Estate Agents causing me no end of stress.

PJD

I could type pages about what they've done to annoy me up to now, but I'll settle by just telling you the latest.

They come round my property with a view to signing me up, & tell me how fantastic my place is, how they'll sell it easily, & how they'd LOVE to take it on, as it's such a lovely fantastic property!

I sign them up, feeling good about things, as i've just been told how great my place is & all the fantastically good points my property has to offer.

Two days & two viewings later I get a VERY low offer, & have the same estate agent telling me all the BAD things about my property, on & on & on, telling me that it's going to be difficult to sell because of X, Y, Z, & how I'm going to REGRET not taking this offer because of all these bad reasons about my property!

I f******g hate these people. I'm at work today, trying to get some work done, but the stress from all the negotiations & patter from these estate agent ars**oles, i'm finding it very difficult to get anything done!!!

Selling your home & moving is stressful enough, without having to deal with the scum of the earth in the process. And sorry, I'll make no apology for my "scum of the earth" comment, in fact I will back it up to the death!!

Hippychick

Can you not get out of your contract with them. Is their any get out clause for leaving them within the first 14 days?

If not then stick to your guns and turn down the offer if you feel you can get more. At the end of the day the agents are meant to be working for you not for your buyer so make them do their job and look after your best interests.

Good luck, moving house is always stressful but you've only had the house up for a few days so it may be worth testing the waters.

cattie

It's early days yet & it's quite common for ea's to sing the praises of any offer, no matter how low. All they are interested in is the commision & the quicker they sell your house the quicker they have their money.

If your house is worth the amount it's up for then it shouldn't be too long before you get an offer you feel is more realistic.

Try not to get stressed out at this early stage. There seem to be a lot of people these days that make ridiculously low offers as a matter of course, so try to prepare yourself for more low offers & people pointing out all the negatives about your place & not the positives in an effort to make you feel your house is priced very unrealistically.

Good luck with the whole process.

PJD

I can leave them any time. I was with another EA before who were unbelievably unproffessional. The one's i'm talking about have a better reputation, I really dont think the grass is going to be any greener anywhere else - all EA's seem to be the same. I'm actually with 2 EA's now, i've already sacked 2 agents (!!) - i've been on the market about 8 weeks or thereabouts, although some of that time was wasted whilst I was under off & the buyer pulled out.

I also do not agree that EA are working for me, they want to secure a deal, & they want their commision - end of (IMHO).

I just hate the way they really try & push me into taking a low offer, & slag off my property in the process. They want to do a minimal amount of work for their commission -- which is all they care about. They couldn't give a monkeys about the seller or buyer.

Hippychick wrote:

Good luck

thanks

clutton_2

This reminds me of a time i went into a travel agent and asked for a single holiday with no single supplements in January and i was not fussy at all where i went as long as it was warm. This churlish young oik told me how "difficult" single people were, how akward it was to find holidays for them, how they were more trouble than they were worth - i left feeling utterly downtrodden.

Overnight, i thought, what the heck, i am a customer here, not something that walked in on the bottom of someones shoe, so, i went in and saw the manager, i told him that one of his staff had made me feel like s**t and what holiday could he please find for me. He was a new manager, did not know his staff well, and was most grateful to have my feedback. He found me the best holiday i have ever had in a 5* hotel for 2* prices and i had a fab time !!

Why not try going to the top - be as charming as you can possibly be, and ask them to compile a marketing plan there and then, and ask for one member of staff to have responsibility for your house - see what happens ......... Smiling at folks, (no matter how hard that is to do ) will always get you more of what you want than anything else !!!

PJD

Thanks Cattie.

PJD

clutton wrote:

This reminds me of a time i went into a travel agent and asked for a single holiday with no single supplements in January and i was not fussy at all where i went as long as it was warm. This churlish young oik told me how "difficult" single people were, how akward it was to find holidays for them, how they were more trouble than they were worth - i left feeling utterly downtrodden.

Overnight, i thought, what the heck, i am a customer here, not something that walked in on the bottom of someones shoe, so, i went in and saw the manager, i told him that one of his staff had made me feel like s**t and what holiday could he please find for me. He was a new manager, did not know his staff well, and was most grateful to have my feedback. He found me the best holiday i have ever had in a 5* hotel for 2* prices and i had a fab time !!

