Choosing the right real estate agent can be tricky. You want someone that can sell your house for a great price, within a reasonable timeframe. While some will give incredibly high property valuations or extremely low fees, you should proceed with caution. Those are potential red flags.
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It’s worth considering the fact that even though 67% of people we spoke to who had moved house recently stated they were pleased with their estate agents, around one in six stated otherwise. “This shows the importance of researching estate agents before settling on one”, says a spokesperson from a team of estate agents in St Albans.
You need to look for an estate agent that has experience selling similar properties. They should know the kind of things people are interested in when buying property and have a strong pool of prospective buyers.
Obviously, you should look online and in local newspapers, but you should also take a walk or drive around your local area. Look out for the estate agents that are selling other properties in your town.
Recommendations from neighbors, relatives and friends are also worth following up on.
A great way to test out how much they’d work on your behalf to sell your home, you could even try pretending to be someone interested in buying a similar property to your own. You will then be able to see if they have helpful members of staff or not.
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Once you have found a number of estate agents you are interested in working with, create a shortlist of three of your favorites and arrange for them to come to your home to valuate it.
While you obviously want to sell your property for as high a price as you possibly can, you shouldn’t determine the estate agent you are going to work with based on their valuation being the highest.
It could be they have over valuating your property knowingly, in a bid to get your business.
Check that they offer the services you need, for instance:
- Do they put up a ‘for sale’ sign?
- Will you or they be conducting the house viewings?
- What kind of marketing materials do they prepare for properties they are marketing (such as online tours, photographs and floorplans etc)
- What property sales platforms do they advertise properties on? Zoopla and Rightmove are the most popular at the moment.
- How many appropriate buyers for your property do they have on file?
- Will they tell the buyers about your property?
Watch Out for Overvaluations
As we all know, it’s the main job of estate agents to get the best price for the house they are selling. Research from February last year though that there is quite a considerable discrepancy between the estate agents in the UK and which actually get the right price for sellers.
As an average, homes that had been reduced in price actually went to market priced at least £5,000 over the asking price of other houses, but actually sold for £20,000 lower.
To further put salt in the wound, the properties that were reduced heavily took over 64 days longer to sell than other homes.
Drops in property prices occur for various reasons and have a greater affect that some areas of the country more than others.
It’s Decision Time
It’s fair to say you will find some people more likeable than others. Only you can make the right decision for you. It could be that you decide to go for one agency or a few. Generally speaking though, it’s better to have one acting as your sole estate agent, as they will concentrate greater all their efforts on selling your property and you will pay less in fees.