# Estate Agent Fees



## Squidward (2 Aug 2006)

We hope to be putting our property on the market in the next few weeks and have interviewed a few estate agents to date. Below is a list of what I've been quoted. 

Castle 1.25% plus VAT  295.00 plus Vat for Advertising.

Tom Maher  .85% plus VAT 400 plus VAT for Advertising.

Movehome.ie 1499 plus VAT  350 plus VAT for Advertising.

Are these figures resonable, and has anybody had any dealings with these agents?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers.


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## roxy (2 Aug 2006)

Squid, PM'd you


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## Numbs (2 Aug 2006)

*Selling Price**Agent**200,000**300,000**400,000**500,000*Castle3,3824,8946,4077,919Tom Maher2,5413,5704,5985,627MoveHome2,2392,2392,2392,239 
The 12 figures above show what the final fee will be depending on agaent and selling price.

So unless you're selling your house for under €200,000, MoveHome is
the best value objectively. However, I don't know which would actually sell your house faster. Personnally, I would choose MoveHome since I hate the way other Estate Agents charge a percentage of the selling price. I know it prompts them to seek a higher price for you but consider the case of Castle. Depending on whether they sell your house for €200,000 or €500,000, there is about €4,500 in the difference in their final fee. That really bugs me. It's not like they do anything really different.


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## wally (2 Aug 2006)

Movehome.ie would be the best value of estate agents, and I do admire them for setting the fee. However as I think I may have previously posted we wasted 3 months with our house on the web using them as we wouldn't accept offers 20,000 below what movehome originally valued our house at and told us they 'were confident' they could get for us. As a result we decided to sell ourselves. I would have had no problem paying them if they had gotten us the price they valued our house for but the truth is, they are like all EA's, they want a quick sale and after a few weeks they plain stopped putting the work in. If I was going to go with an EA I would make sure it's close to your property as I found that viewings were an inconvenience to them when they weren't local to my area.

Obviously I'm bitter about the time wasted, maybe other people have used them and found them better........

Anyway I still just can't stop thinking about the fact that Estate Agents will never be as interested in 'selling' your property to a viewer than you would be yourself. Good luck whatever you do anyway!


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## CCOVICH (2 Aug 2006)

We recently got 0.5% + VAT from Property Team, 0.7% (negotiable) from SherryFitz, and 1% from Remax, but I'd say it depends on your location (we are in Co. Dublin-NS).


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## Ballyman (3 Aug 2006)

Sell it yourself on Daft.ie and don't be wasting your money on some muppet in a suit.


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## santiago (3 Aug 2006)

There was a guy on the radio this morning promoting a website service for selling your own house - www.sellityourself.ie . From the bit I heard, you can advertise on the website and get a board to put outside your house for €195.


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## Askar (3 Aug 2006)

If I offered to pay you a couple of thousand to sell a property would you do it (it will take you maybe 20 hours work)? you can get an idea about value from 3 free quotes off local auctioneers (bearing in mind some adopt open low to attract interest and others promise high prices for your business). That is exactly what you are getting by doing by selling your own house. Of course, you can do what some people on this website like to do, and use an auctioneer on a commission basis, while you get worked up over a couple of hundred quid in outlay incurred by your Solicitor.


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## padh (3 Aug 2006)

Can oyou choose to sell thorugh two or more estate agents.  It appears common practice in Co Waterford ( sometimes up to 4 estate agents signs on one property)


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## Squidward (3 Aug 2006)

Unfortunately we both work long hours and could not dedicate the time needed to sell the house ourselves.  My gut feeling is to go with Tom Maher as he is very popular in my area plus the majority of his signs have sale agreed within a few weeks, however movehome.ie are about 2200 cheaper.

So do I go with an old reliable or take a risk with a cheaper newcomer??


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## Ballyman (3 Aug 2006)

A monkey could sell a house in the current climate so it doesn't matter one jot who you go with. The market will dictate the price. Not you or your agent or anyone else.

If you want to throw €2200 into the fire then go ahead and ask Tom to sell your house.

You could also go to the zoo and ask to borrow a monkey for a few days and let him sell it for you. Shouldn't cost you much more than €50 in peanuts and bananas.


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## CCOVICH (3 Aug 2006)

Real sensible advice.

If the OP has said that they want an estate agent to sell their house, why not just let them?  It's their own choice.

Advice on peanuts, monkeys and muppets is just tiresome and can be kept for _Letting Off Steam_ or _Shooting The Breeze_, or _Mooney Goes Wild_, if it was still on.


