We've had a house up for sale with a High Street estate agent and the contract length of 16 weeks is coming to an end with no buyers.
In The Old Days (tm) we would now change to a different agent and see if they could do better at selling the house but, given that most/all agents now list on online places like Zoopla and RightMove etc., etc., is there any real point in changing from one to another?
Money. Tell them you'll give them 1% and if they don't sell within
6 weeks, a flat fee of £2500.
Have you checked the house is advertised on those web sites and that the details are correct?
What do you actually mean by no buyers.
No-one viewing the house (no potential buyers)? No-offers? Offers at a price below which you are unwilling to accept?
All the estate agent and advertising can do is direct people towards your property. If you are getting viewings it's more likely that it's a combination of the state of the property/location/price that is putting off potential buyers.
at the very least (in these circumstances) an EA should be giving you feedback as to why you aren't selling
if they aren't doing that then ISTM that is enough to sack them
tim
those exact reasons are also why someone might be getting no viewings
You have to consider resale when buying a house - too many people don't do that
tim
Selling a house is more than just advertising it. You would expect a competent agent to also be actively pushing details of the place to all the potential buyers on their books looking for something similar. Once they have exhausted their database of registered buyers, they are then replying more on the advertising. Hence in many cases there is a good reason to move to a new agent (or at least go joint agent) at that point, since you will get a fresh database of buyers who may not be registered with the previous agent.
Also you should be getting feedback from the current agent on the responses to their approaches to potential buyers, and feedback on the comments of every viewer etc.
Probably not if the existing listing etc is adequate. Good photos in and ou t, floorplan, etc. Might be worth getting the agent to re-photograph for fr eshness.
You might consider dropping the price but get your agent to contact their m ailing list buyers and offer the property at a lower price off-market subje ct to quick exchange and completion, on the understanding that the property remains advertised at the full asking price until exchange.
That can pull in a buyer without the indignity of publically reducing the p rice - and gives you the option of a public reduction later without having to actually lower the acceptable price any further.
If you're not getting viewings it's probably the price.
If you're getting viewings but no buyer then it's the property or the way i t's presented online and it's disappointing buyers at the viewing stage.
Owain
The house next door to us took 17 months to sell. Vastly overpriced.
floorplans are good
It really is a flipping cheek seeing someone trying to sell a premium style property without one, but many do
obviously that doesn't apply to an estate 2 up 2 down, but they are still useful
tim
You might even find that lowering the price triggers competition between buyers and you end up getting more than you were originally asking for.
Pete Zahut formulated on Thursday :
Sorry, unexpected stuff to do so not got time to reply to all points individually but thanks for all your replies.
Like most people, we haven't got a clue how much property is worth so we rely on the estate agent to guide us. They said to put it on the market for £80k and expect to get around £75k. In the first six weeks we had one offer of £52k, which obviously was not acceptable, so we dropped it to £75k and got an offer of £69k, which we accepted - but then the guy just disappeared, never to be heard from again. In total, four people have been to see it over the last 12 weeks and no feedback from the agents.
We recently dropped it to £73k but still no further potential buyers. I have taken a better photo of the outside of the house without the weeds (they didn't tell me when they were going to do the photos when they did) and they're going to swap it over, but I really can't see a few weeds on one photo detracting from the others. Like I said though, that's in hand. House is here on Zoopla
whilst I can see that it's similarly priced to two houses in this post code on RM
It is (they all are), out of line with the prices of recently sold properties from the Land Registry
Looks to me like EA's trying to bid up the price of this type of house in this location, and failing
While the adding the new photo, get them to stick a floor plan on even for a 2U-2D, a better description including room sizes too.
These two sentences are not unconnected.
In your case the few weeds are unlikely to make a difference but in a lot of cases first impressions within 10 seconds of turning up outside do make a difference. You seem also to have the benefit that your near neighbours houses appear to be in good order.
and in some cases an acceptable outcome - if you are prepared to wait for the best price.
Yup, if you compare with:
They can vary. When my M-I-L died, the executor arranged to put her house up for sale. The Estate Agent did the rest. As soon as I saw the advert, I said that the price was £15k too high. For months nothing happened. They eventually dropped the asking price £10k and then, a while later, another £5k. It then sold within a month.
Similarly. My parents' next-door neighbour died and the EA took photos and suggested a price to the son and daughter. The photos were poor (5 minutes to move disabilty equipment and the like out of the way would have transformed them) and I again considered the price too high allowing for the work that was needed. It has finally sold, after nearly
12 months, after the price was dropped to a more realistic figure.I am strongly of the opinion that anyone who knows the area and what other houses around are selling for could do a better job, at pretty well zero cost. The only advantage of EAs is their availability to show someone the house while you are at work.
SteveW
IME if you want to sell you have to price correctly. I suspect in general people do not expect to get low offers accepted so they don't make them.
If people can afford £73k they can afford £75k and probably ? ?80k You need to drop it drastically enough to appeal to a whole new cate gory of more impoverished buyers - which is a good reason for doing that dr op off-market.
However your existing agent really isn't trying.
Looking at your sales particulars the photography is very poorly done. Apar t from the weeds at the front the camera isn't even level. The kitchen's a very good point, but I can't see whether it's a dining kitchen or not, or w hether there's a back door to the garden (yard?)
The bathroom might be nice but there's no loo or washbasin, or mirror etc. I presume they exist?
Bedrooms don't exist in photographic terms, there's no information about th e garden, no floorplan. Personally I look at floorplans before photos.
There's no energy rating in the listing, isn't that a legal requirement?
In detail terms you have two very dated gas fires, presumably neither of wh ich is actually needed for heating. If you can splash to a couple of nicer traditional style fires (gas or electric - electric needs no installation) from ebay or gumtree etc that would look better. You have a lightbulb missi ng on one of the wall lights.
How old is the boiler, how old is the wiring? Is the loft insulated? If the se things are in good order then say so and make the property sound attract ive, low-maintenance and better value than somewhere that needs works.
Owain
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.