Why not try going to the top - be as charming as you can possibly be, and ask them to compile a marketing plan there and then, and ask for one member of staff to have responsibility for your house - see what happens ......... Smiling at folks, (no matter how hard that is to do ) will always get you more of what you want than anything else !!!

hmmmm... - yes, that's not a bad idea.

I do have plans to complain to the regional manager from another a particular branch manager from an EA i'm just about to sack. I dont want to burn too many bridges or upset too many people, as at the end of the day, I just want to sell my place, but yes, your suggestion sounds like a decent card which I might play in the days to come - cheers.

courtjester

PJD - why not consider selling the property using your own initiative and advertising - providing you choose carefully, you can take out advertising with a professional property website or your local newspaper and deal with buyers direct and this doesn't affect your sole agency contract.

Get your own for sale sign in place of the agent's one. That will get their attention and maybe they'll start working a bit harder to achieve the sale YOU want on YOUR terms.

If you sell privately, you won't owe the agent anything as long as you haven't signed a sole selling rights contract.

Conrad

We can all pat each other on the back here and be freinds or we can be honest?

You say youve 'sacked' a couple of EAs (so wasted thier time and money which includes salaries cars etc) and now you have an EA that has a buyer but still youre not happy.

I run my own biz and we have a word for people like you - Time Vampires.

Why dont you go sell it yourself as you seem to have all the answers.

Oh and BTW, do you mind if I come to your work and waste a few of your hours, not pay you then 'sack you'?

One minute I read 'EAs are greedy they just want to ramp up the price of houses to maximise commision' the next I read 'they just want you to accept the lowest offer so they get thier commision'??

spirit

Hang on Conrad, that's a bit strong. Presumably PJD's agents have been on a no sale no fee basis - as I believe most are? If an agent goes in to value and remarks on the saleability of the property and then changes tack when a low offer comes in what do you expect the seller to feel?

You can't tar all agents with the same brush nor can you do the same with sellers.

I've had a problem with my agent in the communication dept. Initially he came in and gave me all the lip about how good they were as agents and slagged off all the others in the area. However he redeemed himself when within 48 hours he found me buyers at more or less the asking price - brilliant - decent service. Then it all went deathly quiet, I'd still had no confirmation of instructions letter from them, no draft details to check (and still haven't to this day). 2 weeks after the offer and no memorandum of sale - which I had to phone up for and get - he gave me some excuse about it still being in his out tray (?) - still I forgave him as he had after all got me these buyers. So off I trotted and found myself a house and the offer was accepted etc.

My agent rings to ask if the buyers could come round Friday just gone - to meet me and discuss what I was leaving behind. Great I said, look forward to it. Guess what, no show! I rang the agent who said he was most surprised but he was sure they were still committed to buying. he would ring them on the Saturday and let me know. Saturday went by and nothing, same Sunday and by this morning I was knackered through lack of sleep and food. I suggested that we look for new buyers. Oh no he said, they are still interested. How did he know, who was he working for here? So this afternoon I said to him that I had heard nothing for 3 days now, why would they not turn up if they were committed? Nope, it's got to go back on the market. Guess what within the hour he rang back to say that it was his fault, Mr and MRs whatnot did not hear back from him to say it was ok for Friday so didn't come!

So they are coming up on 9th July now and i have their number and they have mine. Perhaps I'll reduce his payment if we sort things out between ourselves! Oh, and my lawyers don't have a copy of the memo of sale either! Guess who needs to attend a communications course!

Doozergirl

PJD, I understand your feelings exactly. It makes my blood boil. Generally, I know the estate agents well enough that they know better then to try it on with me, but it does still happen. I suggest you have a strong word with the sales manager. As far as I'm concerned, battering down your confidence and/or trying to make you feel stupid for not taking the deal is a true sign of a poor salesman.

If it does happen again, remind the agent that the asking price was their valuation of the property and that you're paying them to get you the best price. Ask them to use the sales pressure on your buyers instead! If you have an offer, take it quickly and tell the agent you will consider it and call them back. Don't give them the opportunity to cloud your judgement.