Dealing with auctioneers when selling

[agencydude]

Hi
On this website/forum there is lots of info on dealing with auctioneers when buying.
What about when you're selling??
I'm planning to sell two properties and I'm considering my options.

Should I try selling them myself in privateseller.ie or similar website.??

Whats the going rate that an auctioneer gets for selling a house?
1%??
Should I try and haggle with them to reduce charges?

Should I look for a discount if I give an auctioneer two houses to sell??

Any suggestions??

 

[Jimbob2]

Hi,

I have two recent experiences of selling through an agent and both times I considered doing it myself or using the websites you mention but on both occasions I'm glad I didn't.

The first agent had the person who bought the house on his contact list and had been disappointed on 3 previous houses with him. She got into a bidding war with two others and jumped up a considerable amount in order to get it as she was determoned not to lose out again. This, despite the fact that the exact same house was for sale 3 doors up, with no offers and €15k below what she was now offering for ours. The only difference between the two was that ours looked nicer because we lived in it and dolled it up as much as possible to sell it, whereas 3 doors up was rented and didn't look as nice. However the houses were only 3 years old. Anyway, there certainly was luck involved but I'm convinced we wouldn't have got as much if we didn't use the auctioneer and his fee was well worth it.

More recently the very same thing happened. The person who bought the house was an existing client of the auctioneer who was looking for a house in the area with a 'low electromagnetic field'. She and another bidder just kept outbidding eachother and we ended up with a good deal more than we were expecting. I'm sure the person who bought the house would have found us if we were selling ourselves, but I'm quite sure we would have got less for the house if we had. Again the fee to the agent was well worth it because I think we would have accepted a lower offer if we did it ourselves.