The Top 5 Best Estate Agents in Nottingham

Let me introduce myself. I’m Patrick, an Acquisitions Manager for The Property Buying Company. I cover the north of England, including Nottingham and its surrounding regions. I have over 14 years’ experience within the property industry, including working with estate agents across England. It’s these constant and continuous dealings with estate agents and their customers that places me in a position to offer my expert opinion and insights on the best Nottingham estate agents. 

My experience includes a range of property elements, including negotiations, valuations, local market analysis, estate agent appraisal and a lot more. With all this experience and expertise under my belt, I feel well-placed to delve into estate agents in Nottingham and reveal the top five when it comes to service, trust and success. 

Before we look closer at these top five agencies, I want to talk you through our process for determining this list. 

Table of Contents

• Our process for calculating the rankings

• Top 5 estate agents in Nottingham

• Ways to compare estate agents on your list

• How the top 5 Nottingham estate agents compare

• How to choose the best Nottingham estate agent for you

• Top Nottingham estate agent checklist

• Some useful guides when researching estate agents

• Can you trust estate agents in Nottingham?

• Not all estate agents are trustworthy

• How to find the best estate agent in your local area

• What’s the average cost of using an estate agent in Nottingham?

• Which Nottingham estate agent should you choose for a quick sale?

• Should you sell your Nottingham house to a cash buyer?

Our process for calculating the rankings

To determine the five best estate agents in Nottingham, we’ve used customer reviews and ratings from Trustpilot and Google. Where an estate agent has multiple branches within Nottingham, we’ve worked out their average rating across all branches. So the branch closest to your local area may have a slightly lower or higher rating on Google. 

Former clients tend to provide the most trustworthy appraisals and paint the clearest picture of what it’s like selling your house through certain estate agents. But they’re certainly not the only source to call upon. 

We’ve drawn upon our combined 50-plus years’ experience in property buying and selling, including direct interactions with estate agents on behalf of sellers, to determine which agencies have solid track records for service and closing sales. We’ve also spent hours looking at individual reviews from former customers and how each of these companies respond to criticism.

For this definitive ranking of the five best Nottingham estate agents, we’ve also considered the following elements: 

• Commission rates

• Average sale timelines

We’ve sourced this information from external sources, primarily their company websites. Some figures may be slightly different to what you see here depending on when you’re reading this.

If you want up-to-date numbers, it’s best to go straight to the source. Use this list as one of your many sources. It will hopefully help make your search for an estate agent faster. But before you lock on in, get in touch with them and ask for more information about their recent sale figures, success rates and overall service offering. 

By using this data, my own expertise, and the 50-plus years’ combined expertise of the team at TPBC, we’ve created a transparent and unbiased ranking of the top five estate agents in Nottingham. Our Property Consultant, Chris Atkins, also offers some great insight when it comes to choosing a good estate agent. 

“Choosing the right estate agent is vital. You want to choose one that is going to put in the extra effort and go above and beyond to get your property sold. They need to understand and take care of the attention to detail, knowing your house inside out,” says Chris. 

“When choosing an estate agent, the main thing you should look out for is when they try and ask you what you think the property was worth, and then simply agree with your price without giving their opinion. This often happens simply to win your business, only for them to later suggest reducing the property. An honest estate agent will provide their valuation first.”

Top 5 estate agents in Nottingham

Here are the five best estate agents based on the aforementioned criteria:

Based on the data above, we can see that these top Nottingham real estate agents provide similar value for money with commission rates hovering between 1% and 2%. They also tend to take the same amount of time to sell houses and flats in Nottingham. Most of the time you can expect to wait around 3 months, but this can stretch out to 4 months or longer. 

As all of these agents operate on a commission-based model, you shouldn’t have to pay any upfront fees. Instead, they’ll take a cut from your eventual sale. That could be around 1.3% plus VAT (usually 20% on top). However, depending on your agent’s experience and offering, you could pay up to 2.5% plus VAT. 

