How much?

At http://www.scottishhousemove.com/ we are always trying to stay ahead of our high street competitors both on price and service.  We ask all our potential sellers to compare our rates with high street agents but do you know how hard this actually is. 

We set ourself a task.  Call 50 Scottish high street estate agents and ask them 3 things.  How much do they charge for a Home Report, how much do they charge for a marketing fee and what is their commision.  We told them our property was valued at £150,000.  The reason we told them the value was so they could not tell us we cannot comment on what we would charge until we know the value of your property.

Anyway the results in our view show how much estate agents simply want to get their sales people out to sellers houses.

42/50 gave Home Report prices over the phone (these ranged between £470 - 620)
38/50 have their marketing costs (these range between £235 - £470)

But amazingly only 13/50 gave us their sales commision.  37 estate agents even though they knew our house was worth £150,000 refused to give us their charges.  When pressed why most of them could not give us a figure they came up with the same excuse it depends on the location (why, do you charge me more for being in a better/worse location?), the value (well we told you it was worth £150K), the valuer (i.e. their salesman) decides the commission (so if you tell him you have 4 other agents out he will come and go, if you hint it's only them they up it?).

This is a service industry, their are no real variables in our view.  That is why we publish our prices.  The same service for all our sellers big or small houses.  The general view of what it costs to sell is around the 1% mark plus vat.  But some of the corporates who have a strangle hold on areas do and will charge 1.5% plus vat.  So a house worth £150,000 can cost a seller over £3,000 to sell.

So don't count on trying to find out how much your high street agent charges until you have to sit through a long sales pitch from the valuer (remember the valuer is an estate agents salesperson).  So come on you high street estate agents why not start being upfront with your customers and tell them what you you charge?

Can't see it happing can you?