The quote arrives and it looks simple. One number, usually somewhere between 1.25% and 2% plus VAT, and a list of what is included. Portal listings. Professional photography. A board. A brochure. And marketing.
It is worth asking what the marketing line actually means. In most quotes it means the portals themselves, some posts on the agent's own social channels, and an email to their database. That database is, in large part, people who enquired about other people's developments and did not buy. That is not marketing your scheme. That is listing it.
This is not a dig at agents. Selling and marketing are different trades. Selling is viewings, negotiation, and getting a buyer from offer to completion. Marketing is brand, content, and building demand over the months before the first viewing happens. A good agent is worth their fee for the first. Nobody is brilliant at both for one fee, and the fee does not even ask them to be. It just charges as if they were.
The maths
Take a £3m GDV scheme. A full service fee at 1.6% is £48,000 plus VAT.
Now price the sale on its own. An agent handling viewings, negotiation, sales progression and completion, with buyers brought to them, is doing a 1% job. That is £30,000.
The difference, £18,000, is what you are paying for the marketing line. The one that amounts to a portal listing and some posts.
Run it the other way. Keep your agent at a fee for selling, around 1%. Bring in a specialist to run the brand, the campaign and the buyer list. On our own site that anchor is £3,500 to £7,500 depending on the scheme. Total spend: £33,500 to £37,500. You save £10,000 or more, and instead of a listing you get a queue of buyers.
How to have the conversation
This does not need to be a fight. It is a scope discussion, and it goes better when it is specific.
Get the quote itemised. Ask what the marketing line covers, in writing. Portals, photography, brochure, social, database email, whatever it is. Most quotes have never been asked.
Strip out everything that is not selling. Photography, brochure production, portal upgrades, social posts. Those are production costs and listing costs. They belong with whoever is doing your marketing, or they go altogether.
Ask for the fee for selling only. Viewings, negotiation, sales progression, completion. For most agents that is a 1% conversation, and it gets easier when buyers arrive warm, because their cost per sale drops with it.
Expect the counter.“We do the marketing already.” The answer is the first question. What does it cover, specifically, in writing. You are not accusing anyone of anything. You are reading the quote.
What your agent keeps
The instruction. The viewings. The negotiation. The fee on completion.
And they sell to warmer buyers than they would find on their own, which shortens their pipeline and keeps your scheme moving. That is not a consolation prize. That is most of what a good agent actually wants.
You are not cutting your agent. You are paying them for the thing they are good at, and stopping paying them for the thing nobody was doing.
The bigger point
The developers who get this right do not think of it as negotiating an agent down. They think of it as buying two services from two specialists, instead of one service and a promise from one generalist.
The quote is not wrong. It is just answering a question you did not mean to ask.
Got a quote on the desk?
Send it over. We will tell you what we would strip and what we would keep.
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