How to choose the best Estate Agent

EllaBeagle

googler wrote: »

All plumbers are the same, too. The 18-year-old laddie who just completed his apprenticeship does just as good a job as the time-served veteran of 30 years who just refitted my bathrooms.... No.

All car mechanics are the same, too. The lad just off his training courses at Kwik-Fit does just as good a job as the (again) time-served folk at my local garage.... No.

etc etc

Every EA from Lands End to John O'Groats is exactly the same, with nothing to distinguish one from the other.

Yeah, right.....

A plumber needs qualifications and years of experience as does a car mechanic. I´ve never heard of colleges and universities providing estate agency courses this is probably why estate agents don´t have certificates hung up in their office.

Every EA provides the same thing, marketing, conveyancing and valuations. Each member of staff is sent on standard training courses on each of these subjects and each company use the same systems, they all advertise their houses in the same way, they all ring their applicants to book viewings and mortgage appointments. For a higher fee they have to be doing something entirely different and more pro active than any other estate agent but what??

ultrarunner

EllaBeagle wrote: »

Did they tell you that all this was included in the higher fee? all estate agents do everything you have just listed in fact they have to!! A post sales co-ordinator is possibly one of their fancy made up terms for a regular sales negotiator thats just going about their usual conveyancing by liaising with solicitors to ensure the sale goes through smoothly, quickly and to keep both sides updated. Regardless of how high their fee is they do all this anyway.

I suspect the 8 viewings in 6 days was due to your property being new on the market and you got lucky that it sold so quickly.
.

This is compared to my flat being on the market for 3 months from March to June with a different agent charging slightly less and getting 2 viewings and no offers. This time round it went on in late November and I got a much better response.

I am aware all estate agents chase up solicitors. Whether or not the post-sales coordinator is a gimmick I don't know, but essentially I had a single point of contact who answered the phone within 2 rings whenever I called, was in the office 9am-6pm each day rather than out on visits, and prodded the buyer's solicitor promptly and always got back to me on the same day. If nothing else it means the sales negotiators can crack on with getting the sales.

I am not defending estate agent fees, or estate agents, I am just pointing out why I opted for one who I knew could sell similar properties as they had sold the flat upstairs, and had a smooth process - recommended by the owner of the flat upstairs. Sometimes it's worth paying a little extra to get the right result fast.

googler

EllaBeagle wrote: »

I´ve never heard of colleges and universities providing estate agency courses this is probably why estate agents don´t have certificates hung up in their office.

You've never heard of the NAEA, then? The NFoPP?

EllaBeagle wrote: »

Each member of staff is sent on standard training courses on each of these subjects (Wrong) and each company use the same systems (Wrong again), they all advertise their houses in the same way (Wrong for a third time), they all ring their applicants to book viewings (Some carry out the viewings, some just book them) and mortgage appointments. For a higher fee they have to be doing something entirely different and more pro active than any other estate agent but what??

So you reckon they all go on 'standard courses', but you've never heard of anyone providing those courses...?

EllaBeagle

googler wrote: »

You've never heard of the NAEA, then? The NFoPP? You walk into any estate agents and ask to see any certificates, I´ll bet none of them have.



So you reckon they all go on 'standard courses', but you've never heard of anyone providing those courses...?

Standard courses which are provided by the actual company not colleges.

The systems estate agents use might have different names vebra etc but all the systems are pretty much the same i.e you can add and remove new applicants, add and remove new properties to sell, match applicants up to properties etc etc. They all advertise on the web, newspaper, windows and whatever. If I went into an estate agents and they didn´t advertise on the internet or newspaper then I obviously wouldn´t be going with that one! And all sales negotiators book AND do the viewings, whoever booked the viewing usually does the viewing unless their off sick or have something more important to deal with.

If you are daft enough to believe an estate agent is better than any other then you really are naive. They are obviously going to reel off a list of fabulous things they do and tell you they are better and different to other estate agents to get your property on the market with them. Its called sales. They have targets to hit! On these training courses they learn ´sexy words and sentences´ to make things seem better than they really are, how to overcome every objection. They don´t get taught how to tell the truth unfortunately, ever heard of trust me I´m an estate agent??

