Haart - Estate Agents (Positive's and Negative's)

RedfordML

Looking at the possibility of instructing Haart as our EA and just wanted a bit further info on them in general...

Many Thanks

gooner63_2

Sometimes ok....sometimes not !!!!......who ????:o

sooz

They can't spell.

RedfordML

Lol...

With there being lots of competition I want to make the right choice...

nomnomnom

I never liked them. We viewed a house and were interested so asked for the HIP to be emailed over, they said fine will do it now, never got it. Rang them again next day, they said they'd done it, but I explained that it hadn't arrived at all and I'd checked my spam filter... nothing. Asked them politely to check email and send again.

A few days later I rang again and they sounded peed off with me because I hadn't received it. I politely asked them again and gave them my partners email addy. Nothing arrived. By this time, we'd found a better property to view and gave up with chasing the HIP on Haarts books. To be fair I could have said forget trying to email, I'll go in and have a look, but it was their attitude about the whole thing. Disinterested and then annoyed because they thought they'd sent it and for some reason, it never arrived at 2 different email addresses.

Other dealings with them were a year or so before when I had an offer accepted on a house but the seller gazumped me and took a higher offer through another agent. I felt at the time that Haarts never really pushed the seller to commit and give them their solicitors details when I had already instructed mine

DVardysShadow

Quirky ads looked gimmicky. Didn't like the look, didn't see any houses with them which we wanted. If they had had any, we would have looked but their general presentation did not have us comfortable as buyers. It looked to me as though they were trying to impress their vendors with their advertising prowess, rather than advertise in a way which gave the buyers the info they wanted.

tiny_tear

i bought my flat through them in 2005 and they were great.

so at the end of 2009 I wanted to sell the flat and their quote was ok so instructed them. they were BLOODY USELESS!

hardly any feedback from viewings, i had to keep on top of them for any news, seemed more worried about getting researchers from Location, Location and from To Buy or Not to Buy in rather than proper viewers.

claimed that an 'open day' would help and they would bring banners and so on and I needed to pay extra for the organisation and a special newspaper advert and rightmove adverts etc. i was getting desperate so I paid...

on the day i waited at the flat for over an hour and NO ONE showed up. made them rebook it for a second weekend, again no one showed up - from Haart or potential buyers. No banners, the right move publicity was a sham, just a tiny line of text on the advert...

gave them the sack in August after 9 months of nothing...

flat still on the market with a new agent - but 1 bed flats in my location are being hard to shift - and will probably rent it in the new year and give up on the selling malarkey for a while

vikingaero

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Quirky ads looked gimmicky. Didn't like the look, didn't see any houses with them which we wanted. If they had had any, we would have looked but their general presentation did not have us comfortable as buyers. It looked to me as though they were trying to impress their vendors with their advertising prowess, rather than advertise in a way which gave the buyers the info they wanted.

The quirky ads put me right off. By attempting to talk something up so much makes me think something is wrong with the property. And the fact that it reinforces my stereotype of the EA being a fcuktard.

<sebb>

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Quirky ads looked gimmicky. Didn't like the look, didn't see any houses with them which we wanted. If they had had any, we would have looked but their general presentation did not have us comfortable as buyers. It looked to me as though they were trying to impress their vendors with their advertising prowess, rather than advertise in a way which gave the buyers the info they wanted.

That's exactly how I felt about them when I was buying. The ads were horribly untruthful. "Fit for a King" - for a pokey little flat in a crime ridden part of Wembley, "Truely Massive, practically a mansion" - for an even pokier flat in another grotty area. The overhype in their ads just led me to feel bitterly disappointed after each viewing, and perhaps more critical than I would have been if they'd been slightly more honest. When there were flats on with multi agents, and I always picked another agent to view with.

evoke

Haart are one of the EAs that my flat is up with at the moment. Not heard a thing from that since the valuation. And I don't expect to hear anything either.

timmyt

avoid national chain estate agents - they value too high, fail to sell, and then your house looks stale and you accept such a low offer just to get it sold.

oh and they usually charge a set fee, so they don't fight for best price.

they also try and force their crap referral fee paying conveyancers (not solicitors) on you or anyone who makes an offer on your house...and trys to sell bidders their mortgage.

just avoid - and use a local indepedent estate agent, who knows the town and has better marketing lists (national agents do not advertise yours through their other branches)

good luck you have been warned