Estate Agents - to cut fees, or increase them?

[googler]

Fine by me. Off you go, then.

[googler]

Originally Posted by Homeseller

I am actually no longer interested in what you think.

You said it. I'm not misquoting it.

See you around on another thread, maybe.

[googler]

Feel free to have the last word, why dontcha......

[googler]

Originally Posted by Homeseller

I refer to post 43.

Uh-huh. Why?

(Oh, darn, you were going to have the last word.... ah, well.)

[Darth Marty]

Originally Posted by Homeseller

You've descended into being ridiculous now. What's the matter with you? Post 43 was where I said that you enjoy bickering if you recall. Come on. How about you answer a straight question : are you an Estate Agent?

Hey now...thats kinda err, estate agentist!

Anyway, if he is then hes painting us in a bad light! ha ha

[brian]

Try and keep the discussion more mature if you can, Homeseller.

[brian]

I can see an interesting discussion - I just want to avoid it turning into a flame war.

[omostra06]

Just to add something to the mix,
were based in Portugal, we charge 3% or 4% depending on exclusive contract or not,

but for our fee we
answer lots of questions about the properties from clients, as well as loads of questions about life in portugal in general, moving, living here etc,
we drive the clients to all the properties, we have over 1000 covering a range of central portugal running into hundreds of square miles.

we show all properties personaly, we help arrange travel, flights, rail and accommodation, car hire etc, for clients

after a sale, we help with all aspects of relocating to another country, e.g. registering people, importing cars, buying cars, etc, getting kids in school, organising builders and other trades, pools, satalite people etc etc, setting up telephone, internet, electric water contracts for clients,the list of things we help with is endless. a lot of translation work, we offer this follow up aftersales service free of charge to the buyer,

we do charge more than uk agents but we do a lot of work involved in making the move to another country easier for our clients, that a normal estate agent would not dream of being involved in. so its not a like for like job, when comparing uk agents and overseas agents.

[googler]

Originally Posted by Homeseller

I've said a lot about this before so I'll keep it short.

I am genuinely surprised by the attitude of some EAs that think that there is no move towards a greater role for the internet in the industry. When one looks at all the different websites for market intelligence, floor plans, photos etc etc I don't see how one can say that it is not also the way forward (coupled with some level of service possibly) for sales too. I find this stance lacking credibility.

Would you care to point us at some or all of the sites to which you refer?

[omostra06]

Some interesting sites there,Homeseller.
I like the idea of the live chat thing, but very hard to have someone available to answer questions all the time, when you have a busy office, but good idea for starting conversations/relationships with potential clients.