If you want to buy a car and see one you want at a garage for £8000 and one for £10000 but both cars are the same which one would you go with??

googler

EllaBeagle wrote: »

Standard courses which are provided by the actual company not colleges.

In which case, they won't be 'all the same', will they?

The systems estate agents use might have different names vebra etc but all the systems are pretty much the same i.e you can add and remove new applicants, add and remove new properties to sell, match applicants up to properties etc etc.

So now they're not 'all the same' systems, but different systems which you perceive to have broadly similar functionality....?

And all sales negotiators book AND do the viewings....

Well, no, not ALL - in my area, there's at least three or four different modes of operation that I can see - the agents who leave the owners to do open viewings on Thur & Sun, the agents who specifiy 'viewings by appointment', then merely phone the client to see when it would be convenient for the viewer to call, with the owner doing their own viewing; the ones who hire casual labour to run viewings for them; and the ones whose agents do all the viewings for the owners, by appointment.

If you are daft enough to believe an estate agent is better than any other then you really are naive.....

..and if you believe that every EA in the country is exactly the same, I fear you're the naive one. I can note radical differences between the agents in my area (some independent, some part of national chains, some in local affinity groups, some franchises), never mind the radical differences between Scottish & English.....


If you want to buy a car and see one you want at a garage for £8000 and one for £10000 but both cars are the same which one would you go with??

If they're the same car, with the same after-sale support, etc., then probably the cheaper. But we're not talking about buying items like cars, washing machines or tins of beans, are we......?

EllaBeagle

Right, whether or not some vendors decide to do their own viewings or some other person within the company does the viewings really doesn´t matter. Again, all estate agents either do the viewings themselves or the vendor does them for example on weekends or out of hours whatever. One estate agent won´t let the vendor do the viewings all the time and the estate agent down the road do the viewings themselves all the time.

All company´s training courses are on customer services, selling skills, money laundering so they are in fact THE SAME. Theres no two ways to teach customer service, selling skills and money laundering unless I´m missing the point and all these subjects are in fact about cake decorating.

Please tell me these radical differences??

googler

EllaBeagle wrote: »

Right, whether or not some vendors decide to do their own viewings or some other person within the company does the viewings really doesn´t matter. Again, all estate agents either do the viewings themselves or the vendor does them for example on weekends or out of hours whatever.

Well, you were the one who said "And all sales negotiators book AND do the viewings" .... so you don't perceive the different approaches that I outlined as making one agent different from another? The one who leaves the owners to do their own viewings is 'the same' as the one who does all the viewings for them?

One estate agent won´t let the vendor do the viewings all the time and the estate agent down the road do the viewings themselves all the time.

Wrong again. What you've described as "won't" is exactly what does happen round my way. Radically different approach to viewings between different agents. Also different approaches to marketing.

All company´s training courses are on customer services, selling skills, money laundering so they are in fact THE SAME.

So they're different courses which you perceive to have broadly the same syllabus..... No?

Hoof_Hearted

Googler is always on here trying to defend his "profession". You must admit that the overall impression that people have of estate agents on this site is not too positive.

GAH

Hoof_Hearted wrote: »

Googler is always on here trying to defend his "profession". You must admit that the overall impression that people have of estate agents on this site is not too positive.

Why shouldn't it be defended.

Very rarely do people come on here to say something good. Either people have a problem or some form of axe to grind.

Admittly a lot of short sighted people view the property industry negativly, when in fact the standards are an awful lot higher now than they have ever been.

Of course, you are going to get the odd dodgy agency or rubbish agent, but this is the same as any profession.

To be honest, the people that come on here and type out huge parggraphs over how terrible agents are probably are over exaggerating in most cases or have problems themselves.

princeofpounds

I'm pretty sympathetic to the view that estate agency is a fairly commoditised product, especially since the introduction of the web which means that almost every buyer can see almost every house within a few clicks.

However, where I have found the difference lies is not in the services provided but in the person that provides them.
There's a difference between the EA that bungs in any photos, and the ones that take a moment to select the best ones. Or the EA that calls buyers back immediately or the one that does it three days later. The one that makes sure they are on time to the viewing and the one that forgets.

Often the differences between EA brand are much less than the differences between individuals in the office. I think experience can count, not so much because they know more than the juniors but because the survivor bias means that they are likely to have operated fairly efficiently over the years simply because of their character.