# Selling agency fees CBN.



## Expatliving (Oct 21, 2013)

Anybody out there, who is selling their home in Spain, is willing to give me an idea of current approx' selling percentage % Estate Agents are asking for their services?

I guess most of the Costa's agents are around the same? But if you're in CBN, even better.

Information needed for my own property negotiation. 

Thank you and Happy New Year.


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## alborino (Dec 13, 2014)

Expatliving said:


> Anybody out there, who is selling their home in Spain, is willing to give me an idea of current approx' selling percentage % Estate Agents are asking for their services?
> 
> I guess most of the Costa's agents are around the same? But if you're in CBN, even better.
> 
> ...


I'd be reluctant to pay 1% but there are many factors:


If your house might attract Spanish buyers are you fluent enough to do the showings?
Is it priced to sell or are you testing the waters and don't mind it hanging around?
Is it very desirable?
Will they do a video as well as photos?
If it might atrtract overseas buyers as a holiday home does the agent offer multi-lingual services?
Are there any funny complications like flying lease hold or shared access?
Spain used to charge as a percentage more than the UK years ago but with net dominance and the terrible attempts to sell that you see on the web I think those days have gone.

In the UK I paid 1.5% 13 years ago. Now it is 1% at most and that includes web presense, physical foto folder for distribution, local shop display, and them showing. There is VAT on top but because I have hesitated they have offered a £500 discount. I also have a web only service who will do it for £400 fixed. So shows how agents fees are falling with more competition. 

HTH and good luck


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## Expatliving (Oct 21, 2013)

alborino said:


> I'd be reluctant to pay 1% but there are many factors:
> 
> 
> If your house might attract Spanish buyers are you fluent enough to do the showings?
> ...



Thanks for that, I had no idea on current % for selling in Spain, I've manage to go direct to the vendor and will use the several thousand agency fee saving as another sweetener. 

Cheers


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## CapnBilly (Jun 7, 2011)

I haven't personally sold a property, but my understanding is that established agents in the Northern Costa Blanca are still charging around 5% plus IVA.


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## DunWorkin (Sep 2, 2010)

We have our house with 4 agents. Their charges range from 3% to 5%.

Recently, only one of them has been bringing people round. The others all seem to have given up trying.

The only people buying here seem to be the Russians and they don't like our house because the front door is upstairs and for some reason Russians seems to be very much against this.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

CapnBilly said:


> I haven't personally sold a property, but my understanding is that established agents in the Northern Costa Blanca are still charging around 5% plus IVA.


From what people tell me who are selling (or trying to) it is much the same around here.
At the start of this week we met a guy from California (who has been living and working in Belgium but wants to retire early and is looking for a house here) and he had been told by one agency (a Tecnocasa franchise) that it was normal here for the buyer to pay a 3% commission. Oh no it isn't, we told him.


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## alborino (Dec 13, 2014)

DunWorkin said:


> We have our house with 4 agents. Their charges range from 3% to 5%.
> 
> Recently, only one of them has been bringing people round. The others all seem to have given up trying.
> 
> The only people buying here seem to be the Russians and they don't like our house because the front door is upstairs and for some reason Russians seems to be very much against this.


I'm selling and buying (independent of each other) in Spain. When looking we scan all sources so it interested me that you are using 4 agents. Wondered if you tried negotiating sole agency? If I was the agent and I saw you using 4 agents I wouldn't give high priority to your sale. Not that I've actually seen many agents in Spain exactly get over excited about anything in particular so perhaps I've answered my own question 

I know life is tough for agents at the moment but if I sold a house for say 200000 Euros which was priced to sell I wonder what it is that an agent does that justifies possibly 6000 to 10000 Euros? 

As I posted above there are many considerations so no one that fits all.

As for the russians and your front door we couldn't buy your house if stairs to the door were the only access but perhaps you have other level access? But why russians specifically who knows 

But good luck with it. What with rising UK prices, the pound rising, and the spanish market deflated our buying power has gone up 25% in just 12 months so perhaps there will be a new breed of UK retirees arriving this year. But I was always an optimist


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## StevejR1 (May 21, 2013)

I can never get my head around getting to the bottom of how much an estate agent in Spain gets in commission....it seems a very sensitive subject.

As a buyer we are advised to allow an extra 10% above the purchasing price for taxes, legal fees, and charges. From what I've researched, most of this is given to the government in taxes, with the actual total amount tends to end up around 8% in total, but 10% is advised as a worst case scenario.....I would not like to think that I was paying towards any estate agency fees that are included in that!

