Find the best & cheapest local estate agent in seconds

Compare local estates agent and find the one that will sell your house the quickest and compare estate agent fees

 

How to find the best and cheapest estate agent in your area

When you are looking to sell your home it is vital that you use the estate agent most likely to sell your property, secure the best price for it and also charges a reasonable estate agent fee.

In the past it was very difficult to compare estate agents' fees for selling your property as the information you needed was not publicly available. To compare estate agent fees and their service you need to know:

• How many properties of your type have they have sold recently
• How quickly these properties were sold
• Whether they achieved the asking price or a higher/lower amount
• How these figures compare with other agents in your area

To help solve this problem we have partnered with Getagent.co.uk to present the above tool which gives you access to a searchable database providing the information you need to compare estate agents.

However, GetAgent doesn't claim that its tool will find you the cheapest estate agent but instead emphasises that the tool focuses on finding the best estate agent so you can compare their fees. Unfortunately, there is no online estate agent fee comparison tool out there at the moment that allows you to just compare prices. If you want to find the cheapest estate agent in your area then you will still have to do a bit of offline research. However, if the best agent in your area also happens to be the cheapest then you are likely uncover it using the above tool.

How to compare estate agent fees online

GetAgent states on its website that its search technology "recommends the best agent in your area" and with the tool you can "compare performance and fees for every local agent – and save money too!"

To use the tool

• Start by putting the postcode of your property in the tool above.
• Once you have entered your postcode you then need to provide the number of bedrooms in the property
• Provide the estimated current value of the property
• When you are likely to require the services of an estate agent (there is a 'not selling now' option)
• Once you have entered the above information you will be provided with as many as 6 top estate agents in your area using the following criteria:
  • average selling time and whether this is faster than the average estate agent in your area
  • properties listed in the last 6 months within 1km of your property which gives you an indication of how experienced the agent is in your area
  • asking price agreed as a percentage of the original asking price which indicates whether the agent is overpricing properties just to get the instruction

You can then take further action, if you choose, by obtaining no-obligation quotes from selected estate agents on the fees they would charge for selling your property.

How much are estate agent fees generally?

Traditional offline estate agents are unlikely to quote a fee for selling your property over the phone so it is difficult to make an estate agent selling fee comparison without arranging a valuation appointment. On the other hand, online estate agents tend to quote fees on their websites but make sure you understand the service you will be getting for what is likely to be a lower fee. The above tool is a simple and effective way to narrow down the choice of local estate agents to 3 or 4 then arrange valuation appointments to understand how each estate agent would market your property and compare estate agent fees for selling a house.

Once you've run the tool, if you click on the 'Get Quotes' button you will be asked to enter some basic contact details so that your chosen estate agents (I recommend you choose 3 agents) can contact you and arrange a valuation appointment.

Free property valuation tool - Useful to check an agent's valuation

GETAGENT.co.uk also provides a free property valuation tool. Simply enter the postcode of your property together with the number of bedrooms and you will then be presented with photographs of properties. You will then be asked to decide whether each property shown is worth less, the same or more than your property. Finally you will be given an estimated value of your property. This will be very useful to compare with the valuations provided by your chosen estate agents to see if they are overvaluing your property just to obtain your instruction.

Who is the cheapest estate agent?

As with everything in life you tend to get what you pay for and this also applies to estate agent fees. If an estate agent offers a low fee this may be because they are desperate for the instruction as they are poor at selling houses. Always ask an estate agent to give you examples of properties they have sold recently in your area and then you can see if they deliver results regardless of the fee quoted.

Are estate agent fees negotiable?

Estate agent fees are always negotiable, the more marketable your property the lower the fee you can expect to pay. You can also lower the fee charged by giving one estate agent the sole selling rights to market your property. If you give your instruction to more than one agent then the fees charged could rise from around 1.5% to 2.5% of the selling price of your property, this can add thousands to the cost of moving.

Don't choose an estate agent based purely on the valuation they give you

The Times reported that estate agent chains have been found to overvalue properties by up to a fifth in a practice that they say misleads sellers into paying higher rates of commission. It analysed more than 200,000 properties listed online and found that overvaluations are commonplace and worryingly, the biggest agents were the worst offenders.

The report suggested that agents with the highest commissions were over-valuing properties in order to lure homeowners to sell their properties through them. The properties would often then sell at reduced prices with the agent taking a higher fee than if the homeowner had sold at the same price with someone else. When getting valuations you should always get more than one so that you have something to compare it to. If a valuation seems excessively high you should question the motive behind it.

How to find out who is the best estate agent in your area?

In simple terms, the best estate agent in your area is the one who sells your house in the quickest possible time at the lowest possible fee.

The best way to find out who are the best estate agents in your area is to use the free tool at the top of the article. Enter your postcode in the space provided and answer a few questions and you will be provided information where you can compare estate agents on three criteria – average selling time, number of properties listed & price sold compared with the original asking price

How to find out which estate agent will sell your house the quickest?

Once you have entered your details in the estate agent comparison tool at the top of the article, one of the statistics provided is the average time selected agents take to sell properties. This will give you the ability to compare local estate agents on how long they are likely to take to sell your property. It also highlights the 'fastest' estate agent for you.

Make sure you get the best value from estate agent services?

Using an estate agent is usually the simplest and quickest way to sell your property. You can improve your chances of a sale by agreeing a level of service with your chosen estate as follows:

• Agree a marketing plan to include what property portals your property will appear on
• How many times your property will be included in any newspaper adverts
• How long your property will appear in their window display
• How often will the estate agent update you on progress with the marketing plan
• Making sure your chosen estate agent has the best contact details to enable the arrangement of viewings and communicating offers