In Nottingham, the average price of a house is £193,000 according to the latest ONS data. Based on this, on average estate agents in Nottingham take between £2,500 and £5,000. When you add on VAT, this ends up being closer to between £3,000 and £6,000. 

These high commission rates for estate agents are why many people choose to sell their house fast to a cash house buying company. When you sell to us, you don’t pay any fees or commission. You get 100% of the sale revenue deposited into your bank account. It’s possible to sell your house through an online estate agent and avoid paying commission. But you’ll likely end up paying upwards of £1,000 for extras like marketing and photos. 

Learn more about selling your house privately without an estate agent

While the above table gives us a good overview in how these Nottingham estate agents compare when it comes to customer reviews, we need to delve a little deeper to get a better idea of their customer service. Let’s take a closer look at each one when it comes to specific reviews, both good and bad.

1. HoldenCopley

HoldenCopley has five offices within and around Nottingham, offering good local reach and expertise. The award-winning agency has been considered the top option in the East Midlands for multiple years and has a solid track record on both Trustpilot and Google. It also offers a competitive commission and one of the faster sale timelines on our list. 

Snapshot on Trustpilot and Google (Long Eaton office)

Customer Feedback

HoldenCopley has the highest overall rate on Trustpilot out of these five best in Nottingham. It has a rating of 4.9/5 from almost 900 reviews. Of these reviews it has an impressive 93% from 5-star appraisals and another 4% from 4-star reviews. However, it also has a number of 1-star reviews, totalling 3%. 

This estate agent has a 75% response rate, which is considered well above the 10% rate recommended by RaveCapture. This response rate bodes well for anyone concerned about customer service. 

Recent 5-star review:

Recent 1-star review (edited for conciseness):

HoldenCopley responded to this review almost one month later by saying: 

"Hi Bryan, we’re sorry to hear that you feel this way and would appreciate the opportunity to discuss this further. Please could you email me at helen@holdencopley.co.uk so we can address your concerns? Thank you."

Our Verdict

HoldenCopley seems to uphold a high level of customer service with technology, local expertise and communication helping them sell properties and keep sellers and buyers happy. Some sellers have had to wait over a year on the market, but this hasn’t necessarily been the case in Nottingham. The agency has responded well to those disgruntled customers, though they’ve waited a little too long at times with their responses. 

2. Leaders 

Leaders has two branches in Nottingham, including one in Mansfield and one in Woodthorpe. This lack of more local offices could limit their local expertise slightly. However, it really depends on the specific estate agent you’re dealing with, so let that be a deal breaker right away. 

The estate agency has solid 4.3 and 4.5 ratings on Trustpilot and Google, respectively. Its main Nottingham branch has a 4-star rating on Trustpilot. Commission rates range between 1% and 3%, and sale timelines can sit around 3.5 months. This could be too long for some people in need of a quick house sale. 

Snapshot on Trustpilot and Google (Woodthorpe office)

Customer Feedback

On Trustpilot, Leaders has been reviewed over 7,100 times, while its Nottingham branch has only been reviewed fewer than 100 times. The majority of these reviews (72%) are 5-star appraisals, but it also has over 20% 1-star ratings. Leaders has a similar response rate (72%) to HoldenCopley, which indicates good communication with both happy and disgruntled customers. 

Recent 5-star review:

Recent 1-star review (edited for conciseness):

Leaders in Nottingham responded to this two weeks later, saying: 

We appreciate your feedback and thank you for taking the time to let us know about your experience. We strive for nothing less than excellent service, and we always take it very seriously when we hear of any dissatisfaction from our customers. Thank you for notifying us and we are sorry we did not meet your expectation in this instance.

Our Verdict

While Leaders has a seemingly strong track record on Google and Trustpilot, the Nottingham branches do raise some questions about how they treat potential buyers and communicate with upset customers. The seemingly automated responses to complaints don’t demonstrate a good level of customer service. 

