The problem with that is that you're unlikely to have gained the best price. As a professional agent is able to understand their buyers requirements and offer them things they might not normally have considered thusly increasing the level of interest creating competition between buyers which drives up your price. There is also the fact that buyers are quite often stupid and tell me everything about their finances so I know and advise clients whether they're likely to get more money out of them.
I could dig out statistics as to how much you're likely to have lost by selling your house yourself. They're quite stark how much you actually lose. How much did you pay to advertise it on rightmove??
The main problem with estate agents is all the big corporates employ spotty Herbert's who don't know what they're doing and give us all a bad name.
Good example of a private seller.. I saw a for sale by owner sign.. Rang him. He'd had an offer of 185k but was trying to sell it for 220k which was too high by twenty grand. He put it with me for 210k took a while to sell and be was going to go back to the original bloke who still wanted it then I sold it for 195k extra 10k for not being a tight stubborn twat.
I agree you can probably get a better price through an agent, although that does depend on the agent. Whilst agents can drum up interest, they don't always have the same interest in getting the best price, particularly if they have an offer and it would take a lot of effort to get a higher one. If you're on 1% commission then the incentive to try and get an extra £10 grand for the client, and thus earn yourself the grand sum of £100, is often pretty low.
Can you honestly say that if you'd been marketing that bloke's property from the start, and he'd had an offer of £185k and that was all he'd had for a month or two you'd still be telling him he could get closer to £200k and would be spending ages trying to market the property just for the extra £100? If you honestly would then you're in the minority - stats do show that uninformed sellers can lose out, but they also show that estate agents tend to sell their own houses for a lot more on average than they sell comparable houses for commission.
Also worth noting that if that offer for £195k hadn't come through, and the bloke had been forced to go back to the original offer, he'd still have had to pay you commission under the terms of your contract. You could choose to waive that, but again you'd be in the minority - most agents will do all they can to grab commission any way they can and give the whole profession a bad name. Also debatable whether he could have gotten the offer of £195k himself simply by leaving it on Rightmove with the sign out for a few months.
I know some estate agents are decent and straight up, and I've dealt with a few over time, but when you're trying to sell it's often hit and miss who you get. If you get a ****ty agent you will almost certainly lose out, and worse by the time you find out they're ****ty you're locked into an exclusive contract and they won't give a **** as they know there's no competition.
You have to pay to advertise on rightmove etc, but you can get the advert placed with photos etc for around £200. Wasn't actually my house, but I helped one of my neighbours take photos for them with my camera and they sold their house for the asking price on the first viewing, for the same amount one of our other neighbours sold a near identical house for about a month earlier.
, talk about giving others a headache.