We briefly looked into buying in France, and their commission to the seller averages 5%..but they will then sacrifice some of their fees to close a deal in the negotiation process, which seems a fair way of going about things to me....but I can't imagine that happening with Spanish agents!!

We have also been told that some agents in Spain can charge up to 10% commission, and even 20% in some cases! I've struggled to find that out to be true to be honest, and maybe that goes back to the 'boom time' years?....but if it is true, which I doubt, that is a seriously high amount of money to charge in fees!...and more importantly, such a substantially high amount as to scupper any potential to close a deal in many cases I'm sure, as the owner is having to cover a lot of fees if they receive a low offer.

As buyers we have also dealt with quite a few estate agents in Spain...some good, some not very good, some very aggressive. But what has always surprised us, is the fact that almost none of them ever chase up our interest!!
We are normally the ones having to keep in touch with them, which we feel is very strange. I realise they must get a lot of 'time wasters' who view but never buy...but we are genuine buyers, and yet they don't keep in touch with other suggestions of properties, or just generally trying to grow a rapport with us. We have even asked to view a property which the agent later had to admit that they had forgotten that they had on their books!!...and it was very local to their office!!!


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## DunWorkin (Sep 2, 2010)

alborino said:


> I'm selling and buying (independent of each other) in Spain. When looking we scan all sources so it interested me that you are using 4 agents. Wondered if you tried negotiating sole agency? If I was the agent and I saw you using 4 agents I wouldn't give high priority to your sale. Not that I've actually seen many agents in Spain exactly get over excited about anything in particular so perhaps I've answered my own question
> 
> I know life is tough for agents at the moment but if I sold a house for say 200000 Euros which was priced to sell I wonder what it is that an agent does that justifies possibly 6000 to 10000 Euros?
> 
> ...


Just to clarify our house is on a hill. The front door is on street level, our lounge, kitchen etc are downstairs on the level of our back garden.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

StevejR1 said:


> We have also been told that some agents in Spain can charge up to 10% commission, and even 20% in some cases! I've struggled to find that out to be true to be honest, and maybe that goes back to the 'boom time' years?....but if it is true, which I doubt, that is a seriously high amount of money to charge in fees!...and more importantly, such a substantially high amount as to scupper any potential to close a deal in many cases I'm sure, as the owner is having to cover a lot of fees if they receive a low offer.
> !


I have been told, by people who moved here long before I did, that it was common in years gone by for estate agents to ask vendors how much they wanted to get for their property, then sell it for whatever amount they could, with the difference, however much it might have been, going to them as "commission". One couple I knew, who must have been amongst the first British people to buy in my area, paid cash (in pesetas, in notes) for their house and it was divided up in the notary's office - with just one third being passed over to the Spanish vendors, the agent kept the rest. How's that for a commission?

At the time I bought it was also common for the same property to be advertised by different agents at different prices - the vendors would have only got the same amount, but some agents thought they could ask a higher price thus gain more commission. After we'd bought our house, we saw it still advertised on another estate agent's website, at a price several thousand euros higher. The estate agent we bought through was Spanish, by the way, the other one was not.


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## snikpoh (Nov 19, 2007)

StevejR1 said:


> As a buyer we are advised to allow an extra 10% above the purchasing price for taxes, legal fees, and charges. From what I've researched, most of this is given to the government in taxes, with the actual total amount tends to end up around 8% in total, but 10% is advised as a worst case scenario.....I would not like to think that I was paying towards any estate agency fees that are included in that!


It used to be this figure but with the rises in ITP (transfer tax) it's now more likely to be 15% at least.


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## Expatliving (Oct 21, 2013)

StevejR1 said:


> I can never get my head around getting to the bottom of how much an estate agent in Spain gets in commission....it seems a very sensitive subject.
> 
> As a buyer we are advised to allow an extra 10% above the purchasing price for taxes, legal fees, and charges. From what I've researched, most of this is given to the government in taxes, with the actual total amount tends to end up around 8% in total, but 10% is advised as a worst case scenario.....I would not like to think that I was paying towards any estate agency fees that are included in that!
> 
> ...


I made an informal inquiry with an agent, then found out precisely where the house is and I'm now dealing directly with the vendors, they save money and I go to the top of the list of potential? Buyers for the house. Oh, the agent hasn't bothered coming back to me either?:noidea:

PS// The Russians will be staying at home, because their money is in the doldrums for the foreseeable future ...


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