With estate agents taking around 2% commission + VAT and the average property costing around £184,000, the "average" person selling their home is going to spend £4324 on estate agent fees. If you find a more expensive estate agent, or have a bigger than "average" house, then the fees will be a lot more!

But estate agents aren't the only way top sell your house - you can sell your own house, without an estate agent, for a fraction of the cost. This could literally save you thousands of pounds. And not only this, your house could be for sale in just a few hours - long before you could even get an estate agent around to value your house.

Valuing your house - estate agents are not surveyors, they are not necessarily qualified to value your house. The figure they tell you is based on what they think the market will bear and how busy they are. How often do you hear stories of estate agents sugesting that prices be dropped - that's where they have over-priced the house.

Doing it for yourself can be quite easy. Just talk to neighbours and see if any have had surveys for remortgages. Look in the papers at similar properties or ask an estate agent to come around. You can also view recent selling prices on sites such as Our Property, for free.

Estate agents aren't qualified photographers either - I know from selling my own house that it took 2 weeks for them to arrive with a camera (the "sun was in the wrong place") and take a poor photograph. They also have only visited your home for a few minutes and don't know the home or area as well as you.

They also will be very reluctant to 'vet' potential buyers - why turn away someone who might earn them their commission? And when it comes down to offers being made, why slow the process down by having a middle man? If you want to go away to think about an offer tell your potential buyer that - just because they are on the phone doesn't mean you need to accept it!