# Estate Agents and DAFT



## paulkeano (27 Sep 2006)

Hello all,

can anyone advise me on whetehr or not I can/should use www.daft.ie to advertise privately as well as using an estate agent. I am not 100% happy with the EA at present. I had an ad in the propert section of the Irish Examiner on Saturday. I was unable to get a hold of the estate agent on Monday, his mobile diverted automatically to voicemail on each occasion I attempted to call him. I would have thought it was incumbent on him to ensure availability on Monday of all days (perhaps I am being presumptuous/unrealistic)

Anyways, I was thinking of advertising the house privately on DAFT also. Would this be wise?

I would inform the EA.

Thanks for any advice offered,
PK.


----------



## mf1 (27 Sep 2006)

I would have thought it was incumbent on him to ensure availability on Monday of all days (perhaps I am being presumptuous/unrealistic)

Yes you are are being.......

Can it hurt to advertise on daft? Probably not but if you give your own phone number and sell yourself, you will still have to pay EA unless you remove your business from him now. 

mf


----------



## gauloise (27 Sep 2006)

We sold a property through Daft and only paid the advertising costs incurred by E.A. which we were made aware of at the beginning.


----------



## The_Banker (27 Sep 2006)

Daft is a fine website with more hits per month than My Home yet its doesn't get half the credit My Home gets...


----------



## tosullivan (27 Sep 2006)

I'm thinking of doing the same...I haven't commissioned an EA yet and was going to give DAFT a go for a month or so.  I was told this by someone today.  How much typically does an EA charge?  Do the pro's of the money saving doing privately, outweigh the cons of doing viewings, travelling, etc?

How much do DAFT charge and can you put pictures up aswell?


----------



## gauloise (27 Sep 2006)

Daft charge about 80/90 euro and you can put up photos. The advert will remain on the site until it is sold though you will be asked to renew it after 90 days if memory serves me correctly. Estate agents will charge between 1 - 2%.+ Vat + advertising costs. I was really pleased with response from Daft in fact amazed might be a better word as the house had been with an agent for over 5 months with 1 viewing and within 48 hours on Daft had about 5 enquiries one which led to us going sale agreed within 72 hours of bsing listed on the site!


----------



## tosullivan (27 Sep 2006)

gauloise said:


> Daft charge about 80/90 euro and you can put up photos. The advert will remain on the site until it is sold though you will be asked to renew it after 90 days if memory serves me correctly. Estate agents will charge between 1 - 2%.+ Vat + advertising costs. I was really pleased with response from Daft in fact amazed might be a better word as the house had been with an agent for over 5 months with 1 viewing and within 48 hours on Daft had about 5 enquiries one which led to us going sale agreed within 72 hours of bsing listed on the site!


Daft it is then for the first month at least.  How did you put a value on your property?

I spoke with the estate agent today and they told me that they recently sold an identical house (2 bed mid terrace) 2 months ago for 225k but they sold a 2bed apt for 235k last week and there are 2 x 2 bed apts on Daft in same development for 235&240k.  Now I would be under the impression that the 2bed house would be a better investment as it has a garden, etc, but am I wrong? Do people favour apts more?

I suppose I can only test the water.  I was thinking of advertising at 239k and take it from there.


----------



## wally (27 Sep 2006)

I just sold my house myself (having previously tried an estate agent), I've written about it on here before. I just put my property on at the price of one around the corner (both end of terrace etc.) within 40 minutes I had a caller, viewing arranged, he paid the asking price straight up. I am convinced he didn't know about the other property around the corner because they had their property listed under the wrong area (won't go into detail but our area is sometimes listed as one Dublin suburb and sometimes another - one around the corner was listed under the kind of newer name), anyway I am flabbergasted at how easy it all was, and shudder when I think of what I was going to pay an EA to sell it. You can put as many photos as you want on DAFT (and you can take good ones, ea's ones can be rubbish), just get descriptions from other properties in the area and tailor it yourself to suit your own. Certainly try it before using an EA. Careful not to overprice. I put my asking price for exactly what I thought it was worth and I believe my buyer was happy to get this property for exactly what he thought it was worth. It's not rocket science when you know what other properties have recently gone for in the area. My DAFT ad was active for less than 4 days and the best money I ever spent. I had to pay that incompetant muppet of an estate agent €200 to cover his wasted effort advertising on myhome before I dispensed of his services.

Just have viewings at weekends if you are very busy. I'll never use an estate agent again...


----------



## paulkeano (27 Sep 2006)

I had to pay that incompetant muppet of an estate agent €200 to cover his wasted effort advertising on myhome before I dispensed of his services.

Hi, had you dispensed of the services of the estate agent before putting it on Daft?

I'm getting conflicting advice and would dearly like to know. I already had to ring the EA as the photos he took were to say the least quite rubbish and did nothing to highlight the space/room and dare I say it tasty enough decor (I didn't do it).

