What is your most scandalous Estate Agent experience?

dacouch

Felicity wrote: »

When we were looking for our current house we came across an Estate Agent we hoped to put our trust in.

She was called Ruth, she took a fancy to my husband. After a while she asked him to call her 'Roo', after a while longer she asked him to call her 'R'. very strange. We didn't buy a house from her.

Next she just asked him to call her

googler

mumps wrote: »

We were looking for a four bed detached house. EA contacted me to say just had one come on his books, partly modernised. Went to see it and it didn't have stairs! When we told him it wasn't what we wanted ( even if it had stairs it wasn't right but with disabled husband a ladder wasn't going to work) he asked why and I said, "Well it didn't even have stairs." His reply was, "Well you never said you wanted stairs." He even checked out details and read out, "Four bedrooms, double garage, downstairs loo." and he was right, we never mentioned stairs, or a roof, or doors, or glass in the windows.

I'm sorry, this has me totally lost. Was it a bungalow? Do you mean someone had removed the staircase and left a temporary ladder in their place?

SG27

My girlfriend and I viewed a property early last year which we were really keen on. It had been on the Market well other two years and was priced at £150k which I thought was a little too expensive for it's size. The house was on the with three different agents so we assumed they owners were keen to sell. We made an offer of £135k which I thought was reasonable but was basically laughed at by the estate agent and told that he would advise the vendor not to accept it!!

Anyway it was rejected! So we increased our offer to £140k which was rejected again. We were still keen and had become a little attached to the house (big mistake!) so we upped again to £143k which I said was our final offer and the most we could afford. At this point I was told by the agent that another offer had just been received through on of the other agents! (what a coincidence 2 years with no offers and all of a sudden there is another one!) anyway the agent said it's higher than ours and so we want to increase. I said no as it's the most we can afford! I then rang both other agents to 'enquire' about the house in question and both said no offers have been received through themselves! Which was what I was expecting!

So the estate agent created a false offer to try and get me to up my offer! Lying scum! But it all turned out good in the end, the house was reduced to £140k and changed agents but still hasn't sold. :rotfl:

Now a year later we have much more savings and can afford bigger and better houses, after looking for year and seeing what else is available I wouldn't even pay £120k for that house now so I think the lying estate agent did us a very big favour. Maybe I should call him to thank him :rofl:

Orpheo

Summer 2009, I called to view a house that had been on the market for a while and the EA said that he would show me round, but they already had accepted an offer on it. I immediately said that in that case I'll withdraw my viewing as I see no reason to compete with another buyer. He called back, not 30 mins later to say that, while they had an offer on the property, the vendor was not happy with the offer and that we were in a better position so we really should view it. I refused, repeating that I would not be engaging in a bidding war. Two days later the EA called again and practically begged me to view it, when I refused, he started ranting on about how house prices were only going to go up from here and he literally said that I would "miss the boat." :rotfl::rotfl: Not likely, with a deposit of over 50%. The property remained up for sale for months after.

Then there was the time we arrived 5 minutes late for a viewing. Now, I take punctuality very seriously (if Sibley is reading, punctuality is not commas and full stops) and in this instance we were caught out by a road closure and a change in the weather that combined to back up the traffic. I was pleased that we arrived within 5 minutes of the viewing time, but nonetheless politely apologised to the waiting EA. The EA went off on one about how she was sick and tired of waiting on viewers. I apologised again for being late and added that I would make up her lost time by not viewing the house at all. We got in the car and left. I can't count the times I've been waiting for tardy EAs or the times EAs have arrived with the wrong keys or without the keys at all.

Matt1977

danothy wrote: »

Lord above ... too good already ... am subscribing to this one.

Me too!

Jennikay

Not an EA but a LA/'management company' - I asked if they had locks on the bedroom doors (insurers prefer you to have them, and I like my privacy!) and the guy said 'oooh, I sense an element of distrust from Jennikay there!' to my housemates! :rotfl: Didn't go for them!

mumps

googler wrote: »

I'm sorry, this has me totally lost. Was it a bungalow? Do you mean someone had removed the staircase and left a temporary ladder in their place?

It was a house, in a terrible state, in a horrible position and the staircase had been removed. They were asking about double what it would be worth. Personally I wouldn't have had it at any price but sending a disabled man to view a house was a bit of a mistake, I don't know if they expected me to sling him over my should and climb up the ladder with him to view the bedrooms.

Ulfar

Booked a viewing turn up only to get a call from estate agent ten minutes late saying the vendor didn't want a viewing today.

Father and myself were inside house having a look talking to vendor who was at home and happy for us to view. I passed phone over to vendor, call was fairly short and to the point.

Didn't buy the house but it was worth the entertainment.

Davesnave

I'm not sure where to start, but the agent who tried to put us off a property just over the Welsh border probably took top honours.

It was an agriculturally-tied house and the vendor, a widow, was probably going through the motions of selling in the hope that there would be no takers. If she could market it unsuccessfully for 18 months, she could apply to have the tie removed, with an instant uplift of 30% or so on the value.

Although the property didn't suit our purposes, it was attractive. In any event, we obviously made too many positive noises, so as soon as the vendor was out of the way, the agent began 'confiding' in us that buying from the Welsh in this area was fraught with danger.

"They are very argumentative!" he warned, "Do you see that house over there, and the one above it? Well, the Englishman in the bottom house upset the Welshman above, so the Welshman built that huge wall right on their boundary. It cost thousands. Right on the top there's a patio, so no matter where the Englishman goes in his garden, his Welsh neighbour is able to look down on him. Oh yes, they are a vindictive lot, the Welsh!"

We looked, and the scene was exactly as he described, except of course, we had no way of knowing who owned the houses. It could have been true, or partially so, but this was Monmouthshire and hardly a bastion of Welsh nationalism! Still, we admired the guy for coming up with such an original put-off story. He had a few more that I can't recall now.

The house languished on the market for some time after that, but I have no idea if it sold, or if the old lady got the tie removed. She was a lot nicer than another similarly placed vendor near Exeter who, when we tried to do a drive-by, blocked our car in, accused us of casing the place for a burglary and denied there was any house for sale!

To be frank, we have dealt with some dodgy agents, but when it comes to out and out lunacy, the vendors win, every time.

Enfieldian

Mine was when we had a probate sale requiring modernisation advertised some time in the mid/late 90s.

Houses in the road normally sold for around the £120,000 mark so, due to the amount of work needed this one was priced around £90,000.

As it had been advertised in the paper that week and attracted a significant amount of interest we held an open viewing on the following Saturday for an hour or so.

One couple rushed back to the office afterwards to make an offer of £60,000 "Because it needed work" and couldn't believe it when we said that we already had three offers of the asking price that were submitted at the property.

Some buyers eh?