Estate agent fees

I believe 5% agents fee is much the norm in Spain. That is an obscene amount on a 350,000euro villa in my opinion. Equals 17,500 euro, if added to the asking price, plus a bit of knock off discount money (which the agent encourages) are you actually pricing it out of the market?.

Would it be a better alternative to put your own ‘’for sale’’ sign up, instruct a lawyer and save both you and the buyer money. At the end of the day, what can an estate agent possibly do to justify 17,000euro £16,000.

Only time I have used an agent she put 800€ on top of my asking price, charged 500 or 600€ for selling, and doing a fantastic job,  well over and above what I was expecting her to do, got the asking price I wanted also, no idea what , or if she charged the buyers, knowing how she is probably about the same. 

Baz I am not being funny or sarcastic

But please, please PM me her details.

I may be confusing Spain with UK too much, as sometimes happens, but....

The estate agent will negotiate a price for selling your property which may be a % as a norm.  It’s up to you to look at the service and other options like internet etc, how you can arrange viewings etc etc.  

But....why would you mention adding the fee to the asking price, and why mention 'I’m not sure what they charged the buyers'.  Surely these add ons are outside any arrangements you make with an agent so they have no right to do any of that stuff.  

The EA on here mentions contracts, which should just concentrate on your sale, their fee, the expectations of both parties and the work involved.    Anything outside that contract deserves suing for malpractice doesn’t it?

Baz I am not being funny or sarcastic

But please, please PM me her details.

Will do Jack.

Here we go again, the normal way is that the % is agreed, upfront with the agent and comes as a % from the sale price

The % can vary often depending on, sole or multiple agemcy listing, the asking price, area and sales potential, some properties are more desirable than others

Sometimes an agent will ask how much the seller would like to get from the property and AGREE the asking price by adding on their fee, AGREE being the key word and in ALL of these cases the seller should SIGN a contract that will include little things like inventory and of course verification of all of the property documents

If you don't AGREE the selling price with the agent, if you allow your property being marketed at multiple prices will loose you credibility, if you fail to have the property valued by a number of local agents and over value you WILL NOT sell the property

With both of these system there is NO CHARGE to the buyers, the seller agrees and pay the selling fees and the norm is no sale no fee

Another option is to consider one of the many site that charge you an UP FRONT fee to advertise your property, you take the enquiry, arrange the viewing and pay UP FRONT a fee typically between €400 - €1000

So next option a for sale sign with a phone number, presumably Jack you speak English, Spanish, Dutch , German etc to deal with the enquires and you are happy to have any Tom, Dick, or Ivan visiting your property, totally unvetted

In my own case we actually bring, qualifed potential buyers over on inspection trips, qualified being the key word, we advertide the properties on all of the main sites but of course our offices, cars, fuel, entertaining, tax don't cost us anything so why do we need to charge anything 

When you are selling USE AN AGENT that is LOCAL to the property being sold, that has a PROVEN track record in sales of your type of property, let's face it a 5% fee for a property that cannot sell your property is nothing 

I have 3 resales completing this month, we have done the sale and the seller are HAPPY with the sale price, worked with their lawyers to ensure a debt free purchase, on the day of completion we will recheck the properties inventory, get the keys, meet the people when they come back to Spain and of course deliver an ongoing aftersales service

It is slightly annoying when people cpmment and this is something that I do everyday of the week and ignore the facts that good service costs money

Still believe that Jack is on a wind up

Hello Brain

I may be wrong, but my experience has been from several estate agents in Spain ‘’how much do you want for your property?’’ then followed by ‘’we charge 5% which we add to the price’’ then ‘’plus a bit of discount mark up’’.

I don’t think they charge the buyer anything these days, maybe they did in the good times.

Brian and baz, I maybe getting this all wrong, but it is all my recent experience and interpretation of things. Both agents I am using (maybe not for long) have said exactly the same, and they are both big operators with their fancy websites stating they are the most professional in the business.  

Roy we have got the message loud and clear, you are the best thing since sliced bread and related to the Pope, so give it a rest with the advertising stunts. It’s you that’s the wind up.

I may be confusing Spain with UK too much, as sometimes happens, but....

The estate agent will negotiate a price for selling your property which may be a % as a norm.  It’s up to you to look at the service and other options like internet etc, how you can arrange viewings etc etc.  

But....why would you mention adding the fee to the asking price, and why mention 'I’m not sure what they charged the buyers'.  Surely these add ons are outside any arrangements you make with an agent so they have no right to do any of that stuff.  

The EA on here mentions contracts, which should just concentrate on your sale, their fee, the expectations of both parties and the work involved.    Anything outside that contract deserves suing for malpractice doesn’t it?

