How have Estate Agents misused their positions of trust?

chewmylegoff

its letting agents that are the real problem in my view. they are usually terrible, have no understanding of the law, and no regard for the tenants.

estate agents are usually alright*, they'll give you bullsh!t, but that's what the seller pays them for. i think most people who hate them simply can't get their head around the fact that they only provide a service to the seller, not to both parties in a transaction. the one office independents are better in my (albeit it limited) experience. some of the chains are just full of thick clones.

* = foxtons excepted of course, just because.

housesitter

Letting agents are more fun to mess with. When you come to leaving you can make their lives pure living hell on earth due to all of the mistakes they have made along the way.
Which I'm about to do when I buy.

Maisie11

Housesitter

Wow, all EA's liar's and cheats - what is your occupation? If it is easy to sell or buy a house without these 'liars and cheats' why dont you do it yourself.

chickmug

Maisie11 wrote: »

Housesitter

Wow, all EA's liar's and cheats - what is your occupation? If it is easy to sell or buy a house without these 'liars and cheats' why dont you do it yourself.

Good question but doubt you will get an answer.
I often used to ask it and no one ever answered.

jazza77

Have some experience of dealing with EAs in my line of work. So far as i believe certainly in the past it has happened (don't know how common) that EA would have a preference for a particular purchaser if they were arranging a mortgage through the mortgage broker part of the EA's business, thereby earning a healthy commission and not necessarily making it pay for the EA if the highest offer is accepted.

Meeting targets / bonuses etc. can also have an effect as (certainly in the past at least) some EAs had targets of getting x number of properties on the market rather than achieving a sale of x number of properties, resulting in unrealistically high asking prices so that the purchaser will go with that EA rather than another down the road which may advise a lower (and more likely achievable) asking price.

fatpig_2

Maisie11 wrote: »

Housesitter

Wow, all EA's liar's and cheats - .

Harsh but true.

housesitter

Maisie11 wrote: »

Wow, all EA's liar's and cheats - what is your occupation?

I work in a technical/managerial/purchasing support role and have pretty much always done.

Throughout my career the one over riding type of person who has tried to shaft me is the salesman. EA's are the very same breed.
I have been a salesman in the distant past directly, but found it hard to lie to people as requested by management.

As part of my hobby I buy and sell things and have a good reputation in the online community to which I belong for being overly honest with my descriptions to the point of losing a sale through it.

If it is easy to sell or buy a house without these 'liars and cheats' why dont you do it yourself.

Because they have a monopoly on the market and stop you from doing so.
It's a vicious circle. People sell through EA's so a seller does the same.
If I'm ever in the position to sell I can assure you that I will be going independant putting my own advert up via rightmove etc.

Why does it cost any more to sell a house for 100K than one for 1million? Yet not all agents are flat fee based. Why?

If houses were advertised in the same way as cars I wouldn't have an issue. I've always bought things privately and done without salesmen or a middleman to do so.
From my 16 odd years of working for customers, I've never needed the use of a salesman and have frequently found them to muddy the waters or indeed leave me in the !!!!!!.
Everytime I cut out the middleman and talk to the end user, you always find you are faced with a completely different story and can actually get the job done and make everyone happy.

I've dealt with 4 letting agents all of whom were frankly scumbags and two EA's to the point of offers, again both of which were cocky, aloof and rude and if I wasn't being forced to talk to them because of the vendor, I wouldn't !!!! on them if they were on fire.
If I could talk directly to the vendor with my current offer I have a feeling (from vast previous dealings) that we'd have agreed a price.



What is your job then?

That goes for chickmug too?

zappahey

housesitter wrote: »

If you've ever watched a property !!!!!! programme and seen the valuers come round and be 20% out from each others quotes, the vendors go with greed and for the top price (in a HPI environment) and that become the market price.
Other vendors see people selling similar houses for more and instruct their agents to put up prices.

It really doesn't work that way in a fall.

Yes, the vendors greed is a factor, but poor valuation is what started it all.
If the EA hadn't suggested such a figure was achiveable to get the business in the first place...

I don't carry a torch for EAs and, as a STR*, I have a vested interest in prices continuing to fall but the above is utter nonsense. The EA's initial job is to offer an estimate of what they believe someone will pay.

If, in your scenario above, someone actually pays the price that the EA suggested then the EA has done their job properly, no matter how high the valuation. You can hardly blame the EA for recognising that people are ready and willing to pay stupid money for houses and advising sellers appropriately.

The part of your quote that I have highlighted is the key point, houses were selling at these valuations. Whose fault was that? The EAs? No, it was us. You, me and everyone else who gorged on cheap credit to drive up house prices. In those circumstances, a low valuation was a poor valuation.

*Through circumstance rather than planning

Maisie11

Dare I say it -I am in sales/account management for a large multi national....

My point is if I started saying 'those technical support people, dont know what they are doing, never answer their phones and are jobsworths' you would have every right to feel miffed.

And I have never been asked to lie. You always get found out in the end!

It always surprises me that people complain constantly about EA's but there is still a great demand for them. Not all of them are bad, the one we were using recently was really good and has an excellent reputation around here. He survived the last recession and tells me he fully intends to survive this one.

housesitter

When you price something at x then it rises to y it is natural for people, generally, to get swept away and not wanting to miss the boat so they make a dive for whatever item is in question before it runs out (scarcity of resources) or before they are priced out.

Irrational behaviour thinking that they needed to buy but I will give you that it was indeed "our" fault for pushing prices up by creating more demand.
However, when faced with more demand, do you think that a seller of something which is scarce is not going to put up prices to maximise their profits?

That's exactly what happens. In any market. For any item for sale.