You don’t have to accept the first fee presented to you, as many agents will be prepared to negotiate
High street estate agents cashed in on almost half-a-billion pounds over the past 12 months, over our reluctance to haggle over fees, said Housesimple.com.
The online estate agent found that 82% of home sellers agreed the first fee quoted by the agent, with four in 10 (41%) admitting they were unaware they could have negotiated their commission fee.
After agreeing it, 29% wished they had haggled for a lower rate.
On top of this, almost half (46%) felt pressurised by their estate agent and one-in-five said that they were not confident negotiating, so they didn’t challenge their estate agent.
More than half (55%) of those home sellers polled said they paid at least 1% commission to the estate agent, with more than a quarter revealing they paid fees between 1.4% and 2%.
Home sellers could potentially be saving millions of pounds every year in fees if they were prepared to negotiate with the agent. Housesimple worked out that if home sellers over the past 12 months had haggled down the initial quote by just 0.25%, they could have saved £487 million in agent fees. For example, haggling a 1.25% fee down to 1%, would equate to a saving of £1,500 on a property on the market for £500,000.
Sam Mitchell, CEO of Housesimple.com, said: “High street agents are living in the past, charging exorbitant fees and not doing enough to justify their meaty commissions. Consumers want value for money, and are, quite rightly, asking ‘why am I paying an agent thousands of pounds for listing a property on Rightmove and managing a few viewings?’
“This is why we seeing more and more people choosing to sell through an online agent offering significantly lower fees for an identical service to the high street agent.”
Article originally shared by Your Mortgage