Estate Agents Fees for ExPats

[zbc]

We've finally agreed to sell our house in the UK after 15 years of renting it out and are trying to decide on the best path. The easy option is just to ask the EA who are currently our letting agents to sell it for us. They were even the EA who originally sold us the house 25 years ago. Positive is that they know the house backwards and will explain why it isn't in the best condition as it's been rented out for many years. Negative is that they may not make us the best offer as they know they are in a strong position. We're very rarely back in the UK so tricky to get someone else around too.

Any suggestions for how to proceed would be very welcome and also indications of rates that I should target with the existing EA that would make me just say "why not"?

[worsy]

Fees can be anything from 0.5% up to 3 or even 5% for high value stuff. You could always ask a couple of local agents what their fees are and negotiate with the current EA. It sounds like they would be the best option for you though and any extra cost vs your travel and time to come back easily reconciled.

[cml24]

Our situation was a bit different I think, as we were returned from abroad at the time, having rented our house out we were then looking to sell it.

We went with the agents that were also letting it out (under the most expensive, fully managed option). Did it help? No!

They refused to talk to each other despite sitting in the same branch, everything had to go through us. It took a lot of convincing, but we eventually convinced the letting team to give keys to the sales team, but for a while they were insistent we flew back from abroad to accept the keys from lettings and pass them to sales.

In addition, the house wasn't ready to sell, and they'd told us it was. We should have waited until the tenants left, and spent time clearing the property and a quick lick of paint, it would really have helped.

I'm sure both of these issues can be avoided, and I'm not suggesting they'll happen to you, but make sure you've checked and double checked things.

I would definitely get a couple of quotes from different agents to compare.

What are the tenants like? Happy to show agents around?

[The jiffle king]

zbc - You might want to check the CGT rules around selling the property. I'm going back 10 years and I think the factsheet at the time was HMRC 173 but essentially at that time:
- If you were sent abroad for the work rather than choosing to move, that made a difference in terms of how much was CGT free
- moving back in additionally made a difference (was 3 years at the time but now might be 18 months)
- I could claim back some repairs over a 3 year period which helped

I'm many years out of date and even the 3rd party experts were not that clued up so doing my own research helped and saved me a fortune. My tax advisory company at the time needed guiding and pointing in the right direction

https://www.gov.uk/tax-sell-home/absence-from-home

The above link may help but it's not everything

[zbc]

worsy said:

Fees can be anything from 0.5% up to 3 or even 5% for high value stuff. You could always ask a couple of local agents what their fees are and negotiate with the current EA. It sounds like they would be the best option for you though and any extra cost vs your travel and time to come back easily reconciled.

Thanks. This sounds like a solid plan. At least to ask a couple of others makes sense

[zbc]

cml24 said:

Our situation was a bit different I think, as we were returned from abroad at the time, having rented our house out we were then looking to sell it.

We went with the agents that were also letting it out (under the most expensive, fully managed option). Did it help? No!

They refused to talk to each other despite sitting in the same branch, everything had to go through us. It took a lot of convincing, but we eventually convinced the letting team to give keys to the sales team, but for a while they were insistent we flew back from abroad to accept the keys from lettings and pass them to sales.

In addition, the house wasn't ready to sell, and they'd told us it was. We should have waited until the tenants left, and spent time clearing the property and a quick lick of paint, it would really have helped.

I'm sure both of these issues can be avoided, and I'm not suggesting they'll happen to you, but make sure you've checked and double checked things.

I would definitely get a couple of quotes from different agents to compare.

What are the tenants like? Happy to show agents around?

Thanks cml you've pretty much laid out some of our concerns but one of the reasons we are looking to sell is that the tenants have just left so we're hoping we might avoid some of these issues. We're traveling at some point in the next month and will probably try to go and see the house then so I'll try to get the rental agent and the sales agent together at some point and see how that goes

[zbc]

The jiffle king said:

zbc - You might want to check the CGT rules around selling the property. I'm going back 10 years and I think the factsheet at the time was HMRC 173 but essentially at that time:
- If you were sent abroad for the work rather than choosing to move, that made a difference in terms of how much was CGT free
- moving back in additionally made a difference (was 3 years at the time but now might be 18 months)
- I could claim back some repairs over a 3 year period which helped

I'm many years out of date and even the 3rd party experts were not that clued up so doing my own research helped and saved me a fortune. My tax advisory company at the time needed guiding and pointing in the right direction

https://www.gov.uk/tax-sell-home/absence-from-home

The above link may help but it's not everything

We've taken some advice on this already as as you say it's a bit of a minefield and we also have liability where we live. The rules changed in 2015 I think and included an option at that time to revalue the property to what it was worth in 2015 which saves us quite a bit but we've already agreed with an accountant to deal with this as we know it's complicated

[zbc]

So we've ended up paying about 0.9% with our preferred agents so went with that. Now after a week on the market we've had 15 viewings and two offers. our experience of the UK property market in the past 20 years is limited to Location, location, location and I'm not sure how accurate that is in terms of negotiating so back here for some more advice (or abuse if you prefer ).

One offer is almost 10% below asking, which for a property that has been on the market for a week seems like a joke tbh so will just get rejected. The other is 3% below. I'm thinking I should suggest to them that they meet me halfway and we'll stop marketing etc but is this something that only happens on the TV or should I be waiting a little longer as it's very early days and hope someone comes along with a better offer still. Seems to me that this market won't last much longer but I could afford to wait a week or two?

Also will of course be talking to the agent but asking around can't do any harm of course.

[Jaska]

How significant is the difference between 3% under asking and asking?

We got an offer 3% under on ours and met in the middle at 1.5% under, but it was a difference of a few thousand, if it had been tens of thousands I'd maybe chance a few more viewings!

[OutInTheShed]

Some houses are easy to put a value on, because their clones down the road have just been sold.

Others, valuations are more variable, we had different agents put quite different figures on one house.

So it's worth a few asking agents and then grilling them to justify the figures.
Some will say a high figure to get your business.
Some know the market and know exactly what kind of buyer will pay a premium for the house and how to find that buyer.
Others will go in low hoping for a quick sale with little work to do.

A 10% difference in sale price over rules a 1% difference in selling fee.
But only if they deliver.

[OutInTheShed]

zbc said:

So we've ended up paying about 0.9% with our preferred agents so went with that. Now after a week on the market we've had 15 viewings and two offers. our experience of the UK property market in the past 20 years is limited to Location, location, location and I'm not sure how accurate that is in terms of negotiating so back here for some more advice (or abuse if you prefer ).

One offer is almost 10% below asking, which for a property that has been on the market for a week seems like a joke tbh so will just get rejected. The other is 3% below. I'm thinking I should suggest to them that they meet me halfway and we'll stop marketing etc but is this something that only happens on the TV or should I be waiting a little longer as it's very early days and hope someone comes along with a better offer still. Seems to me that this market won't last much longer but I could afford to wait a week or two?

Also will of course be talking to the agent but asking around can't do any harm of course.

The other thing with offers, is how ready are they to proceed?

[spikeyhead]

OutInTheShed said:

The other thing with offers, is how ready are they to proceed?

If they are keen and proceedable, without a long chain beneath them then I'd just accept the offer, it's the best one from 15 viewings.

[zbc]

Thanks for the advice all. It's on just under 480k so meeting us half way is about 8k. Both offers have Mortgage in Principle available and nothing to sell. I know MIP can be meaningless but it's better than nothing and nothing to sell works. There are a couple of other viewing in the next couple of days so if nothing better comes along then I'll say yes I guess