It’s also disconcerting seeing a lot of negative reviews mentioning holding deposits and people struggling to get their money back. They may be okay for a seller, but it’s worth asking about these disgruntled buyers when vetting them. 

3. MS Estates

MS Estates has one office on Derby Road in Nottingham, so it may be a better option for people with property in Lenton or its surrounding neighbourhoods. It’s a dedicated Nottingham estate agency and claims to have top local knowledge within its husband-and-wife team. If you prefer dealing with smaller, more local or boutique estate agents, MS Estates might be a good option to explore. 

Customer Feedback

As MS Estates is much smaller than its counterparts in Nottingham, its Trustpilot presence is almost non-existent with only 4 reviews. These reviews are also very old – the most recent one is from 2021. They have produced a 4-star rating on Trustpilot, but it’s hard to get a clear picture of their overall customer service from such a small sample. However, on Google the estate agency has an impressive 4.9/5 rating from over 200 reviews, which indicates a pretty consistent level of customer service across its selling, buying and letting services.

Recent 5-star review:

Recent 4-star review (all 1-star reviews have been removed from Google):

Our Verdict

It’s hard to judge MS Estates due to a lack of reviews on Trustpilot. At first glance it looks like they do a good job of selling and buying houses around Nottingham. Customers are happy with their services, but some potential buyers have complained about the rigidity of their viewings. This lack of flexibility could make it harder to sell. It may also be why MS Estates has one of the longer average sale timelines. 

4. Robert Ellis

Robert Ellis has about 5 branches in Nottingham, including offices in Beeston, Arnold, Stapleford and Long Eaton. This is a good spread of local expertise and means you could have a better chance of finding an agent knowledgeable about your area. 

They claim to have over 35 years’ experience in the property industry and offer local expertise and various tools to help sellers. They have competitive commission rates (around 1.3% + VAT), but they tend to take around one month longer to sell property than other Nottingham estate agents. 

Snapshot on Trustpilot and Google (Beeston office)

Customer Feedback

Similar to MS Estates, Robert Ellis doesn’t have a strong Trustpilot presence with only 14 reviews. These have earned it a 3.5-star rating and it’s a little disconcerting that over 20% of these 14 reviews are 1-star appraisals. 

The various Nottingham branches have more customer feedback on Google, amassing over 1000s of reviews that give most offices a 4.9/5 rating. We’ll include some Trustpilot reviews below, but it’s worthwhile looking at customer reviews relevant to your particular branch before deciding. 

Recent 5-star review:

Recent 1-star review (edited for conciseness):

Robert Ellis has yet to respond to this review. 

Our Verdict

It’s hard to make a call on Robert Ellis. It seems individual branches have their own track records for customer service, so you should look into the one you intend to contact. Customer service doesn’t always seem to be their strongest feature. Potential buyers have been put off by poor service, but sellers also praise them for their work. 

5. Whitegates

Coming in at fifth on our list of the best estate agents in Nottingham is Whitegates. This agency only has one office in Nottingham, located in Sherwood. However, the wider business services buyers and sellers across the Midlands, North Wales and north of England. 

The branch in Sherwood has about 10 years’ experience, so there is some local knowledge to draw upon. Commission rates can be on the higher side of 1.5%, but sale timeframes are some of the fastest (around 3 months) for estate agents in the area. 

Snapshot on Trustpilot and Google

Customer Feedback

Whitegates doesn’t really have a presence on Trustpilot. It only has 2 reviews (one 5-star review and one 1-star review), which doesn’t help us determine overall customer service and satisfaction. Its Google presence is a lot more consistent, with over 450 reviews earning it a 4.9/5 star rating. 

Based on Google, Whitegates keeps buyers and sellers happy with good communication and service throughout the entire process. However, it has also been called out for low property valuations, rude branch managers and slow service. 

Recent 5-star review (edited for conciseness):

Recent 1-star review (edited for clarity):

Whitegates has yet to respond to this review. 