Brian I didn't sign any contract with this agent, I did sign something to say all the details I gave her were the truth that I do remember,  I asked her to come round which she did on time on the day, she asked me what I wanted for our house, I told her, she said thats a fair price, I was actually higher then one a little further up by 10,000€.

When we got back to the UK a couple of days later our house was already on her website priced at 800€ more then I wanted for it, she sold the house 5 days after we left and I got my full asking price, that just has to be down to good luck for sure, but the house was spotless, we did it up top notch and it was in a great location.

We flew back out about a week later, I gave her power of Attorney, the buyers had put down 5,000€ deposit, couple of weeks later she phoned me to say money was in my account less about 500/600€ she charged me for all the work she did, she cancelled all our standing orders and did everything.

I mentioned I had no idea what she charged the buyers because I don't know, I never even met the buyers until about 6/7 months later when we happened to be next door visiting friends we had made in the ten years we owned this house.

I couldn't have asked for a better fantastic service from her, and we never knew we were going to get this either she went well over what another agent did and didn't do....Another story on that one.

Sounds like a decent service Roy.  I said from the start the seller should expect to be charged for the work involved, no problem there.  I lose the plot a bit when a price is agreed and fees are added on top, and not described as a charge to the buyer, it looks like it is from my view?

Just out of interest what are the list of documents (other than the inventory) that are ready with a property for offered for sale?

Good result for sure Baz, someone who worked hard for you, and yes your probably right there is luck in the way buyers and sellers come together so quickly.

She probably had an enquiry on her books that fitted the bill.

Jack it has NOTHING to do with me or my service, my advice is exactly that and it meant to help in what YOU should actually be looking for as a service from a reputable agent, a reputable local agent that can perhaps sell your property

How many times do I have to explain that they should, visit the property, help and access the property, value presentation and not even list it before they have copies of the paperwork

That YOU should agree and control the asking prce and have a contract

I am not the only person that works like this, there are lots of agents but i depends where the property is that you want to sell

The % rate being charged if the agent CANNOT SELL the property but the service that Brian received should be the norm

we require copies off

Passport,

Escatura (Deeds) including Nota Simple,

Most Recent Utility Bills, make is easier for changover and is another check on ownership

Most recent SUMA/IBI/Rates bill

EPC, Eneregy Performance Certificate

Details of any mortgage on property, it may be possible to transfer mortgage to new buyers saving both partues setuo fees, known as Subrogation

Most recent community bill, if fees are paid

Sellers bank details, to pay them the reservation deposit

Details of seller lawyers if already appointed

So Roy lets have a bit of truth and straight talking.

If you value a villa in your area at 350,000 euro what is your fee to sell it?. How is the fee charged?. Taken out of the 350,000 asking price, added to the 350,000 asking price by inflating the price, or charged separately to the buyer?.

I feel like I am bashing my head against a brick wall here but I will answer on the basis that it may help others

We do not start with a fixed percentages on properties,  we visit the client and advise as the listing fees can depend on a variety of factors. On properties uo to €100k we have a minimum fee

If the value is €350k then we would add a percentage to allow for some price flexibilty and the price would INCLUDE our fees, which is either an agreed %, or fixed fee, plus IVA at 21%, not add our fee on the top of a valuation

Depending on the saleability of the property and if the listing is sole agent or multi-agent but unlike the agents that you have listed with I will not quote rates, site unseen, or say well you want to sell for €350k so we will market at €370k, this is stupid

We would visit and say actually our experience is that a property in this area is worth and selling for €400k, that is the listing price and our fee is a % of that figure. We would also advise that other agents visit

We could also and do sometimes, say that the property isn't worth that price, we are not interested in the listing as we know that it won't sell and there is a vicious circle, that we see all of the time when agents listing say, reduced by €10k

You cannot add the selling fees ontop of a realistic valuation, the property just won't sell if the price is too high and a professional agent will visit and help you in that area

This is interesting. According your website, your firm only represents the buyer, (presumably therefore all the properties listed are on an MLS basis and not actually listed let alone valued by your firm?) although you don't charge the buyer anything for your service! That's debatable, of course, because if you derive your fees from the listing agent, whatever percentage they charge the seller has probably already been added on (by the seller) to the net price they're willing to accept - so in effect the buyer is paying, even though he has no idea how much and you don't actually collect the fee from him (but neither does any other agent I know of). I know - it's kind of a glass half empty / half full argument, and I'm just deliberately stirring the proverbial here, so....

The OP asked "we have had a quote for selling and think that their commission is quite high, not knowing what the charges are in Spain can anyone perhaps give us some ball park figure of what to expect."  Why don't we just cut out all the BS and let him know?

Expect to be charged between 3 - 5% plus IVA.

