Cutting out the middle man will cost jobs

11:15am Wednesday 18th July 2012 in Letters

 I am currently trying to sell my property and have encountered a problem. I have a prospective buyer that found my property due to my agents marketing advertisements which, incidentally, cost the agent money up front, for the newspaper advertisements. The buyer now wants me to by-pass my agent in order to save money and pass some of the savings on to them, by way of a reduced sale. This has been a problem in the past for estate agents. However, it appears more prolific at the present time.

If everyone selling property through an agent decided to cut their agent out during proceedings, then it would result in a lot of out of work agents.

This is immoral, and as I see it, no different from walking out of a shop with a pint of milk without paying.

I will not be by-passing my agent, and have informed the prospective buyer of this. If being honest loses me a sale on my property then so be it.

Gill Martin (sent by email)

Comments(6)

Claudius says...
11:39am Fri 20 Jul 12

Are you an estate agent in reality ?

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Gillian Martin says...
3:53pm Fri 20 Jul 12

Lol, no I am categorically not an estate agent, I have no personal interest either with any estate agent.

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DCI Jen says...
8:06pm Sat 21 Jul 12

That's a really funny suggestion, she wouldn't sell anything if she was an estate agent because she would tell people the truth, like the area was crap, and full of snobs or the house was falling to bits or overpriced :)

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Gillian Martin says...
9:21pm Sat 21 Jul 12

Very true, although I would be more polite about it than that.

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Lord Barrington Forbes-Smythe says...
10:40am Wed 25 Jul 12

Interesting one. I don't think there's anything morally wrong with cutting out estate agents: they, along with solicitors, have been getting rich off the essential transactions of ordinary people for too long.
But in this case, I think it's a bit cheeky of your prospective buyer to ask for a price cut based on you not paying the estate agent; after all, they don't have to pay anything to use the estate agent's services themselves, are encouraging you to break a contract, etc. If you did go for the dodgy option of cutting them out at this late stage, you could have legal problems if you can't prove that there was some way other than through the agent's adverts that the buyer heard about your house.
These days though, as nearly everyone looks at a certain property website(RM), if you want to save money on agent's fees, you can use a non-local online agent which will put your page up on that site and others, provide an optional sign, and arrange (but not conduct) appointments for a few hundred pounds rather than a few thousand.
That's what I did a couple of years ago and it went very well.

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Gillian Martin says...
1:49pm Wed 25 Jul 12

LBF-S, I would not have a problem with what you did, as it was neither illegal or immoral. However, I have no intention of cutting my agent out, any interest in my property has been due to my agents advertizing, by way of newspaper advert, board and Right Move site. Additionally, I find it helpful during transactions for the agent to keep track of any chain during proceedings by liasing with other agents.

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