Our Verdict

Most of the poor reviews for Whitegates are from four or more years ago. So it’s likely that the quality of service has improved in recent years. The majority of customers on Google are happy with the way they’re treated when selling or buying property through this estate agent. They’re one to consider. You need to be mindful of any estate agent undervaluing your home. That’s why it’s always good to get multiple valuations.

Ways to compare estate agents on your list

When comparing estate agents, you need to take in multiple factors when deciding on the best one for you. Comparing them can be hard, especially when Nottingham has so many estate agents that from the surface look like they do the same thing as the other. Here are some of the factors to take into account when comparing estate agents:

How the top 5 Nottingham estate agents compare

Now let’s take a look at how the top five estate agents in Nottingham stack up compared to one another when considering these seven most important elements. 

Remember this is just a guide and information on marketing and contracts isn’t always accessible or up to date. It’s always worthwhile checking these elements with the actual estate agents before deciding. 

How to choose the best Nottingham estate agent for you

Choosing the right estate agent can be troublesome as you don’t want to go with one that ends up swindling you out of potential money or has any hidden costs that make you pay more than necessary. 

But how do you find a good one amongst the crowd of estate agents in Nottingham? There are three main things you need to do when searching for the best estate agent to sell your house. 

1. Research

Doing your own research is essential to having a successful house sale. Having the knowledge of the Nottingham housing market will be helpful to get an understanding of property trends and how much your house could be worth. 

You can check Zoopla’s sale data for recent house prices in Nottingham, including your area. You can also do the same thing on Rightmove to give yourself a better idea of the range of prices. Knowing how much similar houses near you sold for can help you determine a rough estimate on the true value of your house when trying to sell. This can protect you from any estate agents who want to over or undervalue your home. 

Researching estate agents reviews is also critical when looking at your options. Make sure your chosen estate agent has a reputable online presence. A lot of bad reviews or no recent reviews can indicate bad customer service or experience.  

2. Consider recommendations from friends or colleagues

Personal recommendations are important to consider. They can come from the unlikeliest of sources, but sometimes word of mouth is the best way to find your agent. It also helps you develop trust if you know they’ve provided a good service for someone whose opinion you respect. Your friends, family and colleagues all might be better sources of information than online reviews. 

3. Take note of your initial interactions with an agent

Before you sign a contract, make sure you have at least two interactions with your chosen agent. These can be over the phone or in person. Simply talking to them can give you a better idea of how they communicated, if they’re trustworthy and if they are competent. 

Take note of how they talk to you. Do they communicate maturely and professionally? Do they have a good understanding of your local area? Are they easy to reach and on time for your appointments? Red flags could appear here, so it’s important to stay aware.

Top Nottingham estate agent checklist 

If you’re struggling to decide which Nottingham estate agent is right, try using the below checklist. It will tell you whether your estate agent is ticking all the right boxes or lacking in any department. It may look like a lot of boxes to tick, but the best estate agents usually tick every single one.

Some useful guides when researching estate agents

Can you trust estate agents in Nottingham? 

The majority of estate agents in Nottingham are trustworthy. The reputable companies, such as the ones listed here, uphold the regulations of the Estate Agents Act 1979, which dictates honest trading standards when it comes to things like negotiations, marketing, handling funds and resolving conflicts or complaints. 

Trustworthy estate agents in Nottingham are also active members of voluntary regulatory bodies, such as Propertymark. Although it’s currently not a requirement for estate agents to be qualified or licensed, as outlined by the House of Commons, it is a requirement for residential estate agents to belong to either The Property Ombudsman (TPO) or The Property Redress Scheme. This is to ensure property disputes are handled according to high trading standards. 

You can check if a Nottingham estate agent is a member of TPO or lodge a complaint with The Property Redress Scheme online.

