This article covers comparing Estate Agents, options for online Estate Agents, Estate Agents fees, Estate Agent valuations, Estate Agents contracts and much more.

The quality of your property marketing is vital to the fast and efficient sale of your property and achieving the highest property selling price. These days there is lots of choice and the traditional high street Estate Agent is not the only option when it comes to selling your house. 

The Traditional Estate Agent in a high street office is facing lots of competition from low cost online Estate Agents who can sell your house using state of the art photography, video, 3D floorplans and online property marketing using property portals such as RightMove, Zoopla, Find a Property and Primelocation. They save on the costs of overheads and can pass this saving onto you, the customer by charging lower fees to sell your house.  

Best Estate Agent

Finding the best Estate Agent may seem like a daunting task. Don't under-estimate the value of an Estate Agent to the timescale for selling property, your nerves and the eventual selling price. Estate Agents' standard of service, efficiency, standard of marketing, standard of communication with vendors and buyers vary widely.

An Estate Agent's efficient and quality service can make a huge difference to all parties involved in a property chain; their experience in negotiating the property deal on your behalf, their tact, diplomacy, confidentiality in keeping all parties up-dated with facts and chased for continuity of the house sales process may make the difference between the chain holding together and selling your house or the chain falling apart.

An Estate Agent who registers with the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) signs up to a code of conduct. The NAEA may also offer compensation in the event that one of their Members lets you down. If the Estate Agent is a member of the NAEA the agency is covered by a Client Money Protection (CMP) Scheme. The NAEA can make discretionary grants if you suffer financial loss due to the bankruptcy or dishonesty of the member and/or their firm.

When considering which Estate Agent to choose local reputation and recommendation is important to consider. Listen to friends and neighbours and their experiences of their own Agent. A good Estate Agent recommendation may come from your conveyancing solicitor, as they will deal with local Estate Agents on a regular basis. Read the following useful tips to help you to find the best Estate Agent.  

Property portals

A property portal is a website which advertises a number of properties for sale from a number of Estate Agents.

As property searches have become easier to do from the internet, estate agents need less advertising in newspapers and don't receive as many enquiries in their offices. The property portals facilitate this by dealing with millions of property searches by buyers each month.

The following are property portals: Rightmove.co.uk, Rightmove, Findaproperty, Fish4homes, Propertyfinder, Primelocation, Zoopla, ThinkProperty, Homes and Property, Look4aproperty, Home.co.uk, Home Sale Network

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