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## roxy (3 Aug 2006)

Ballyman,

Not having a pop, but I do find your posts very repetetive, you are constantly offering to sell peoples' houses for them or telling them to sell it themselves. Not everyone wants to be/or is in a position to do this. Fair enough - say it when they ask should they sell it themselves but not at any chance you get. Squidward was asking about the agents rates, not a riddle on zoo animals!


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## Ballyman (3 Aug 2006)

You are having a pop.

I'm hurt now.


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## annemarie123 (28 Aug 2006)

Just for the record, I sold my house on www.sellityourself.ie The house sold within two weeks and we got more than what the estate agent had valued the house at.  We saved over €6000 by selling it ourselves.  It was painless.


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## Peadar (28 Aug 2006)

Are you connected with sellityourself.ie annemarie by any chance?


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## CCOVICH (28 Aug 2006)

annemarie123 said:


> Just for the record, I sold my house on www.sellityourself.ie The house sold within two weeks and we got more than what the estate agent had valued the house at. We saved over €6000 by selling it ourselves. It was painless.


 

Yeah annemarie, given that all your posts to date have been on the site in question and that this is the home page in your public profile, I'd like to know if you have any connection with www.sellityourself.ie

Underhanded and sneaky spamming is the worst kind and may even lead to all mentions of the site in question being deleted from AAM, whether good or bad  .


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## Satanta (28 Aug 2006)

CCOVICH said:


> Yeah annemarie, given that all your posts to date have been on the site in question and that this is the home page in your public profile, I'd like to know if you have any connection with www.sellityourself.ie



According to this post yes she is connected to the business. 


annemarie123 said:


> We were so impressed by the ease of the sale that *we have now set up a website www.SellItYourself.ie* to allow sellers to sell direct.


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## Glenbhoy (28 Aug 2006)

> We saved over €6000 by selling it ourselves. It was painless.


How can you say that?  The EA may have achieved a better price, you can't say for definite that they wouldn't have.
I am also Dublin NS, i got 0.5% up to 381K and 0.75% above that.  I imagine most EA's in Dublin anyway will negotiate, and there are a number of EA's who will quote 0.5%.


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## CCOVICH (28 Aug 2006)

Satanta said:


> According to this post yes she is connected to the business.


 
But the post above is slightly misleading-no?


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## Satanta (28 Aug 2006)

CCOVICH said:


> But the post above is slightly misleading-no?



Completely. As are all posts relating to the site posted apart from the original! It's stated that the house was sold on the site, when she clearly states that the site/business was started following the sale of their house and the ease in which they felt it was achieved.

I think the service is a beneficial one, but obviously the poster should clearly state that she holds a personal interest in the site and is one of the founders of it (also, technically her home was not sold on this site as the site did not exist until after - at least thats what I understand from the very first post).


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## Guest107 (28 Aug 2006)

*annmaries details*

From !

[broken link removed]


> Ann Marie Doyle
> 
> *SOLE TRADER *
> 
> ...


One wonders where the "We" came out of  so one does  . 

And where be this Advanced Internet Marketing to be found  Why its in Ennis !

http://www.iia.ie/member_detail.asp?memberid=2410

Advanced Internet Marketing    Address 22 Abbey St., Ennis.
Telephone 065 6843638    
Website www.aim-irl.com 
Description Website Design & E-Commerce Solutions    

Voting Member Name Anne-Marie Doyle 

So there !


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## Henny Penny (28 Aug 2006)

I would look at the agents track record rather than the commission (assuming there wasn't much between the rates). From personal experience of selling our home, we chose an agent who we thought was good enough, likeable and professional. Three months in he had cost us a fortune in advertising and we'd only had a couple of viewings. When anyone rang up to enquire about the house he sent them the brochure, rather than offering to show them the property. 
We changed agent and within 2 weeks we'd had 5 viewings and the property was sold. The difference was the second agent was willing to show people the house, regardless of whether he thought they'd buy it or not. He didn't advertise, just put a sign outside the house. In the end the people we would never expected to buy our house, bought it ... you just never know ... therefore you need an agent who will work for his or her fee. Good luck.


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## Satanta (28 Aug 2006)

2Pack said:


> One wonders where the "We" came out of  so one does  .


SellItYourself "About us" page
All information is easily found on the site, it's just very important that it is clearly stated, when she is suggesting the site, that it is *her site*.


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## Guest107 (28 Aug 2006)

I would infer that the selltheyoke.ie domain was registered in October 2005 so when did she sell 'that' house


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## turtle77 (29 Aug 2006)

I was just on www.sellityourself.ie
There is only one house on it for sale in Dublin! I think there is 64 on it for sale altogether.

I bought my house last year. I wasn't aware of this site.
How many buyers are aware of it???

