know that.
Whether it would work in more rural regions depends on the level of competition amongst agents, but I would certainly suggest such a scheme to them. Agents tend to have an over optimistic valuation of the potential property price, so I would call their bluff and agree that if they hit that price or higher they can have their 1.5% (or whatever they say they can't do it for less than), hell maybe even a bonus if they achieve more, but if they fall short of your target I would suggest that the fee is reduced.
I have a number of acquaintances who have negotiated similar structures so it's not a new idea and it should reward both parties, so imo it's fairer than the normal procedure of a setting a fixed percentage.

Re the offer made to your partner, I wouldn't be rushing to take advantage of that offer, and given the demand for exclusivity, it would appear that there might be alternatives. Often however in rural areas it is difficult to get agents to compete re price.

esmeralda

Thanks Glenbhoy - some really useful pointers there.

dandelion

I found this post while searching the web for a related item. It always saddens me to see the number of people who believe that Estate Agents are "rip off merchants" without personally knowing any Estate Agents or anything about the business.

I've worked as an Estate Agent for 18 years and have never ripped anyone off.

Estate Agents fees can seem high because they regularly work for nothing - if they don't sell they don't earn any money, and lots of houses don't sell, even in the good times, so the time spent working on failed sales can be half the working week. Anyone I have ever sold a house to/ or for has valued my opinion my efforts and accepted my fees were fair for the work that was done.
Questions and comments are invited!

Glenbhoy

dandelion wrote:

Estate Agents fees can seem high because they regularly work for nothing - if they don't sell they don't earn any money, and lots of houses don't sell, even in the good times, so the time spent working on failed sales can be half the working week. Anyone I have ever sold a house to/ or for has valued my opinion my efforts and accepted my fees were fair for the work that was done.
Questions and comments are invited!

I personally found the estate agents I have dealt with to be quite good and have been very satisfied with them. Like any other profession there are good and bad agents, I think the problem with estate agents is that there appears to be little or no regulation. They were also (rightly in my opinion) perceived to be greedy during the boom years, house values shot up, demand did likewise, meaning there was very little work involved in selling, yet they retained a percentage based system. I have also heard many anecdotal stories of agents and phantom bids, bribes and assorted other shady practices. I have talked to agents selling new developments and heard them lie repeatedly to me, it's hard to respect people who can be so brazen.
All in all, there are good and bad and I've come across both, but I would always recommend anyone to use an agent rather rather than try and sell yourself in todays climate.

billyblanks

For the Record I'm currently selling my place for .75%, advertising costs of €400 which I do not have to pay until I sell the property....and they are doing a very good job.

I'm in Dublin....

mel123

I got my deal with estate agent for .75% but i believe thats probably cause my Dad does a lot of business with them...but perhaps just goes to show they can do it that low all the same. I paid 630 incl vat for brochures, myhome, their own website and when the place wasnt selling they put a tiny ad in the national paper...also had two signs but they were just cardboard type things....they never asked for them back, i binned them, not sure if i was meant to keep them to give back

Patrickof

esmeralda wrote:

On the subject of estate agent's fees, my partner is selling a cottage in County Leitrim (I presume you're talking about Dublin sales here, so I realise things might be different up in Leitrim), and has been sent an e-mail from the agent he talked to asking acceptance of conditions that sound outrageous to me. Maybe such conditions might hold in an area where there is not such a high density of agents but I wondered if anyone here could shed any light... The agent is asking for 2% of the final selling price, exclusivity for 6 months and - this is what REALLY gets me - an inconditional payment of almost 800€ for advertisements they will place, whether the house sells or not!!!!!

Only the 2% commission was mentioned when the agent viewed the house and agreed to take it on.


Any comments are very welcome!

In relation to the adverts, this is quite normal. If you want the house advertised, you need to pay for it. The agent will be billed by the newspaper within a week or two of the advert running and if your house doesn't sell for many months (or at all) then he's stuck with your advertising costs. Ask the agent for copies of all ads placed and the prices (they should give you these anyway) and any money in the €800 not used will be refunded. Remember a small photo ad in the indo costs about €600 + VAT!

In relation to the 2%, is the house in a rural area? Might viewings take quite a while by the time the agent gets there and back?

esmeralda

Thanks Patrick. I only have experience of buying and selling houses in England and Spain, my partner didn’t use an agent when he bought this house a few years ago, and Irish family and friends all bought years ago and were not sure of current trends - hence we need to know what is normal and your comments are really useful. Just for the record, in UK and Spain (at least in my experience – sister sold and bought through agents in the north of England 4 months ago, parents 4 years ago) it would be unthinkable for an agency to charge for an ad for a house that the owner has given permission to include in their list of available properties, and which will feature the agency’s name with their number. And by the way – we didn’t want to advertise, we just wanted to have the house on their own website and in the shop window! It was the agency who was pressing us to advertise.

In Spain the commission is sometimes charged to the buyer, particularly in the case of freelance agents, and depending on whether it is a blatantly buyer’s or seller’s market. But it is the agency that undertakes to market it in return for including it in its property portfolio, which in turn enables it to offer buyers a wider range of properties. I used agents in my initial search but ended up doing private sales anyway, which is a growing trend both in Spain and in the UK.

I may be wrong but it seems to me that in Ireland the seller seems to take all the risk, whereas the agent just picks up his/her commission if things work out well. Of course it is in the agent’s interest for the house to sell in order to get the commission, but if it doesn’t, no harm done. Maybe advertising is much more expensive here, or maybe it has something to do with the fact that it is much harder to sell because the population is far smaller which means far fewer potential buyers...

Re the rural situation, the house is actually about a 10 minute (max) drive from the agent’s office so that isn’t a problem in this particular case.

Although we brought up our doubts with the agent and have been offered much better terms than the ones I mentioned in the previous post (thanks glenbhoy), we’re still wondering if it’s worth it. Perhaps if I hadn’t had the experience of house sales in the UK and Spain I wouldn’t be so reluctant and would just accept things, but it does make you wonder!