Why are estate agents unable to count to 3?

ruggedtoast

I would have thought its pretty simple.

"I want details of three bedroom properties, in X Y Z price range and area."

"Great, we have some of those, we'll send you out details."

So why 24 hours later is my inbox full of 2 bedroom houses?

Maybe this is why they have those specialised posh estate agents for handling rich peoples multi room mansions.

Presumably they need to have a special training and vetting process to do the mental arithmetic needed to handle a request for bedrooms that equal or exceed a number greater than 4.

LandyAndy

ruggedtoast wrote: »

I would have thought its pretty simple.

"I want details of three bedroom properties, in X Y Z price range and area."

"Great, we have some of those, we'll send you out details."

So why 24 hours later is my inbox full of 2 bedroom houses?

.

We had a similar problem when we moved here and wanted to exclude a nearby village from our search because it was over the border in Dorset and the schooling arrangements were different. No EAs seemed to be able to make the differentiation.:(

GillsMan7

On the subject of EA's who can't count, I remember when buying my first house. We told the EA's our budget was £95,000, but that the maximum we could stretch to was £105K. We stressed that this was the absolute maximum and was only for a perfect house.

We were taken out and saw some OK properties. Then we were shown around a really nice house. "How much is this" I enquired. "£118,000" was the reply.

Yeah, nice one. Utter waste of my time. :mad:

firstaspect

We found that all the time when looking for houses. We'd set out our requirements clearly and then get emails, text messages, phone calls of at least 80% about properties which didn't fit what we were after.

dizziblonde

firstaspect wrote: »

We found that all the time when looking for houses. We'd set out our requirements clearly and then get emails, text messages, phone calls of at least 80% about properties which didn't fit what we were after.

We've not gone in with lists of our requirements - we've found specific houses on rightmove (I was being a right picky so and so about area, streets etc) and just said "we want to view x y and z".

I'm not wasting my time and the time of vendors viewing houses that aren't suitable, if there's nowt suitable out there - I'll bide my time till it is thank you very much!

mrcol1000

One EA we contacted about houses with at least two bedrooms in a certain area every week sent us detials of one bedroom houses outside of the area we wanted and usually high end properties twice what we could afford.The one property they had we were interested in we found ourselves but it was up with another EA as well so we went with them and brought from them as we had no confidence in the orginal EA.

pararct

GillsMan7 wrote: »

On the subject of EA's who can't count, I remember when buying my first house. We told the EA's our budget was £95,000, but that the maximum we could stretch to was £105K. We stressed that this was the absolute maximum and was only for a perfect house.

We were taken out and saw some OK properties. Then we were shown around a really nice house. "How much is this" I enquired. "£118,000" was the reply.

Yeah, nice one. Utter waste of my time. :mad:

If it was the perfect house for you then an offer of £105,000 was in the ballpark....

Why did you not offer this? You don't have to agree with the price a property is marketed at. More importantly you had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

As to the original question the OP should look up what qualifications are needed to enter the esteemed profession of Estate Agent. Once you have that answer you will know.

mrstinchcombe

GillsMan7 wrote: »

On the subject of EA's who can't count, I remember when buying my first house. We told the EA's our budget was £95,000, but that the maximum we could stretch to was £105K. We stressed that this was the absolute maximum and was only for a perfect house.

We were taken out and saw some OK properties. Then we were shown around a really nice house. "How much is this" I enquired. "£118,000" was the reply.

Yeah, nice one. Utter waste of my time. :mad:

And whats the bet that if you offer £105k on a £118k property the EA will say "I'm not sure they will accept that".

Numpties

theartfullodger

The situation is quite simple really... do you want whinge & moan about incompetent EAs or do you want to find a property to buy??

If the latter may I suggest the following...

a) Go round and see each local EA relevant, at least once a week: Explain what you want, confirm by email, expect EAs to leave brain out when arriving at work....
b) Go through the pile of printed/emailed stuff they send you, discard the irrelevant, pursue the interesting...
c) Flatter the darling EA staff: Tell them how helpful they are. Tell them there's a magnum of (good) champagne to the staff member that produces the place you finally buy (or some other gesture..).. Be surprised when you start to get some attention?? I think not... Bet nobody else does it...
d) Give them the magnum when you buy: Nae dropping to their levels laddie!!!

It really ain't that hard.. Sadly if you wish to go through life only dealing with competent & sensible people there will be at least 2 consequences...
i) If you take that position you'll end up doing almost nothing with anyone...
ii) Were it to be the case that everyone else was competent & sensible, how would most of us ever get a job against competition like that, eh???

Cheers!

Artful

Richard_Webster

It will be to do with what facilities they have to query their database. It might, for instance only allow them to list properties in price ranges and not by the number of bedrooms.

ruggedtoast

theartfullodger wrote: »

The situation is quite simple really... do you want whinge & moan about incompetent EAs or do you want to find a property to buy??

If the latter may I suggest the following...

a) Go round and see each local EA relevant, at least once a week: Explain what you want, confirm by email, expect EAs to leave brain out when arriving at work....
b) Go through the pile of printed/emailed stuff they send you, discard the irrelevant, pursue the interesting...
c) Flatter the darling EA staff: Tell them how helpful they are. Tell them there's a magnum of (good) champagne to the staff member that produces the place you finally buy (or some other gesture..).. Be surprised when you start to get some attention?? I think not... Bet nobody else does it...
d) Give them the magnum when you buy: Nae dropping to their levels laddie!!!

It really ain't that hard.. Sadly if you wish to go through life only dealing with competent & sensible people there will be at least 2 consequences...
i) If you take that position you'll end up doing almost nothing with anyone...
ii) Were it to be the case that everyone else was competent & sensible, how would most of us ever get a job against competition like that, eh???

Cheers!

Artful

Good grief, do you have to offer your body to their elders as a sign of supplication and respect as well?

I think I'll just check Rightmove every day and phone up about viewings like everyone else.