High Street Estate Agents Fees

[Dicky99]

For those with up to date knowledge of selling properties, what is a typical % fee charged by a high street Estate Agent for selling a dwelling worth circa £300k.

In a competitive market I would imagine that there's not much variance in the fee charged between agents. Is that the case?

[NearlyThere]

Just completed on a sale here (Herts/Essex border). Agent fee's 1%+VAT. I think thats fairly typical.

[mutantpoodle]

they will ask 2%+ but will agree 1% if pushed for SOLE agent
BUT
if using 'multiple' agemts it will be more

VAT on everything of course

dont forget that the more you squeeze them then less effort they wil put in

[Steveam]

Foxtons (Central London) are very expensive at 2% for sole agency and won’t compromise BUT they are Rottweilers. They can be very, very pushy but were successful in selling a difficult property in double quick time.

Best wishes, Steve

[mc2fool]

For those with up to date knowledge of selling properties, what is a typical % fee charged by a high street Estate Agent for selling a dwelling worth circa £300k.

In a competitive market I would imagine that there's not much variance in the fee charged between agents. Is that the case?

Hardly. I'm in the process of selling and buying, both properties in London, and I got valuations and quotes from seven estate agents, six high street and one hybrid, and both valuations and quotes were all over the place.

Of the high street ones that quoted a percentage it ranged from 1.25%+VAT to 2%+VAT. One had a minimum £ amount which worked out to around 2% based on their valuation, and another had just a fixed £ fee that also worked out at around 2% based on their valuation.

The hybrid one was Yopa, https://www.yopa.co.uk, hybrid meaning they're an online estate agents (no high street presence) but they do have local agents, who you meet and interact with, do viewings, etc. My initial thoughts about Yopa were, yeah, they're cheap and you probably get what you pay for.

But the place I'm buying was marketed by Yopa and one of the things Yopa facilitates is direct communication between buyers and sellers and after talking to the seller I decided to use Yopa for selling my place too, and I have to say, I'm delighted.

I instructed them Sunday 18-Feb, the photographer & floor plan guy came the following Friday, the listings went live in the afternoon of Monday 26-Feb and by 8pm I had ten people wanting viewings. My Yopa agent decided to take a "stack 'em high" approach and do all viewings last Saturday afternoon and by that morning we had 22 booked in. 16 turned up and by Sunday evening I had 7 offers, most of them acceptable in themselves. My agent talked to them all on Monday and told them to put in their "best and final" offer by yesterday (Tuesday) lunchtime, and yesterday afternoon I accepted one of the two equal highest offers, which is for more than all but one of the estate agents valuations (and he was an outlier).

Of course, there's a lot of variables and I think I was lucky with my Yopa agent, who is local and has been in the estate agent game for a couple of decades.

A couple of things about Yopa's fees, https://www.yopa.co.uk/fees. The advertised "from" is if you Pay Later (on completion or after 10 months regardless) but you must use their conveyancer. If you Pay Now it's £200 more but you can use whatever conveyancer you like. I did ask my agent about No Sale No Fee and she said it was a fixed £5K+VAT. I went for the Ultimate package, paying up front (so £2,199).

There are some that are totally online and some that are actually free (Purple Bricks & Strike that I know of) but you either have to do pretty much everything yourself (photos, viewings, etc) or buy one of their "extras" to do them. I've no experience so can't comment.....

[monabri]

Not sold a property in years but my recall was 1% + VAT..

However - We now want to sell a flat. First estate agent said 2500+ VAT...a fixed amount on a flat valued at £160k. I told him he was having a laugh and we wouldn't be going with them..goodbye! ( he was also an arrogant twonk so that wound me up!)

Contacted another estate agent ....exactly the same fee. The reason ( excuse) for such a high percentage is that the value was less than £200k...the cut off point where they start to talk in percentages rather than fixed fee.

It seems to me they are in cahoots.

[Gerry557]

Its probably more about getting the right one and what level of service you need.

You can negotiate with them anyway. I picked out one that I liked but commented that he was expensive compared to others and suggested we went with one of them. They all ask what you have been quoted anyway and push for who what and when.

In the end we said if he could match the other we would sign up with him.

Be aware of add ons, better pictures, standout boxes or more pics up front on the website. I think I got just under 1% plus vat

[raybarrow]

Hi Folks,
Our sale/purchase is through our local Humberstones (independant in Birmingham). £3,000 including VAT. Photos, video, they conducted the viewings. Sale price £300K. No sale no fee. It's all gone very well, just coming up to the Completion/Signing contracts bit.
Ray.

[Lootman]

Just completed on a sale here (Herts/Essex border). Agent fee's 1%+VAT. I think thats fairly typical.

I think it has always been 1% for me. Maybe in London it is creeping up towards 1.5% or 2%. All plus VAT of course.

Be grateful you are not in the US, where 5% or 6% is the norm. Although you get a lot more service for that price.

