Fourteen answers, in full
Answered here in full rather than hidden behind a click, because the questions people ask before they instruct an agent are the ones worth answering plainly.
Five questions
Because two partners can know twelve properly. Every viewing is conducted by one of us and every entry is written by the partner who walked the house. The thirteenth would be the first one nobody had walked.
1.5% of the sale price plus tax, payable on completion. Photography, the measured survey, the printed particular, the catalogue and the portal entry are all included, and withdrawal costs nothing at any week.
Twelve weeks, sole. It does not renew by silence: if the house has not sold by the Friday of week twelve you are free, without a letter or a conversation.
On every public entry, yes. “On application” is used only on the private list, where the figure is given by a partner in the first conversation.
Four owners were told exactly that this year. If the evidence says wait for the spring catalogue, that is the advice, and it is given at the kitchen table rather than in a letter.
Five questions
Register with proof of funds and a sentence about what you are looking for. Particulars are posted, not emailed, and registered buyers see every public entry eleven days early.
Usually within forty-eight hours, Monday to Saturday. Viewings are accompanied by a partner and never arranged as an open day.
Every one, floor by floor, by a licensed surveyor. Across eleven houses this year the measured figure came in 9% under the area previously printed elsewhere.
Yes, as private acquisition, and then we are paid by you rather than by the seller. We will not act for both sides of the same house.
Before you ask. Every entry carries the things a second visit would show you anyway: the lane that floods, the roof of 2011, the room that loses the sun at four.
Four questions
Claire or Rafael, named on the letter, from the valuation to the keys. The other four people in the office are specialists, the registrar, the photographer, the catalogue editor and completions, not a sales floor, and none of them will ever be sent to show you a house.
Neither, nor staging, new-build sales or auctions. Each is a good business and none is compatible with knowing twelve houses properly.
Recorded sales above $2M in the six neighbourhoods we cover, published twice a year in the market report with the calls of the previous issue marked.
Ask, and we will ask them first. If they agree you get a telephone number rather than a quotation chosen by us.
Not answered here
A partner answers every letter the same working day, and the awkward questions are the ones we would rather have before an instruction than after one.
Private line (805) 555-0142