Despite mf1 telling me that it is perfectly normal that the EA is not available the day after it is advertised on a national newspaper + telling me that I will have to pay the EA his comission regardless of whether or not he sells the house, I'm still unsure that this is normal practice.

Cheers,
PK.


----------



## paulkeano (27 Sep 2006)

"I had to pay that incompetant muppet of an estate agent €200 to cover his wasted effort advertising on myhome before I dispensed of his services."

Hi, had you dispensed of the services of the estate agent before putting it on Daft?

I'm getting conflicting advice and would dearly like to know. I already had to ring the EA as the photos he took were to say the least quite rubbish and did nothing to highlight the space/room and dare I say it tasty enough decor (I didn't do it).

Despite mf1 telling me that it is perfectly normal that the EA is not available the day after it is advertised on a national newspaper + telling me that I will have to pay the EA his comission regardless of whether or not he sells the house, I'm still unsure that this is normal practice.

Cheers,
PK.


----------



## wally (27 Sep 2006)

Yeah I had told him to take it off the market as he was getting nowhere near what he had promised for me and what I knew it was worth.  I left it about 3 weeks and went down the selling it myself route.

No I don't accept your EA being unavailable either.  I got a friend to ring my EA with a query on my house and it took them 3 days to get back to her which was the final nail in his coffin, what kind of service is that!??

I expect 100% from an EA and I didn't get it, whereas I was guaranteed 100% from myself!!!

PM me if you have any more questions, I got advice through another member on this site which gave me the courage to do it myself.


----------



## Marcecie (27 Sep 2006)

just came across another property web site www.realestate.ie   not sure if you have to pay to advertise


----------



## liteweight (27 Sep 2006)

Marcecie said:


> just came across another property web site www.realestate.ie   not sure if you have to pay to advertise



Did you notice at the bottom of each page it states 'under new management funda Ireland'. I'm wondering is this the same crowd who pulled off the great Shamrock in the Sea property hoax as a form of advertising themselves??


----------



## paulkeano (28 Sep 2006)

Hi,

if advertising privately through Daft, does anyone know about getting house for sale signs made?

Thanks,
PK.


----------



## wally (28 Sep 2006)

In relation to the sign issue, I did e-mail DAFT and suggest they have a package which includes a sign as this is the only problem with using them.

[broken link removed] is the most professional one of the self seller sites I've seen (as most of them are really poor).

Otherwise if you do a search on this site I've definitely seen someone who posted a picture of the 'for sale' sign which they had outside their own house.


----------



## johndoe64 (28 Sep 2006)

another one here


----------



## Taximan (28 Sep 2006)

I am sure one of our legal minds can confirm this but I do believe their is case law backing up the E/A in the situation where you have engaged them but sell yourself. I am nearly sure but could be wrong. He is still entitled to his fee.


----------



## johndoe64 (28 Sep 2006)

I had a house with an EA sold it myself within a day of the sign going up so he hadn't even a chance to advertise, so I told him I was taking it off the market and then just processed the sale with the guy who knocked on my front door.


----------



## wally (28 Sep 2006)

Taximan said:


> I am sure one of our legal minds can confirm this but I do believe their is case law backing up the E/A in the situation where you have engaged them but sell yourself. I am nearly sure but could be wrong. He is still entitled to his fee.


 
I had signed nothing, he rushed me into putting my house on the market 6 months before my new house was going to be ready (I only wanted a valuation).  I told him the price I believed it was worth and he agreed that I was right and he said he was confident he could get this for me.  3 months later he is getting annoyed with me for not accepting offers of 20,000 less (because of the stamp duty threshold).

To sum up, he did not put in the effort for his website ad, or highlight the particular benefits of my property over others in the estate - I did, which is why I got 30,000 more than his best offer.  Like I said he hasn't got a leg to stand on and I signed nothing and wouldn't have been stupid enough to sign anything either.  He simply did not deliver on getting me the price he said he would.  He did not sell my house.  I did my research myself, took my own photos, set up my own selfseller website and did the work he should have been doing.

Like I said I will NEVER use an EA again.....


----------



## Longfordian (24 Oct 2006)

I am an Estate Agent and think daft.ie is a great way to sell property. I use it myself all the time. Some of my clients use it themselves as well as using my office. If they sell themselves there is no fee. If I bring in a buyer I charge a commission. Just a word of caution: make sure you do your homework first and get the pricing right. There is nothing worse than finding out later that you undersold. I am wary of stories of people selling the next day to the first buyer. I could sell all my listings in the morning if they are underpriced.  Put the effort in and take quality photos and keep the mobile on all the time as people expect to call and view on their schedule.

Brendan


----------



## Lobby (24 Oct 2006)

I too am an EA and I hear lots of stories like yours, this boom in property has brought a lot of cowboys into the business. 

Just be wary, its not strictly necessary for you to have signed anything for the EA to have a claim for fees, however, they should have written to you outlining their fees and entitlements to fees when you took them on. It might be safer to write them a letter discharging them from your service, just to be sure.


----------

