The nervous wait to exchange....

[BongoHunter]

Anyone got any insight or experience on central London estate agents fees for selling?

We've had valuations from a few estate agents in the last couple of weeks, with fees ranging from 2% to 2.5%. I have no intention of paying the 2.5% and I was wondering if anyone had successfully negotiated down to 1% for Zone 1-2 property?

Try a local independent agent, who did you try and what area of London? Independents are way lower or at least open to negotiation - especially on stuff at London prices - but can depend on the kinda price your on for!

 

[Alex_6n2]

I'm in a massive chain at the moment, but thankfully the house we're buying is vacant

My buyer is being an absolute pain though. He's going through a divorce and I get the impression he doesn't want any of it to happen, thus is being slow and difficult wherever he can.

After I accepted his offer it took 3 weeks to produce the Mortgage In Principle paperwork, after which it transpired he has enough cash to buy the house anyway....

Luckily it gave us time to find somewhere to buy, but I assume he will continue this snails pace throughout.

Gonna be a 4 month process for me I reckon! :=/

 

[krooton]

Wooo, roof is on, bad weather no longer a real risk to delay completion

 

[Jimbeam3678]

After reading this thread for a while guess I should join the nervous gang ... Timeline so far is below. The property is empty and we are first time buyers so fingers crossed it should go OK

• 25th Jan Mortgage agreed in principle
• 28th Jan Offered accepted
• 29th Jan Legal instructed
• 30th Jan Sales memo received
• 1st Feb Formal mortgage applied for
• 1st Feb Valuation booked 7th Feb
• 1st Feb Paid for searches
• 7th Feb Valuation taking place

 

[Quinnaay]

After reading this thread for a while guess I should join the nervous gang ... Timeline so far is below. The property is empty and we are first time buyers so fingers crossed it should go OK

• 25th Jan Mortgage agreed in principle
• 28th Jan Offered accepted
• 29th Jan Legal instructed
• 30th Jan Sales memo received
• 1st Feb Formal mortgage applied for
• 1st Feb Valuation booked 7th Feb
• 1st Feb Paid for searches
• 7th Feb Valuation taking place

Ahhh join the stress. I've been waiting for my seller to send a document for 3 weeks now running into numerous issues and that's the last peice to the puzzle for exchange. So frustrating.

 

[toshj]

Try a local independent agent, who did you try and what area of London? Independents are way lower or at least open to negotiation - especially on stuff at London prices - but can depend on the kinda price your on for!

The local agents round our way are either quite high end and very active, or very low end and a bit crap. The high end ones price themselves at 2%, but I think I can get this down to 1.25% with a push. Thinking it might be on the market by this time next week.

 

[Jimbeam3678]

Ahhh join the stress. I've been waiting for my seller to send a document for 3 weeks now running into numerous issues and that's the last piece to the puzzle for exchange. So frustrating.

Thanks mate! to be fair we might be the people that eventually end up holding things up as we have the majority of our deposit in a LISA which we can draw on at the earliest 23 March

 

[fez]

We are literally ready to complete on what should be the most simple chain ever (first time buyers -> us -> sellers) but our sellers have spent 3 months doing very little and are now stalling on finding a rental property. They have had months to sort this but didn't want to bother in case something fell through with the sale. **** everyone else who would lose thousands if the sale falls through, they only care about themselves. The kicker is that the rental they are looking for is only short term. They want to buy but couldn't find somewhere they liked in budget so were happy to rent to allow the sale of theirs and now they seem to be unable to find a house for 6 months for 2 adults and a very tiny child.

Does your head in not knowing when you will actually get to move on with your life and plan for the next 10 years. I really hope that by the time we do this again the house buying process in this country has been completely reformed.

 

[fastwunz]

The local agents round our way are either quite high end and very active, or very low end and a bit crap. The high end ones price themselves at 2%, but I think I can get this down to 1.25% with a push. Thinking it might be on the market by this time next week.

expect to pay between 1.5 and 2% for a good central London agent. Anything lower is a bonus - however an agency that drops its pants for a fee is usally pants itself.

 

[toshj]

expect to pay between 1.5 and 2% for a good central London agent. Anything lower is a bonus - however an agency that drops its pants for a fee is usally pants itself.

Yep - that's my thinking. There are some truly awful agents around my area, but a couple of the more prominent and successful ones really do have a good track record. The agents that sold us our current place were excellent, and have just been acquired by one of the larger local firms we were thinking of using. Thanks for the input

 

[fez]

We used purple bricks and we would think twice about using them again. I think with these kind of cheap estate agents you are much more reliant on luck when it comes to the quality of service. We were really happy with them at first and by the end we were the complete opposite.

 

[shadow_boxer]

We used purple bricks and we would think twice about using them again. I think with these kind of cheap estate agents you are much more reliant on luck when it comes to the quality of service. We were really happy with them at first and by the end we were the complete opposite.

What particular aspects were poor if you don't mind me asking?