It varies in Tyrrelstown from .7% up to 1.25% to sell a house.


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## annemarie123 (2 Oct 2006)

Hi all,

Just came across these posts.  Yes I am the person who set up http://www.sellityourself.ie after selling my house online.  I openly stated this in the post linked above!  How can I say that selling the house was painless??  Because it was.  What is underhand about stating the fact that I sold my house on http://www.sellityourself.ie and saved €6000 in the process?

Go to http://www.sellityourself.ie/about.htm and you will read all the details of the house sale.

Thanks

Anne-Marie


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## ClubMan (2 Oct 2006)

My wife's sister's husband (don't think that's brother in law is it?) is in the _EA_ business and told me at the weekend that the average fees these days are around 0.5% (he's mainly based in _Dublin _- central/Northside) due to competitive pricing pressure from one of the big _EA _operations in recent years. He said that a few years back 2% was not unusual.


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## annemarie123 (2 Oct 2006)

For the record as there seems to be a lot of research and detective work going on here!

1.  August / September 2005 - decided to sell house.  Checked out estate agent fees and thought that I would try and sell it myself and save thousands.

2.  October 2005 - registered sellityourself.ie and set up a mini version of the site.  Advertised my property on it.  Sold the house within two weeks.  Saved over €6000.  Received more than the local estate agents had valued it at.  

3.  Decided that the concept of selling your own house was a winner and people had to know about it.  Spent 6 months developing http://www.sellityourself.ie as it appears today.  

And 2Pack, you would have got all this information if you had done as Satanta did and went to the about us page of www.sellityourself.ie.  The 'We' that you ask about is my business partner and husband, Neil.

2Pack seems to be inferring that the house is fictional.  It certainly isn't - check out the land registry!


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## bnz (12 Oct 2006)

Having had some serious experiience of the auctioneering trade in Ireland (I supplied services to IAVI for years) I would really like to see more private sales there but the complexity of property law and related contract law must be off-putting for many people. However it’s likely that direct buyer to seller communications and clear instructions to a conveyancing solicitor might simplify the whole process. Newspaper advertising costs in Ireland are discracefully high and the use of newspapers by agents needs to be questioned as www advertising is more effective. In my view though a seller needs more than just the advertising.To get their property on the market at the right price sellers need marketing support and statistical pricing information.
I live in New Zealand where selling a house is a very direct and open transaction and the fees charged by agents are high in comparison to Ireland so it would follow that there is more incentive and is easier to sell privately in NZ. It is estimated that over 60% of sellers in NZ consider commission free services when they come to sell.
I must disclose that I have an interest in the operation of Green Door (a FSBO operation) and am actively promoting master franchises in Ireland and UK. The NZ seller is motivated not only by the saving of a typical *4%* agent fee plus costs but also by the desire and belief that they can sell their own home -- that they can be in control!


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## pjq (18 Oct 2006)

*Selling Myself*

I'm in the process of selling myself without an EA , it's going fine & I will post a general comment when all is done and dusted . However , I will comment on Advertising , I advertised on daft.ie and got ( and still getting ) plenty of genuine contacts . Two weeks later put up 2 signs " house for Sale + tel#." and got just as good a response . After 6 weeks (Aug. is dead for property newspapers) I put an ad in our regional paper ..... only got 5 calls and no noticable up-swing in daft.ie hits . 
I dont know what to conclude ,,,,, but let me play devils advocate ;
1. when you pay for newspaper advertising it is not a waste of money as it improves the EA's brand recognition , just like a Shell Oil environmental ad. Unfortunately for you, people don't look for petrol or houses in a newspaper they go to a petrol station or to the web.
2. the EA's get a discount ( kick back) from the paper .
On reflection , I'm probably too hard on the EA's
PJQ


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## annemarie123 (26 Oct 2006)

bnz said:


> The NZ seller is motivated not only by the saving of a typical *4%* agent fee plus costs but also by the desire and belief that they can sell their own home -- that they can be in control!


 
This is very interesting as we set up the Sellityourself.ie website assuming that people would want to benefit from the cost saving but what we are finding is that many, many people are motivated by the belief that the estate agent is not doing enough to sell their property and that they can do a better job selling privately.  Many people are actually switching from their estate agent to selling privately.


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## JohnJay (9 Feb 2010)

So whats the current view on Estate Agent Fees?

I have 2 agents quoting me 1.25% + extra costs for daft and myhome, one of them has a min charge of 3K. Are any of the big/good agents doing better deals? Are agents flexible with their fees?


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## mf1 (9 Feb 2010)

I think the big issue has to be with the level of work/input required to actually sell a property.

