why do estate agents park on the drive?

MissMotivation

DVardysShadow wrote: »

And ... wait for it ... the only reason the viewer is late is because the other Agent was late at the previous viewing. :p:p

Was waiting for that :rotfl:

money_saving_diva

When we were viewing houses the EA's often parked on the drive if there wasn't much space in the street. We would never have parked on the driveway of a house we were going to view and always parked in the street. I must say we turned alot of houses down because of lack of parking. If the EA used the sapce on the drive and we had a job to park we could have said NO to the house before we even looked at it. We realised this early on in our search and drove past most houses before arranging a viewing.

I never had experience of viewers being late - they were often early which was awkward because we wanted the EA to show them around.

For this reason we use to sit in the car outside the houses we wanted to view until EA turned up. Once we were waiting 10 mins and I thought I better check the EA wasn't there already in the house although there was no sign of their car. The vendor said they weren't expecting the EA to be there to show us around and that that they had showed all potential viewers around. I think this was really bad because the EA had clearly said they would meet us there. Made me look stupid and late :mad:

DVardysShadow

MissMotivation wrote: »

Was waiting for that :rotfl:

Hope it didn't make you late for an appointment.

MissMotivation

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Hope it didn't make you late for an appointment.

Ooops.........:D

irn_bru

MissMotivation, surely as somebody providing a service to your customers you would want to go out of your way to be curteous to them and give them the best experience possible.

Apparently you would rather inconvenience them by making their parking more difficult and then come on here and moan about them. I'm afraid late customers are a hazard of your job and if you don't like it you should do something else.

The OP represents your customers so perhaps you should take their view on board. It may help you sell houses

Welsh_Totster

We viewed 45 houses in total in the area we are moving to, by the end of it we knew all the EAs in the area by first name. Every one of them parked on the sellers drive (which didint bother us as we never had problems parking on the road outside the property). And only one 1 occasion was any EA on time, they were generally always late and we end up phoning the office to see if they were on their way.

This meant that when viewing perhaps 8 properties in a day our schedule was knocked sideways as we had timed every viewing well to be at every property on time. Even when we were late to view somewhere because the previous EA was late, the EA taking us round the next property was even later than we were.

Even our EA selling our place was always a few minutes later then they said theyd be there.

irn_bru

It sounds like estate agents and sometimes viewers are planning too many viewings in one day so that when one is late there is no opportunity to make up the lost time?

There is always a chance someone will be late so this should be factored in to your plans (MissMotivation)

Milliewilly

I would never park on the drive of any house I was viewing and if the house was empty I would find it perfectly acceptable that the EA had parked there.

I do measure the drive and garage though to make sure my cars would fit but I don't try them for size!!!

Should the vendor move their car off the drive to allow the viewer special access?!?!

irn_bru

That's not the point. The OP was complaining that the estate agent parked on the driveway as it was free. No one's saying the vendor should leave the space free so a buyer could use it.

I wouldn't park on the driveway either but clearly the OP was agrieved that they had to park across the road so I think estate agents should be aware that a proportion of their customers would feel this way and act accordingly. You're not likely to sell a house to somebody that thinks you're rude.

longhotbath

This has turned into an interesting debate:D

I just wondered if it was standard practice.

We are trying to move because my son is severely disabled and we need to create downstairs space for him. The estate agents we have seen know this, but they always park on the drive. At the house before the rainy one, it took 10 minutes to get him out of the car, into the wheelchair and to the house - the traffic was awful. Needless to say we didnt go for that one - the estate agent was parked in the drive, and it would have been far less stressful for us - my son was screaming after 5 mins. She even stood at the window and watched us (I knocked on the door when we arrived and said that we needed to get him out).

Personally as a buyer, I would like to park on the drive, and experience what it would be like for me to come home every day - how much space there is around the car and whether there are any steps etc.

As for the 'status' car - Mine is lovely and shiny and bigger that the minis that estate agents round here drive.