Selling a house in Ireland - Auctioneer advise

SarahPL

Hi all,

We are planning to put our house up for sale soon. House is 5 years old, A2 rated and in a nice area, I think it will sell quickly (other houses in area have sold quickly recently). I’m debating about whether to go with the likes of Auctioneera to sell it (fixed rate of a bit over €2k) or a traditional estate agent like DNG or Sherry Fitz (approx €9k for essentially the same service). I’m worried I’ll get what I pay for with Auctioneera, and that Sherry Fitz could get us a better price. But I do feel like it’s a sellers market and what the auctioneer does at the moment doesn’t make much of a difference?! Would love to hear peoples opinions/experience! Thanks!

Angelica24

I'm a bit biased as I am having a horrible experience with the estate agent I engaged to sell my house. He's been a nightmare and all he cares about is getting his commission so he has tried to force us to sign contracts indirectly by using the purchaser and their solicitor to put pressure on us at every turn even though he was well aware we had nowhere to move to.

With the market being the way it is, our house would have sold for the same price regardless or for more even as we went with his recommendation to go with the purchasers even though another bidder offered more. I found afterwards he is very buddy buddy with some of the potential purchasers as they have been looking at houses with him for years and that he has treated other sellers locally the same. It's as if he acts for them not me and whatever they request such as multiple viewings, he demands I facilitate it and he has a fit and he gets nasty if I refuse. He's a complete nightmare.

I really regret not going with a cheaper option like Auctioneera or Moovingo or even looking for a private sale. I ended up doing a lot of the work anyway and he didn't even go into the house for the viewings so people went through all the drawers and cupboards.

I feel like estate agents are largely such scumbags you might as well go with the cheapest option and with the auction ones, there might not be such a conflict of interest as I feel like our agent really wasn't trusted to obtain the best price for us as he just wants his commission asap. Best of luck whatever option you chose.

ecjjaian

I noticed on one local Auctioneera recently that due to the bidding deadline, it ended up becoming more about who had the fastest fingers and best "bid sniping" skills as opposed to who was willing to pay the most. Deadline 20:00, bids at 19:59, 20:00 and 20:00, certainly one or both parties were willing to pay more than what it settled for.