Everything is exceptionally hard work at the moment. There aren't that many properties for sale, everything is hard to sell, the market is flooded with naive buyers who have  a tendency to waste a lot of time when they haven't a prayer of ever getting a mortgage, the vendors all want a  knock down deal . I could go on and on. 

I think some posters will say - try and sell it yourself. I think this only works if a vendor is willing to put in the hours and truly believes there are buyers out there. And there are - but at a price which is going to be much lower than most vendors are willing to sell at. 

So, in answer to the query, I'm not seeing rates much lower than quoted above. And I think you can always ask for flexibility and see what happens. 

Puts hard hat on and ducks for cover.

mf


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## Chief Robert (10 May 2010)

*Time to sell and Trade Up?*



JohnJay said:


> So whats the current view on Estate Agent Fees?
> 
> I have 2 agents quoting me 1.25% + extra costs for daft and myhome, one of them has a min charge of 3K. Are any of the big/good agents doing better deals? Are agents flexible with their fees?



Hi JohnJay, would be very interested to see if you came to any conclusions on this yourself?

I'm in the situation at the moment where I'm considering moving house. I own a house at the moment, probably valued at €300k. I bought it just under 7 years ago, as a FTB, so I am probably still going to break even worst case scenario on my original purchase price (€280k). I'm also on a Tracker Mortgage, which I realise I will have to give up if I move. So I'll weight that one up and do my sums! Or negotiate being bought out of my Tracker before I move!!!

I have what I consider to be a reasonably secure job (as far as anyone can predict these days), so I'm looking to see if I can get value in the market today. What is value?

Improved location (closed to better public transport services), slightly bigger house (increased floor area) and closer to ameneties, at a price that I think is fair and reasonable. I've no intention of moving unless I really see something I like and at a price I am willing to pay. No intention of getting into a bidding war with some competing party for a property!

So I've gone to view a few properties, and seen an area that I like, and have secured Mortgage approval (after sending in the paperwork to the bank).

I've heard that based on Annual trends, now is the time to sell. There is probably a "2 month window" left in the year to sell according to some of the EA's I've spoken to. 

So now I'm going to go and investigate which EA to go with. I haven't checked their charges and/or fee's yet, don't know much about how it looks today, but will post on here. If any of you have advice, opinions or recent experience on what to look out for today when selling a house- would love to hear.

Thanks,

Rob


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## JohnJay (10 May 2010)

I found an agent who is charing me 1.25% without a min charge. My property went sale agreed in a very short time, and I hope to sign contracts shortly. I'm getting out without loosing too much (cept for buying out of a fixed rate mortgage, but thats another story), so I am happy. I'm going to rent for 6 months anyway, to give me a chance to get more of a deposit together and to see whats out there. I'm not convinced that we are at the bottom of the market yet, so I'm not gonna buy for a wee while.


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## Chief Robert (10 May 2010)

Hi again JohnJay,

Do you mind me asking which part of the country you're in? Is it Dublin? 
If so - Dublin North, South or West?

Just trying to get an idea as I think it varies even from Northside to Southside. My brother bought at the very end of last year and got some real value there.


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## JohnJay (10 May 2010)

Dublin north


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## Luckycharm (11 May 2010)

ClubMan said:


> My wife's sister's husband (don't think that's brother in law is it?) is in the _EA_ business and told me at the weekend that the average fees these days are around 0.5% (he's mainly based in _Dublin _- central/Northside) due to competitive pricing pressure from one of the big _EA _operations in recent years. He said that a few years back 2% was not unusual.


 
Whatever happened to clubman?


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## Green (11 May 2010)

Luckycharm said:


> Whatever happened to clubman?


 
Good question, does anyone know?


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## JohnJay (11 May 2010)

Luckycharm said:


> Whatever happened to clubman?


 

It may have been an incident in the Dublin mountains involving Clubman,  an estate agent, a shot gun and a shovel...


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## IrishGunner (15 Jun 2010)

Selling my house and going to shop around for EA and their fees have 3 in mind whom I am going to contact 

GWD  Valued my house but only have 2 offices
Gunne Solicitor recommended these, he is not on Commission
DNG

What are the main questions I should ask and has anyone dealt with the above


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## javier (20 Jun 2010)

Hi There

I never areed a fee with my estate agent and never signed anything.  He did one viewing in a year and got an offer he now wants to charge me1.8%.  He says if I dont accept he will tell the clients the house is no longer for sale   Im really annoyed with him this is in the midlands  anyone have any experience of this?  ObviouslyI got  offered a pittance and haveing lost a fortune already would like to salvage something


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