 

[Mulder]

Had an offer on a place accepted, survey done, lawyers instructed on both sides, mortgage almost all done. We're chain free and so are the sellers so we're aiming to exchange by end of Feb. Feel like I'm annoying our solicitor a bit but nothing seems to get done unless I regularly chase them.

 

[RDCorporation]

Had an offer on a place accepted, survey done, lawyers instructed on both sides, mortgage almost all done. We're chain free and so are the sellers so we're aiming to exchange by end of Feb. Feel like I'm annoying our solicitor a bit but nothing seems to get done unless I regularly chase them.

Feel the same but end of the day, you paying the money for a service can't blame yourself for wanting to move quicker

 

[fez]

What particular aspects were poor if you don't mind me asking?

Started off well, our agent was nice, easy to get hold of and quick to deal with things. We decided to use them for our viewing to save time and mean that we didn't have to be here evenings and weekends for viewings. The girl who was to do the viewings didn't show up and wasn't contactable for the first 5 days after we put the flat up for sale. Turns out she had been at a training event for 3 of them, I assume because she was brand new. She looked about 18. No one told us this and no one apologised. After that we were having various issues with requests for viewings coming in and then disappearing and she wasn't contacting us about anything. She wouldn't even bother to confirm that we were happy with the times people wanted to view the flat when she knew that I worked from home and would have to leave for the viewing.

About a month and a half later she suddenly dropped off the face of the earth and we couldn't get a reply from her and our agent couldn't either. Turns out she had quit and didn't bother to tell us and she had probably been gone for a week before anyone told us. We had 3-4 enquiries during that period that went unanswered for over a week. Our agent then took over the viewings and things got a bit better. He again didn't ask us if viewing times were OK and neither of them followed up with any of the people that viewed the property to get feedback.

We felt like we had to chase for everything and if we didn't ask how a viewing went they wouldn't bother to tell us.

Had an offer on a place accepted, survey done, lawyers instructed on both sides, mortgage almost all done. We're chain free and so are the sellers so we're aiming to exchange by end of Feb. Feel like I'm annoying our solicitor a bit but nothing seems to get done unless I regularly chase them.

Every solicitor we have used has been useless and very reactive. Our current one literally doesn't reply to emails until they decide its time, ignores questions in said emails and generally does things whenever they want. Takes 10s to reply to an email saying "email received, will ask the sellers solicitors about this and let you know". You are paying them a serious amount of money so don't worry too much about bugging them, they seem to need it from my (limited) experience.

 

[toshj]

Every solicitor we have used has been useless and very reactive. Our current one literally doesn't reply to emails until they decide its time, ignores questions in said emails and generally does things whenever they want. Takes 10s to reply to an email saying "email received, will ask the sellers solicitors about this and let you know". You are paying them a serious amount of money so don't worry too much about bugging them, they seem to need it from my (limited) experience.

This bit is most frustrating. When we bought our flat in 2010 our solicitors were dragging their feet at every point in the process. Towards the end, when they simply had to send us a few documents to complete, nothing came through from them - it was redevelopment property, so we weren't waiting on current occupiers to play ball. The estate agents who were marketing the whole block wanted to exchange, and it was getting closer and closer to Christmas. On Christmas Eve the estate agents were bugging the solicitors to get the documents over to us to complete, but had heard nothing. So I got the train over to Richmond and jumped in a cab to the solicitor's office in Isleworth, knocked on the door and introduced myself... which produced a horrified reaction, similar to when we you've been sussed at school for not doing your homework, and told them that the black cab metre was running and that they were paying for it so they'd better hurry up and hand over the docs. Took 30 seconds from there, and I picked up the keys from the estate agent halfway through my Christmas shop.

 

[fez]

Its ridiculous isn't it. You would assume that they would want to get things sorted as quickly as possible unless you have asked them to drag their heels to give you more time. Even then that is a massive **** move. We wouldn't dislike our sellers quite so much if they were honest about their desire to exchange at X date. Stringing us along for the past month and a half hasn't endeared them to us and we are at the point where we will pick them up on any damage they do moving out etc when we probably would have given them the benefit of the doubt before.

 

[Captain]

I have a viewing on Monday at 5, offers in the region of £180,000 so if I like it, I'm going to be really cheeky and offer £165,000, it's been up for sale since November.

 

[toshj]

We wouldn't dislike our sellers quite so much if they were honest about their desire to exchange at X date./QUOTE]

This bit is key - if they'd told you "realistically we're going to want to complete close to X date" then you can plan accordingly.

We've got our preferred agent down to 1.5% + VAT. I think we'll be quite happy with that, having spoken to a number of friends and family about what they paid in fees in and around Zone 1.

 

[Quinnaay]

Progress has been made. The interpretive mine report has been recieved and sent off to the lender, all that is required before exchange is for the indemnity policy there solicitor provided to have its value increased as its more expensive than when it was sold last time. Hopefully this is a quick turnaround for an exchange date.