First of all we don't use or subscribe to an MLS, all of the properties are provudede by selected agents who we trust and where we know that they have used the correct process, I do not trust the MLS systems

We are not a listing agent and readily admit this, I turn away listings and leave this to the organisations that specialise in this area

Typically the commission is not added to the selling price it is the valuation price, the price that the property will actually sell for and an agreed commission amount, fixed fee or percentage, fact if the property is overpriced it will not sell, the buyers will only buy the property if the price is right and with the internet it is easy from them to check

The seller gets an invoice for the fees which is presented at The Notary

I am lucky that the majority of properties that I sell  are new build where the prices are fixed by the developer

I sold a resale recently, not going into the price but the commission was only 1.5%, based on the price and saleability and because I had a client  already lined up

Meet and agent and then negoiate the fee, simple and same as the UK system, no BS

I have totally lost the plot now, is Roy an estate agent or not? Can’t get a straight answer to anything, is he  a politician off the Andrew Marr show.

Sorry Roy, I can't quite follow your third paragraph there; maybe it's the punctuation or maybe I'm being dense. I didn't actually say the commission is added on to the selling price; this would potentially lead to different agents listing your property at different prices, which I think we all agree would be a Bad Thing. But just as a buyer won't buy if the price isn't right (for them), a seller won't sell if they can't get what they need out of it, and because the agent's commission is no insignificant amount, my point is simply that the seller has already accounted for this in the price at which the property will be marketed. I know that's what I've always done when selling.

Some agents (no matter how fantastic they claim their service to be) simply price themselves out of the market for me, because having decided on my sales price, their OTT commission figure means they can't list or sell it for me and still enable me to come out with what I need. This almost certainly rules out the big MLS players, of course - none of which are worth paying the extra for anyway since they basically work on the numbers game and don't put any genuine effort in to marketing any individual property, and are mostly unaware of the majority of properties they have listed, relying purely on potential buyers to trawl through their webiste and then contact them about a particular property. 

As for valuation (can't be bothered to switch threads for this), I've yet to come across an agent (in Spain) who can convince me that they have any genuine method for valuing a property: almost without exception, agents have always simply asked me how much I want (before or after their commission, it makes no difference at the end of the day whether it's "added on" or "deducted from", since it's always "included in" the price the buyer sees). And almost without exception, agents will tell you your price is too high - because of course they want to market it at as low a price as possible: as much as an overpriced property won't sell, they also know that an underpriced, and preferably exclusively listed, property will sell quickly, and 3% of something is generally more than 5% of nothing. The only notable exception I know of is the nationwide chain of idiots known as Tecnocasa (don't mind naming them because they're so unprofessional and shameless in their methods) who claim to offer "professional valuations", but simply give you the minimum acceptable selling price for Hacienda, which is usually so low as to be laughable - and then they want to charge you 7.5% for practically giving your property away!

This message was last edited by Roberto on 06/12/2017.

Jack or is it Steve C or Tadd, I am trying to give you some good advice, get out there and invite somebody around to your property to help you value, market and sell it and stop with the insults and wind up, straight answer, you won’t listen or understand but straight answer, lot like the uk different agents different rates

Roy.  It’s not the agents rates that seems to be the sticking point of understanding.

I asked earlier about the method of charging fees, because it started to sound as though the buyer was paying these fees, from the way it was written.  I have read the thread quite a few times and can’t grasp if the property is valued or not at the point of marketing.  

I do understand that it’s a difficult market over the last years, that’s a given but the way the houses are listed for sale seems to have no commonality.  

Before anyone mentions I’m talking about the UK again, I know! But things aren’t that much different across the waters in common sense.   I have dealt with valuations of houses in difficult to sell areas across the UK and in houses where they sell quickly, the same property type can have a huge difference in sales potential, in money and time.   A proper valuation tracks the way an area has changed, the demand, the location, the condition of the property etc.

At no point does it become acceptable to ask what someone wants for it and then stick fees on top and hope it is right.  

By the way, I’m a thicko sometimes, what’s an MLS (someone’s going to give me some stick for asking that maybe!).   

For anyone interested in MLS, read this article by the original owner of EOS. I think it's still as relevant as when it was written (2007), and in particular, this supports what I was trying to say earlier about whether commissions are added on to, or deducted from, the sellers' desired price: 

"...no one wants to pay more for a property than they really should.  If agents are sharing commissions then there is something wrong here, there is obviously too much money floating about. Some MLS systems effectively add over 9% to the desired selling price of a property in Spain.  That’s just outrageous.  If I want 200,000 Euros for my property then on an MLS system it could effectively be listed at 218,000.  18,000 Euros in commission seems an awful lot of money!"

It also mentions the other expenses facing buyers in Spain (taxes & fees etc.) which is a whole different subject for another thread, but personally I believe that until the Spanish govt. do something about the crazy costs involved in buying & selling property, all discussions about regulation & industry standards are irrelevant anyway....