[Loup321]

In London, we used Acorn Estates. They charged £4000+VAT flat fee (£5000 total) to sell a leasehold flat worth just over £200k, in mid-2021. I felt that was very high, given the minimal work that they did. They were chosen as they were a friend of a friend of my ex, and he didn't try shopping around. Their recommended solicitors (which we used) charged a fraction (about £1000, iirc) and did far more work and far more "important" stuff that I wouldn't want to get wrong.

[BullDog]

My recent experience is that anything between 1 and 2% is asked. I wouldn't pay more than 1%. Seems to me that all any agent does today is take pictures, upload to Rightmove and arrange viewings from any resulting enquiries. That's all that happens and I see absolutely zero reason to pay more than the lowest fee you can find.

On the other side of the coin, anyone looking for a house looks at Rightmove. It makes zero difference which agent puts the property on there.

[Hallucigenia]

dont forget that the more you squeeze them then less effort they wil put in

I think it was the Freakonomics guys who talked about how estate agent remuneration is structured all wrong, as a flat 1% say doesn't incentivise them to work hard enough for the seller. If you have a load of £300k houses then the best strategy for an estate agent is to concentrate on finding more sellers to pick up an "easy" £3k for selling at £300k, rather than sweating their guts to squeeze out an extra £200 by getting one sale at £320k.

A better system would motivate them to go the extra mile for the vendor. Something like a flat £1k and then 5% of anything over £275k, and 10% of anything over £320k gives a fee structure that looks like this (compared to the dotted orange line which is a straight 1%).

If the house goes for £300k then the vendor only pays 0.75%, anything over £316k and the agent is making more money, potentially a lot more money.

Obviously you could refine it by eg saying that the percentages reduce (or are eliminated) if the sale takes more than 6 months, the baseline gets adjusted for any general rise in the market in time etc.

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[Lanark]

Foxtons (Central London) are very expensive at 2% for sole agency and won’t compromise BUT they are Rottweilers. They can be very, very pushy but were successful in selling a difficult property in double quick time.

Foxtons were very good at pushing up prices in a rapidly rising market, they don't have much experience in accurate pricing in a stagnant or falling vs inflation market like we have now.

The key metric is how many houses are they actually selling, 2% for selling your house is better than 1% for not selling it.

[Dicky99]

For those with up to date knowledge of selling properties, what is a typical % fee charged by a high street Estate Agent for selling a dwelling worth circa £300k.

In a competitive market I would imagine that there's not much variance in the fee charged between agents. Is that the case?

Hardly. I'm in the process of selling and buying, both properties in London, and I got valuations and quotes from seven estate agents, six high street and one hybrid, and both valuations and quotes were all over the place.

Of the high street ones that quoted a percentage it ranged from 1.25%+VAT to 2%+VAT. One had a minimum £ amount which worked out to around 2% based on their valuation, and another had just a fixed £ fee that also worked out at around 2% based on their valuation.

The hybrid one was Yopa, https://www.yopa.co.uk, hybrid meaning they're an online estate agents (no high street presence) but they do have local agents, who you meet and interact with, do viewings, etc. My initial thoughts about Yopa were, yeah, they're cheap and you probably get what you pay for.

But the place I'm buying was marketed by Yopa and one of the things Yopa facilitates is direct communication between buyers and sellers and after talking to the seller I decided to use Yopa for selling my place too, and I have to say, I'm delighted.

I instructed them Sunday 18-Feb, the photographer & floor plan guy came the following Friday, the listings went live in the afternoon of Monday 26-Feb and by 8pm I had ten people wanting viewings. My Yopa agent decided to take a "stack 'em high" approach and do all viewings last Saturday afternoon and by that morning we had 22 booked in. 16 turned up and by Sunday evening I had 7 offers, most of them acceptable in themselves. My agent talked to them all on Monday and told them to put in their "best and final" offer by yesterday (Tuesday) lunchtime, and yesterday afternoon I accepted one of the two equal highest offers, which is for more than all but one of the estate agents valuations (and he was an outlier).

Of course, there's a lot of variables and I think I was lucky with my Yopa agent, who is local and has been in the estate agent game for a couple of decades.

A couple of things about Yopa's fees, https://www.yopa.co.uk/fees. The advertised "from" is if you Pay Later (on completion or after 10 months regardless) but you must use their conveyancer. If you Pay Now it's £200 more but you can use whatever conveyancer you like. I did ask my agent about No Sale No Fee and she said it was a fixed £5K+VAT. I went for the Ultimate package, paying up front (so £2,199).

There are some that are totally online and some that are actually free (Purple Bricks & Strike that I know of) but you either have to do pretty much everything yourself (photos, viewings, etc) or buy one of their "extras" to do them. I've no experience so can't comment.....

Thanks for all the replies which are really very useful.

I hadn't considered online agents at all but I like the idea of the hybrid arrangement, capturing the best of both worlds, so I'll definitely consider including Yopa in the mix and hope I have an experience similar to yours