Estate Agents increase sales charges

BobbyD10

Is this a suprise but justified or is it just a plain greedy estate agent...?

http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0524/property.html

godtabh

If people shopped around would this be an issue?

BobbyD10

It is one of the biggest and others I anticipate will follow suit.

godtabh

BobbyD10 wrote:

It is one of the biggest and others I anticipate will follow suit.

Only if they think they can get away with it

Lex Luthor

BobbyD10 wrote:

Is this a suprise but justified or is it just a plain greedy estate agent...?

http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0524/property.html

pure greed...the chips are down now and they are feeling the hurt

BobbyD10

kearnsr wrote:

Only if they think they can get away with it

They must think they can, I hope they lose business due to this move.

Zambia

BobbyD10 wrote:

Is this a suprise but justified or is it just a plain greedy estate agent...?

http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0524/property.html

This is no surprise really they where getting money for old rope , I mean there income must be taking a hit at present as there is no-one buying or not as many .

So they cant even get finance on projected income as it takes a while before they get paid as they tend to not see there money till the sale is completed.

So I expect they will now ask for deposits when taking on a property or the Advertising fees up front which we have already heard on this forum.

Just think

An EA used to view a few houses now they have to view several to make a sale, this takes time. They also can afford less people we have already seen lay offs.

The good EA's will survive the chaff will blow away...

jdivision

Seems a bit ludicrous to me. Not only that but a house that sold for e450k would have paid them e4,500. Now if a house has fallen just over 10 per cent to e400k, they get e6000. They're not going to get many people selling with them at that price.

godtabh

jdivision wrote:

Seems a bit ludicrous to me. Not only that but a house that sold for e450k would have paid them e4,500. Now if a house has fallen just over 10 per cent to e400k, they get e6000. They're not going to get many people selling with them at that price.

I was thinking the same but handt but figuers on it

Cervantes

Every so often, my head melts when I wonder about 'Why things are the way they are?' - this is one of the situations!

Why is the act of buying/selling a house so expensive? (let's not even start on the actual house prices)

What are the steps to be carried out in (e.g. Estate agents, conveyancing etc) the exchange of a house for money?

Why is the system set up in such away that people cannot cut out these middlemen and extra fees?

For example, I want to buy a car from a private seller:

1. Give money to seller
2. Seller signs car registration change of ownership
3. I sign car registration change of ownership
4. Send cert to Shannon
5. Receive cert from Shannon.
6. I own car.

Given the advent of internet based transactions for travel agents, the likes of carzone.ie and daft.ie for cars and rented accomodation accordingly, why are we still stuck in the dark ages wrt the selling of a house?

Ok, I know I've grossly oversimplified things here, but often I feel you just have to stand back and look at the problem from a simple viewpoint (nail, meet hammer) to realise what sort of situation we've become indoctrinated into?

dame

BobbyD10 wrote:

It is one of the biggest and others I anticipate will follow suit.

I agree. On the lunchtime news on RTE the man interviewed from Sherry Fitzgerald said it was no problem as long as there was no cooperation/collusion with prices. I'd say they'll all say, "Well if Sherry Fitz can do it, we can too".

I really hope the smaller more personal firms keep their commission at the same level and get more business from the big guys as a result of this.

Maybe more people will go the private selling route. I'd consider it myself if I was selling and had the time to show the property.

whippet

out of curiosity what rates were EA's charging 10 years ago? If they were charging 1.5-2% they may have a point but if they were charging 1% before the boom the current increase is nothing more than to serve the purpose of maintaining the lifestyle and personal bank balances that they now have.

I am sure that if there was a slowdown in the constuction industry, chippies and sparks wouldn't be increasing their prices to compensate them for the time they have to wait around for a job. They would be cutting their prices to become more competitive in a limited market place.

A Random Walk

I find it hard to get worked up about this? Sellers do not have to use an EA to sell their house and can pick and choose any EA they like. EAs are providing a service and are free to charge what they like - this is assuming the competition people make sure that there is no collusion.

Lex Luthor

A Random Walk wrote:

I find it hard to get worked up about this? Sellers do not have to use an EA to sell their house

that would be fine if most buyers felt that way about not using an EA

I tried to sell my house about 6months ago and put ads on daft, put up a nice FOR SALE sign and after nearly 8 weeks, there was no interest....

Went to an EA agent and they got 8k more for me than I was looking for and sold it within a week

jdivision

whippet wrote:

out of curiosity what rates were EA's charging 10 years ago? If they were charging 1.5-2% they may have a point but if they were charging 1% before the boom the current increase is nothing more than to serve the purpose of maintaining the lifestyle and personal bank balances that they now have.

.

They used to charge around 2 per cent I think. i disagree with your logic though in that prices would have more than trebled since 1997 so even at 1 per cent their fees were higher in real terms and they would also have been turning over significantly more properties as the amount of housing stock exploded.

Do-more

I'm surprised at the timing of this, just before the election, after all the EA's have all been telling us the the market would take off again once the uncertainty of the election was out of the way. Don't they believe that themselves? :eek:

fintan

The thing is with websites like http://www.huntforproperty.ie/ and all the other property websites, it really gives people the option if they need an estate agent or not.

kilkennycat2004

Estate agents are heading the way of travel agents, i.e. not necessary.
Most houses are half sold online before the EA steps in to claim their four figure commision.
DIY online is the answer to this greed.

godtabh

kilkennycat2004 wrote:

Estate agents are heading the way of travel agents, i.e. not necessary.
Most houses are half sold online before the EA steps in to claim their four figure commision.
DIY online is the answer to this greed.

There will always be a need for both but in order for them to be competitive they will have to shape up.