5 Star Review
May 05,2018
By:
'Richard'
May 05,2018
Branch: Hatfield, The Estate Office, Bradmore Green
Services: Sales (as a Vendor)
Would you recommend?: Yes
Postcode: AL9
Branch: Hatfield, The Estate Office, Bradmore Green
Sales (as a Vendor)
Postcode: AL9
4
people found
this helpful
I would really recommend using Fine & Country at the Brookmans Park office, if you are looking to sell in Brookmans Park, or indeed the general surrounding areas.
Matthew and his team have just got our sale in Brookmans Park over the line in what is currently a difficult market for sellers in this area, particularly once you are selling something of higher than average value for the location.
Unless you are some sort of serial seller of houses, then which estate agent to choose is not something you are really going to be that familiar with, as you will not have used them for about 5-10 years or more, if indeed at all in your location. Word of mouth can be hard to establish as you can't really track down random individuals who have recently sold, and there is no real established review system to look at which compares and contrasts the few local agents you have to choose from.
So, despite our best efforts to stake out the competing offerings, you don't really know what sort of service, and more to the point, results, you are going to get until you try one. Once you have done that you are basically with them for three months. You sort of need to try it to know if it is any good, which is not what you want.
We initially went with one of F&C's competitors, who offered the standard 1%fee. We got blurry photos, had a real mare getting the listing we wanted loaded in the way we wanted onto Rightmove, in hindsight realised their assumption was that the house would just sell itself and if it didn't they would in due course tell us to come down in price, and came to understand that we had staff working for us who, while good when they were there, were essentially part time. When we hadn't got anywhere in three months I wasn't really surprised and we switched to F&C.
Matthew was fantastic. My first impression was of a market trader in a suit type persona, which initially slightly put me off. But don't let it. Matthew is straight talking, but equally a very good estate agent and businessman, who knows his patch and his market extremely well, is a good listener and doesn't try to ram his or any view down your throat, but does have really good advice when it is really needed. Keeps his cool well. He is close to a lot of buyers, and at times I felt perhaps more keen on keeping pally with them than us. But again, in hindsight, this is really what you want, as without a buyer you are not going to sell. There was no plan that the house would sell itself, and while we did give F&C the leg up of a small price reduction on the move over to them, the absolute mass of immediate viewings we got was amazing. Mostly people on their books rather than people calling in. They actually tried to 'sell' our house, rather than just list it for sale.
Matthew found us a buyer within a week of going live with him, who we have now exchanged with.
There is also a good team of people (all full time) at the Brookmans Park office, with Kris and John who also know the area really well. I hadn't realised but F&C are also huge and national. But again don't let that put you off. The local team here are a local team and you don't feel like you are dealing with a national chain. So it's the best of both worlds.
The work didn't just stop once we had an offer either. Matthew spent literally hours on the phone to me, and replied, sent and responded to numerous e mails. Once we had a buyer he put in hours of effort needed to get the sale over the line (don't assume once you have an offer you are there). For example the people at the bottom of the chain, were using dirt cheap lawyers who basically took six weeks to do what ours would have done in two days (so bear that in mind when considering bargain basement lawyers like this too). Matthew was on the phone right down the chain to the actual lawyers and agents acting for people who were three away from us in the chain, to manage and steer the whole process every step of the way. Always available.
They do ask for a slightly higher fee than the local competition. But take it from me â you pay for what you get / get what you pay for.
Very highly recommended.
Comment on agent fees
Worth it.
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Thanks you very much for your kind, comprehensive review! It was a pleasure helping you move and we'd like to wish you well in the future.
Kind regards,
Matthew