As time has passed and house prices have risen, it’s become more and more questionable whether estate agents actually earn their fee. House Simple’s infographic (below) neatly summarises some of the facts. Estate agents charge an average of 1.8%, often to do very little, other than to act as a conduit between you and people who have browsed Zoopla or Rightmove. We recently had our house valued by three different firms of estate agents, one of whom proudly phoned us to say he’d sold it, which would have been good if we’d even decided to sell, let alone instruct him but we hadn’t. The truth is, living in the south east, in prime commuter belt just outside London, houses like ours sell before an agent can even put substandard photos up on a website, so it would be quite galling to write a cheque for the best part of 12 grand simply because house prices locally are out of control.
Looking at the infographic, we could actually save enough money to have a new kitchen or most of a loft conversion if we sold privately via a site like House Simple. It’s definitely food for thought…
Provided by HouseSimple