Why are estate agents so expensive? And why is it a percentge?

Ok, It goes like this. For starters, the agents need to be liscened, and take classes, so there's 1 cost. Secondly, all the advertising for the listing? Comes out of their pocket. There are all kinds of advertising they can do for you, and some of that can be rather expensive. One of the benefits that you get with a listing agent, is that your property gets put on the MLS, which is a giant listings exchange all realtors have access to, even when the house isn't being actively advertised in other methods. Realtors of course have to pay a fee for access to the MLS. There's also all sorts of hidden legal fees that they end up covering out of that percentage. By the time all's said and done, Realtors don't actually make all that much, especially if they get into Pay Per Click advertising (such as the sponsored links on search engines like yahoo, or one of those other guys). Hope that helped to answer your question :)

Nothing says you have to use an estate agent.

You advertise in the local paper and rightmove if you want.

This has costs but depending on the house may work out cheaper.

For their money an estate agent has to do very little.

They can sit back and do nothing the customer will

just go elsewhere. So perhaps better off marketing it

yourself especially in this market.

considering nearly all homes for sale in the UK,now go on the rightmove site,apart from this cost, theres not much else they do,apart from a few phone calls.

I recently sold my house with one of the big agents,and had already changed from one to another,and neither of them were any good at giving feed back on viewings,and to get a sale, all they were interested in was getting you to keep lowering the price

You should always shop around for the best deals,and make sure not to get locked in for a long time,just incase you want to change to another agent,or you could get penalties

I had also tried the internet sites, but these were a waste of time

you may well ask. I'm house hunting at the moment and most of the agents seem useless, don't do viewings, can't spell, work very limited hours. Fortunately I am now buying so I don't pay!

you can use one of the pay up front internet lot, they will charge a few hundred quid and then not do much apart from get you on right move.

BTW 2% was a sting, I paid 1% and 1.5% is more usual. They saw you coming, sorry!

i have just negotiated a flat fee with my agent of £3k, the fee would have been £12750 if i hadnt but after a posting on rightmove, a couple of adverts in local rag and quite frankly naff all else i still feel ripped off.

My agent said its all about motivation for the staff (big commission to sell in hard times) and all the "behind the scenes" stuff they did!!

Basically semi-regulated robbery

they dont need to explain ..the price is the price ..period ..go elsewhere ..thats the problem ..they are all the same ..just be grateful its not france ..closer to 10% in some cases