Why I get annoyed with Estate Agents

Davesnave

nomoneyleft, I was referring to the specific situation we are in at the moment. As someone who sold their own house 21 years ago, long before the Internet got going, I know only too well how superfluous EAs can be when times are good. I have never used one before.

Times are not good. Out there in the big, bad world are lots of people who are only too willing to take advantage. They will pretend they want your house for £x, and then change it to £y, not just because they want a bargain, but because they never had £x in the first place. That's just one example where a decent agent will do more than act as 'receptionist' by ensuring that everyone in the chain has adequate funding. If they haven't, it's not a chain.

Chasing and pushing sales through has been vitally important since the start of the year. Doesn't mean you won't get gazundered either of course, or that the chain won't collapse, but if either thing happens you may be back at square one and then you will have lost more than the EA fee.

As for Fish4, it is a very wide ranging site, yes, but a bit of an also-ran compared with Rightmove. I haven't looked at it for at least a year. You can get on Rightmove yourself with House Network. However, as I said, at the moment, I wouldn't.

And, unlike you, I am selling, right now.

BrixMorta

nomoneyleft, you say

'Estate agents are a essentially a receptionist, they take phone calls of potential buyers and make appointments, they advertise online as papers do not gererate any where near as much interest, 80% of house buyer use the internet to search for there next house'.

How do you know this, have you worked for an EA?

nomoneyleft

BrixMorta wrote: »

nomoneyleft, you say

'Estate agents are a essentially a receptionist, they take phone calls of potential buyers and make appointments, they advertise online as papers do not gererate any where near as much interest, 80% of house buyer use the internet to search for there next house'.

How do you know this, have you worked for an EA?

I have moved 4 times, the amount of time both myself and my wife spen chasing them was unreal, tell me apart from the hip which you can get online for £295, taking measurements, taking pictures, putting it on the website, going through your database and send out details... make appointments, and when the sale finally goes through pass the keys over.

what else is there, the solicitor does the searches, all the legal stuff, and the final exchange etc.

i am not having a go at estate agents, times are changing and unless estate agents change with them they will get left behind.,,,,

Optimisticpair

It is a fact of life. There are some absolutely awful photos that make a property look small and dismal and some are a work of art but when the place is seen the true picture isn't as rosy.

My favourites are;

Pony paddock - a patch of mud fenced off in the back garden.

5 minutes from town - in a car if you drive fast and only during school holidays

Bogof_Babe

I saw a photo of a bathroom that was taken at about knee level and made the loo roll holder on the wall appear to be about five feet from the loo!

neverdespairgirl

domcastro wrote: »

This is the house I was talking about http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-19511977.rsp?pa_n=2&tr_t=buy&mam_disp=true

It's a nice house. In the heading it says 3 bedroom detached. Then goes on to say lounge/bedroom. Even in the photos, the lounge isn't set up as a bedroom. So, I assume, the EA is implying that you COULD use the lounge as a 3rd bedroom.

That does sound pretty dishonest to me.

stevetodd

PasturesNew wrote: »

Yes, you should have tried buying in "the olden days" of just a few years ago. You had to physically get TO each estate agent on a weekly basis (and they shut at lunchtime on Saturdays) to try to forcibly extract details from them because they didn't used to send you everything they had you might be interested in, they only sent you a few (if any) based on their interpretation of what they thought you should have or what they thought you could afford.

Positively spoilt you are nowadays!

Luxury! We used to dream about having to go to the estate agents, when I was a lad we used to have to get up an hour before we went to bed to try and find estate agents who used to hide in the bushes in the park. Estate Agent's offices! you don't know how lucky you were!

Davesnave

stevetodd wrote: »

Luxury! We used to dream about having to go to the estate agents, when I was a lad we used to have to get up an hour before we went to bed to try and find estate agents who used to hide in the bushes in the park. Estate Agent's offices! you don't know how lucky you were!

Thanks. The 4 Yorkshiremen sketch (there's inflation for you) has come out on numerous occasions on this august board.

And on a serious note, if you happen to be looking for a landed property, miles away from where you live, the facility provided by Google Earth & its derivatives + Multimap's OS search and the Environment Agency's flood mapping is worth its weight in diesel saved. I can cope without Strutt & Parker's pictures myself, if I don't have to pay their prices.

We've never had it so good.

gordonstights

Debt_Free_Chick wrote: »

When using Rightmove, the best bet is to get a postcode for the property you'd ideally like to buy and then limit the search to x miles around that postcode.

This is what I used to do. When Rightmove did a questionnaire a while back, I moaned about this exact problem. Someone mentioned that EA aren't allowed to do this... I am sure the problem is so subtle that they do get away with it and it's not so much that they are breaking any laws, just causing more buyers to be irritated when they click on the map and find out for themselves where the property actually is

fatpig_2

Never, ever, ever trust the oily spivs and you'll be alright. If an EA tells you it's monday, buy a newspaper just to make sure.