Selling worries

sara1880

Hiya,

I am in the process of selling my house, i am with an estate agent who i bought the house from originally 4 years ago and who i thought then were very good.

My problem being that i am not overly impressed by them so far, My house has been on the market now for two weeks, My house is not as yet in their window ( when i asked them they gave me some story about waiting for the laminated copy of the brochure) also my house has not appeared in the local newspaper as it was supposed to. When i asked about this i was told, ohh ermm well sometimes we do only appear in the newspaper fortnightly if we don't have enough new houses.( so i get penalised because other people dont want to sell their houses??)

I contacted the estate agents a week ago and told them that if someone wanted to view the house but they were not able to accompany them to contact me and i could be home in half an hour to show people round. In other words let anyone see the house when ever they wanted and i'd make sure if they couldnt be there i would be.

a day after this conversation with my agent i got my partner to phone them pretending to be a prospective buyer in a hurry, that she was only in my town for a few days and wanted to know what they had available in her price range, she wasnt told about any houses and was told she would be contacted on Monday about what houses were suitable. I wasn't happy about this and phoned the agent and owned up what i had done ( getting my girlfriend to phone) and they just kept going on about how my house wasn't the only one on the market and they were deeply hurt i had done this.

Since then i have contacted them without them knowing it was me via their website asking to specificly View my house and two others i am yet to receive a response to this email or as a seller receive a phone call asking if anyone can comeview.

I'm sure you can see why i am getting a little concerned two weeks into selling my house why i am not fill with confidence by the agent. The thing is i am tied to them for another 4 weeks what im wondering is A) what can i do to make sure they do a better job or can i get out of my contract with them? could i say they arent fulfilling their part of the contract??

any advice or help would be appreciated

From a stressed out seller.

Debt_Free_Chick

Four weeks is not that long and you could spend that time making sure the house is immaculately dressed for future photos with the new agents.

Also, spend that time posing as a buyer with other local agents - that will give you great insight as to how hard they work for the sellers of the properties they are marketing.

Irrespective of the current market, July & August is a dead zone anyway. More so if your target buyer is a family as they will (a) be going on holiday and/or (b) have sorted out schools for next year, so a move is going to be pretty near impossible.

Your situation is so similar to mine - same agent as I bought from; no exposure in the press; on the market for 2 months etc, etc.

Trust me - four weeks is no time. Focus on what you can do to put yourself in the best position to appoint a new agent.

What notice do you have to give? Can you give notice now so that you end in exactly four weeks time? If you do, they'll take their foot off the gas, but it doesn't sound as though they could do any worse.

Also, get them to confirm in writing, those buyers that they consider they have introduced and for whom they would expect to receive their commission. This is something to agree with the new agent so you don't end up paying two lots of EA commission!!!

sara1880

hiya thank you for your advice, i spent the month before putting it on the market getting it perfect just making sure every little thing was done just so. Thanks for the tip on the potential buyers though, can i just ask my agent to tell me who they have proposed the property to?

Trollfever

Could they have run out of money to pay for newspaper ads and phone calls?

sara1880

that was my initial concern but im not sure how i could find that out

macaque_2

sara1880 wrote: »

Hiya,

I am in the process of selling my house, i am with an estate agent who i bought the house from originally 4 years ago and who i thought then were very good.

My problem being that i am not overly impressed by them so far, My house has been on the market now for two weeks, My house is not as yet in their window ( when i asked them they gave me some story about waiting for the laminated copy of the brochure) also my house has not appeared in the local newspaper as it was supposed to. When i asked about this i was told, ohh ermm well sometimes we do only appear in the newspaper fortnightly if we don't have enough new houses.( so i get penalised because other people dont want to sell their houses??)

I contacted the estate agents a week ago and told them that if someone wanted to view the house but they were not able to accompany them to contact me and i could be home in half an hour to show people round. In other words let anyone see the house when ever they wanted and i'd make sure if they couldnt be there i would be.

a day after this conversation with my agent i got my partner to phone them pretending to be a prospective buyer in a hurry, that she was only in my town for a few days and wanted to know what they had available in her price range, she wasnt told about any houses and was told she would be contacted on Monday about what houses were suitable. I wasn't happy about this and phoned the agent and owned up what i had done ( getting my girlfriend to phone) and they just kept going on about how my house wasn't the only one on the market and they were deeply hurt i had done this.

Since then i have contacted them without them knowing it was me via their website asking to specificly View my house and two others i am yet to receive a response to this email or as a seller receive a phone call asking if anyone can comeview.

I'm sure you can see why i am getting a little concerned two weeks into selling my house why i am not fill with confidence by the agent. The thing is i am tied to them for another 4 weeks what im wondering is A) what can i do to make sure they do a better job or can i get out of my contract with them? could i say they arent fulfilling their part of the contract??

any advice or help would be appreciated

From a stressed out seller.

A very amusing post.

sara1880

Why amusing??

dellbouy

In 2006, would anyone have said to a prospective FTB, "Don't worry, 4 weeks is no time" when prices were going up by 1% per month.

The reverse is now true.

Agents are inconsequential in the housing market. They provide a service that isn't really required now that we all have access to virtually unlimited information on the net. In most cases, agents are just an annoyance and one can't help feeling that the 1% or 2% agent's fee is just a rip off. The big factor that will sell or not sell your house is the price. No agent can sell an overpriced house in a falling market.

Debt_Free_Chick

sara1880 wrote: »

hiya thank you for your advice, i spent the month before putting it on the market getting it perfect just making sure every little thing was done just so. Thanks for the tip on the potential buyers though, can i just ask my agent to tell me who they have proposed the property to?

That's what I did - asked them to provide "the names of those you consider as having been introduced by you, for the purpose of commission, should they proceed to complete a sale".

They know what you're asking for ..... and why

Treadmill

Does anyone else find the some of the OPs behaviour in trying to catch out the EA a bit bizzare or is it just me ? Is ringing and emailing pretending to be other people considered normal nowadays ?

The next step will be donning disguises and viewing your own property masquerading as a potential buyer

dubsey

I don't actually think that phoning the EA to enquire is odd at all. When we bought this house the EA for some reason wouldn't put up a sold sign or STC on the rightmove page either. The offered we'd had accepted was way below the original asking price so we presumed they were holding out for higher offers. I was very concerned so I made my DH call them as a potential buyer to view the property. Luckily they did say it was sold so he couldn't view and they couldn't send him the details.

Two weeks in a busy market and I could understand why the EA hadn't done much, but they must have so much time on their hands atm so I can see why they have posed as buyers. It has now afterall proved what they had been thinking - that the EA doesn't seem very interested in selling the property.