Thankyou for the insightful advice from everyone.

I have come to the conclusion that, at the end of the day, I am not comfortable with the idea of paying someone the price of a new Hyundai to sell a house. It is hard to justify, especially in a softer market.

Also, I have resigned myself to the fact that I will achieve a lower price than I had hoped for due to the nature of the present market. I believe that the house was overpriced initially but not by a significant amount (less than 5%). But the market is not as strong now as it was then. The agent suggested a potential selling range before the house was put on the market and I (perhaps greedily) agreed to market the property at the high end of that range. So I can’t fault the agent for overpricing to get my listing, as he already had that.

My contract with the agent is one of the ‘No Sale, No Fee’ type, but he has four months in which to obtain a sale. This, I would do differently in the future – ie. negotiate a three month contract. I had wrongly assumed that the house would sell quickly (after all the months of renovations I had personally carried out!) and that this would not be a relevant issue anyway.

Duckster – I can see what you are saying regarding incentives for the agent to achieve a higher sale price. The thing is, I genuinely believe that he is doing, and will continue to do, everything he can to achieve the highest sale price possible. As I said, his level of service has been first class. Ultimately though, it will be the (buyer’s) market which will determine the price that will be achieved, more than anything else.

LA Aussie – Yep, that is some hardball advice there, that’s for sure. Good advice, no doubt. Once again though, I am reluctant to take on a new agent considering that he has done a good job so far, and in fact I don’t have that option for another couple of months anyway (four month contract). Also, judging by the number of informal offers made, I will be very close to market value after another $10k price reduction. But in the future, my approach will be closer to what you suggest. I am becoming a believer in the idea that agents don’t sell houses – houses sell houses.

World Changer – Yes, I believe that the agent is a man of his word and that some negotiation will be possible, but any negotiability may be limited by your one sentence – the fact that he may have achieved “the best price possible for the current market”.

I will see how it goes!