we will be putting our house on the market in the near future & ive been considering the sort of buyer who may be interested in the property & which agent is best to market it. because of its size, price & proximity to the station we will probably be aiming mostly at the london buyers. (we are in hastings) for this reason i would prefer an agent thats open 7 days a week. unfortunately only 2 local agents seem to do that & when i tested them out for how quickly they would respond to an email enquiry one responded after 5 hours & the other didnt bother. the quickest response was from an agent who closes at 4pm on a saturday after an impressive 35 minutes.
what would you do? go on with the agent open 7 days a week & is available to make appointments on a sunday when the london buyers may be looking? or go with the agent who seems to be making most effort but closes at 4pm on a saturday?

Firestorm, good luck with your sale - I would go with the agent that is making the most effort. Most peeps (if they are serious buyers) will organise their w/e & viewings by/on a Saturday - I wouldn't expect to find many EA's open on a Sunday anywhere. A 35 minute response time is AMAZING - they sound like they've got finger on pulse - there are many other days in the week - you want someone who's on the ball. Being nosey, where are you moving to????

hi biggles, i just rechecked the email from the agents & i was wrong, they actually replied after an AMAZING 2 minutes, i just didnt receive it until later.
we are moving to heathfield area. i like town life & my husband likes village life & being a small market town its a mix of both.

Do either of the agents have London offices? If they do, then that would be my choice, especially if you are aiming for London buyers.

9.30 sunday morning I am here! may be that has something to do with the fact we are markewt leaders in my area.
Most buyers are available to view at week ends
The e agent open the most hours over the week end WILL do the most business it stands to reason!
I can cover more viewings at week ends than any other local agent therefore we sell more houses.
I find when I am not busy I can respond to e mails very quickly, so your argument about the sleepy agent doing no business being the one to choose, just because he has time on his hands to respond to your emails, is not enough. You need to do more checks to choose an agent.
The most important one is to find out how many properties they have on their books the agent with the most will be the most popular and probably for good reason!
It is utter rubbish to use the small agent that argues that he will have more time to concentrate on the small number of properties he has. The reason being, that each individual property attracts a certain amount of interest therefore the more you have the more applicants you have!

quote:

Originally posted by immy21:
The most important one is to find out how many properties they have on their books the agent with the most will be the most popular and probably for good reason!

Umm didn't you say most vendors go with the agent who gives them the highest valuation? So surely then the agents with the most properties on their books must be the ones doing the over valuations

ooooh you twist and turn!

Firestorm I don't know which EAs are on your potential list, but I currently live in London and have been looking for a property near(ish) to you for 18 months so as a buyer here is my experience of two EAs in the area.

Phillips and Stubbs have been very good at getting appropriate details to me quickly. (I don't think there is a branch in Hastings though - the one I visit is in Rye.) The negotiators I have met from P&S have been very on the ball.

Rush Witt and Wilson (who are in Hastings as well as Rye) have been less satisfactory. They sent me a lot of details of completely inappropriate properties early on, then maintained radio silence. This Spring, I found out about an appropriate property they had on their books only because a friend sent me the details - RWW finally sent them to me two months after the property went on the market.

Don't know if that helps at all.

Make sure the one you chose puts house details on the web, preferably on Right Move.
Theres still agencies here in Nottingham with no web presence

quote:

Originally posted by Jim G:
Make sure the one you chose puts house details on the web, preferably on Right Move.
Theres still agencies here in Nottingham with no web presence

Are they the ones trying to sell those caves with the drawings on the walls

quote:

Originally posted by velvet:
Firestorm I don't know which EAs are on your potential list, but I currently live in London and have been looking for a property near(ish) to you for 18 months so as a buyer here is my experience of two EAs in the area.

Phillips and Stubbs have been very good at getting appropriate details to me quickly. (I don't think there is a branch in Hastings though - the one I visit is in Rye.) The negotiators I have met from P&S have been very on the ball.

Rush Witt and Wilson (who are in Hastings as well as Rye) have been less satisfactory. They sent me a lot of details of completely inappropriate properties early on, then maintained radio silence. This Spring, I found out about an appropriate property they had on their books only because a friend sent me the details - RWW finally sent them to me two months after the property went on the market.

Don't know if that helps at all.

thats interesting velvet, RWW were the ones that responded most quickly, to be honest im not keen (they were the agents when i bought my first flat & i wasnt impressed then) but a few people have spoken highly of them lately when ive enquired. not impressed about their weekend opening hours, i really think that to get the london buyers looking we need to have an agent thats open the most hours & can arrange viewings anytime. andrews have the most prominent office & do the most advertising so theyre the ones im leaning towards most, but they didnt bother to respond to my email at all & thats not great. fox & son are also open on sundays & i would certainly consider them too. both agents advertise on rightmove (i wouldnt consider an agent that didnt)
what sort of property are you looking for in hastings area velvet? ive lived here all my life & id be happy to advise on good/bad areas etc.
thanks everyone for your input.

Thanks very much firestorm, but I know the area where we're going to live very well! It is not actually in Hastings - it's a few miles outside.

I am dealing with the RWW office in Rye, it could be that the one in Hastings is more on the ball.

You seem to think that your market is going to be more or less exclusively from London firestorm, is that what the EAs have told you?

I am not sure how important it is for the EA to be open on Sundays - unless you want all viewings to be accompanied/won't be around yourself at weekends to show people round. Most buyers will receive details through the post (hmm, if they're lucky!) or see them on the net, so wouldn't need an EA to actually be open on Sunday - they could make the arrangements for a viewing a day or two in advance. Or am I missing something?

hi velvet i think im pretty much on the ball as far as the local market goes (probably more so than some of the local agents)
the reason i think our house is going to go more to a london buyer is mainly to do with the price. not many locals could afford to buy our house. havent had it valued yet, but i think its worth in the region of 250k & thats a lot to spend on a semi. its definitely worth the money & considering whats been done to it is a bit of a bargain. also, we had two previous attempts to move prior to our current building work & sold very quickly both times to london buyers (didnt work out because of my stubborn husband, i wont let that happen this time)
the thing is i dont anticipate it flying off the shelves in the current market, & with it now being a 4 bed 3 bath 2 recept house its not your average family home anymore. thats why i want an agent with the longest opening hours to give us as much chance as possible. accompanied viewings on houses in this area are pretty much unheard of unfortunately not great when youre shelling out thousands for the sale, but the way things are around here.

good luck with your house hunting. im not that keen on rye area myself, northiam is very nice & worth a look around. spent time there looking a various houses with potential & building plots during our failed attempts to move.

I thought it might be to do with the price of the house. Personally I think you should go with the EA who you have most confidence in - no point in them being open all hours if they're rubbish!

I love Rye, not that we intend to live there. Although, I could!

Good luck with the sale - I hope you'll keep us updated

thanks velvet will do. just got to get the damn extension finished first though