Not all estate agents are trustworthy

In 2023, Property Industry Eye published an article about estate agents illegally withholding offers from sellers. This was off the back of an investigation by the National Trading Standards Estate and Letting Agency Teams, which found that some estate agents weren’t passing on the highest offers if the buyers weren’t willing to use their services (e.g. surveyor and mortgage broker), which would usually earn the agents additional commission. 

The following quote from James Munro, head of the enforcement committee, sums up the issue: 

“If you’re thinking of buying a property, and you go in and they say, ‘Would you like to speak to our financial adviser or mortgage adviser?’ And you say, ‘No, I’ll sort all that myself. Here’s my offer for the property’.

“Well, that employee, sometimes on the bigger agencies, is on a commission, so if they can get those referral fees they will put that offer forward. But then there may be another offer which is lower, but that person is using all of the connected services, and mysteriously the higher offer just gets lost on the system.”

If you’re a seller, you may never see the highest offer. This could cost you thousands of pounds in revenue. All because your estate agent wants to earn more commission through these ancillary services. This is a prime example of why you need to research estate agents thoroughly. 

How to find the best estate agent in your local area

You can find estate agents near you through various channels and platforms. Here are some tried and tested ways to find agencies in your local area. 

1. Word of mouth (i.e. referrals from friends)

2. Look for sold signs on nearby streets

3. Check local forums or Facebook groups

4. Visit local estate agent offices 

5. Use this great Estate Agent Finder tool from HomeOwner’s Alliance

What’s the average cost of using an estate agent in Nottingham?

According to GetAgent, the average estate agent commission in Nottingham is 1.3%. However, this can range from 1% to 2.5% depending on which agent you choose. You could pay upwards of 3% of your sale price if you want to choose a multi-agent contract, where you employ two estate agents to sell your house together. This commission also includes 20% VAT. 

Using an estate agent costs you more than selling to a cash house buying company, which doesn’t cost anything. We cover all legal and survey fees. We also don’t charge you any commission.

However, you generally make more from a sale on the open market. Here’s a quick comparison of the cost of selling through an estate agent versus other methods. Keep in mind that for some of these methods you’ll also be required to pay for legal and surveyor fees.

As you can see, you can save a lot of money by selling to a cash buyer. But it’s worthwhile looking into how much less cash buyers pay for houses before you consider this method. 

Which Nottingham estate agent should you choose for a quick sale?

If you want to sell your house in Nottingham quickly, you probably shouldn’t approach an estate agent. The HomeOwners Alliance recommends using a quick house sale company (aka a professional cash buyer) over an estate agent for fast sales. 

Estate agents take over three months on average to sell houses in Nottingham, but it can be upwards of five months in some cases. They’re trying to find buyers who rely on mortgages or property chains to purchase your home. This can make the process long and tedious. Delays with solicitors or conveyancers, survey problems and poor communication by estate agents can also add on weeks or months. These are the main reasons why it takes between 17 and 34 weeks to sell a house in the UK. 

If you want a quick sale, you’re better off approaching a professional cash buyer like The Property Buying Company. We buy any house or flat in Nottingham fast. Instead of waiting over three months to sell your house, you could have the sale finalised and the funds in your account within 2-3 weeks. Sometimes as fast as seven days. 

Should you sell your Nottingham house to a cash buyer?

This really depends on your priorities as a seller. If you want a fast sale and don’t mind getting below market price for your house, we might be the best option for you. If you’re happy to wait on the open market so you can get full market value, you’re probably better off choosing an estate agent. 

Just remember that cash house buying companies are as legitimate as real estate agents. We even have a guide on how to choose a legitimate cash buyer. Don’t choose an estate agent because they’re more traditional. You can still encounter deceitful ones out there who might steal your money or time.   

Does a cash buyer sound like the right route for you? Read our review of the best quick house buying companies in the UK to explore your options. You can also learn how the cash buying process works with The Property Buying Company. If you’re ready to get a free, no-obligation cash offer on your property, simply submit your postcode below to get started.