What did your estate agent do well/poorly?

ciano125

As per the title really, what were you impressed with when you sold your house? What did you feel the agents did well, what did they do badly? What would you like them to do differently if you could go back in time?

On the other hand, if you were a buyer, what did you think about the sellers' agents? Did you feel like they screwed you over for every penny, or did you feel as if they were really acting as a "go between" and trying to get a deal done, despite the fact that they were being paid by the other side?

I don't mind starting.

I liked the fact that they had in house solicitors, I liked the fact that they included this service in the price. They communicated efficiently. I liked that they are members of a professional body (from memory RICS and a solicitors body as well).

The fact that our house sold after being on the market for three days (this was October 2007) I don't put down to the agents, there was someone looking for a house in that area at the time and ours was to their liking. We got lucky in that sense and I think any agent who had put it on rightmove could have got the sale.

On the downside, they didn't take good photographs though and the particulars were full of spelling errors. Both fairly easily corrected, but I don't think I should have had to do it for them.

When I've been on the buying side, the second time at least I felt as if I had an upper hand on the "sales negotiator", partly because of the state of the market, and partly because I felt as if I was a better negotiater than she was.

I'm not an estate agent by the way either, just interested to see whether or not they deserve the reputation they (rightly or wrongly!) seem to have.

:beer:

Bufger

Im a buyer and the experience so far is:

They seem professional as a front so far. For viewings they were very prompt but when it came to offers they said they would ring back on xyz day and wouldnt. I'm not sure if it was to see how impatient i was (and therefor how much i liked a property) but now even with an offer accepted they seem to leave it right up to the last minute to get anything done.

My EA seemed suprised at how organised i was and that i have got so much done already. Seems as though she wasnt even ready herself!

I hope it improves but im not completely confident. My Vendors seem really nice though so leaving the EA out of the informal stuff is probably the way forward.

googler

"My EA seemed suprised at how organised i was and that i have got so much done already. Seems as though she wasnt even ready herself!"

How many properties are you dealing with? I'd reckon maximum 2 - selling one, buying another.

How many is the agent dealing with? How many are on their books, and how many buyers and sellers like you are clamouring for their attention?

dirtmother

Our vendors EA thought they should only make HIPs available for buyers to come into their office and view. I pointed out that our own HIP was available on our EAs website for anyone to view and print off and that another EA had emailed us a HIP for another property as soon as we'd asked.

She was also surprised that removal companies were not sitting around twiddling their fingers in August (when we were being told repeatedly "Sorry we're already booked for those dates")

Bufger

but thats their job, much like everyone elses. Also im doing it on the side of having a job, if i were unemployed and just managing one property i would expect to have my side of it done very quickly.

In my job i have to get components designed to fit a purpose, i have to get the components validated then crash tested to meet a very strict deadline. If one component fails it goes back to square one but the deadline stays the same. On top of that are mounds of paperwork and a gazillion meetings (most of which i dont attend as i only see value in a few).

My point is most of us have demanding jobs but most of us achieve the tasks we set out to do. At the moment my estate agent is under achieving. In the absense of any actual work being done so far i would at the very least expect a phonecall at the time its promised. I fail to see how my EA would survive in a fast moving industry.

princessamy86

I agree with you there bufger, if an EA can't deal with the workload, they need to be in a different job! It's part of the job description that you need to be able to multi task, and although it can be difficult to co-ordinate everything it just has to be done. There's no excuse for the agent to be the person who is holding the sale up, it's not difficult to send things out on time. I have over 100 properties to look after, as we're very short staffed, but only 11 ongoing sales, so I see no reason why they should be neglected.