No wonder people can't sell !

lessonlearned

I live in Derbyshire.

sussexchick

lessonlearned wrote: »

I live in Derbyshire.

Too far out my new area but wish you lots of good fortune :beer:

japmis

I've organised all the viewings myself e.g. looking up properties on rightmove/primelocation/zoopla and calling the EA for an appointment.

Not ONCE have they phoned me suggesting a suitable* property.

What I've learnt so far from house hunting is that it's like the X-Files = TRUST NO ONE. Nothing ever adds up, you have to do all your own ground work and people are constantly trying to pull the wool over your eyes.

Sorry if I'm being a tad cynical!!




*they call once a week with "hey yeh there's this property it's out of your price range and needs tonnes of work but yeh you wanna have a look cos it's perfect for you and like loads of people have already been it's gonna go real fast this one" (insert expletive)

lessonlearned

japmis wrote: »

Sorry if I'm being a tad cynical!!

Yes you are.

Also totally unrealistic and a little ignorant of what an EA actually does.

It is not the EA's job to find you a house. It is their job to market the properties on their books. The difference is perhaps a subtle one but the fact remains it is up to the proposed purchaser to be pro-active and source a suitable property themselves.

Simply leaving your name and contact details with an EA and then sitting back and waiting for them to hand you the perfect property on a plate is never going to happen.

If you want that kind of service then you will have to pay for it and employ a relocation agent. Whether you are looking for a rental or to buy the principle is the same - you have to put in the legwork.

It's no good waiting for an EA to phone you once a week, you need to phone them three times a week.

I once worked in an area where property always sold like hot cakes - we scarcely had time to print up the details on some properties or even get a sale board up. As for rentals - they were like gold dust.

We had a lady looking for a rental. I explained that we hardly ever got them and I just wished I had a £1 for everyone who came into the office to ask for one.

What can I do she wailed, I'm desperate. Keep in touch I said.

So she did.

Every single day she came into my office. She would just poke her head round the door "Anything?" she would venture, "Sorry" would be my reply. Eventually we got to the stage where she would just look in through the window and give the receptionist a tentative thumbs up, who would return with a thumbs down.

Eventually we had a property come in that was perfect for her. Who did I ring first, my persistent lady of course.

The moral of the story - she was pro-active. If she had just left her name and address she would have been overlooked. Sad but that's how it is.

You either get out there and house-hunt properly or if you can't be bothered or don't have time then you get someone to do it for you.

Demonstrate to the EA that you are a serious contender by keeping in touch with them on a regular basis. |Phone them up at least a couple of times a week. It only takes a few minutes.

If you want the deal of a lifetime then you have to put in some effort to get it.

newsgroup_monkey

In fairness, I used to play employment agencies like that when I was at Uni. I'd come home looking for work (like all other students) and quickly realised that if I went into the office at 8am and sat in reception all day reading a book or their magazines, they'd find me work eventually.

Once I had to wait a whole 3 days!

But it generally paid off and I was at the head of the queue.

lessonlearned

Good for you.

It's that old mantra "Persistence Pays Off".

And of course in your case - a bit of lateral thinking about how to stand out from the competition.

PS - Not forgetting that other old chestnut about early birds and worms.

You got out of bed and got cracking, whilst the others were probably still in the land of nod.

ess0two

lessonlearned wrote: »

Yes you are.

Also totally unrealistic and a little ignorant of what an EA actually does.

It is not the EA's job to find you a house. It is their job to market the properties on their books. The difference is perhaps a subtle one but the fact remains it is up to the proposed purchaser to be pro-active and source a suitable property themselves.

Simply leaving your name and contact details with an EA and then sitting back and waiting for them to hand you the perfect property on a plate is never going to happen.

If you want that kind of service then you will have to pay for it and employ a relocation agent. Whether you are looking for a rental or to buy the principle is the same - you have to put in the legwork.

It's no good waiting for an EA to phone you once a week, you need to phone them three times a week.

I once worked in an area where property always sold like hot cakes - we scarcely had time to print up the details on some properties or even get a sale board up. As for rentals - they were like gold dust.

We had a lady looking for a rental. I explained that we hardly ever got them and I just wished I had a £1 for everyone who came into the office to ask for one.

What can I do she wailed, I'm desperate. Keep in touch I said.

So she did.

Every single day she came into my office. She would just poke her head round the door "Anything?" she would venture, "Sorry" would be my reply. Eventually we got to the stage where she would just look in through the window and give the receptionist a tentative thumbs up, who would return with a thumbs down.

Eventually we had a property come in that was perfect for her. Who did I ring first, my persistent lady of course.

The moral of the story - she was pro-active. If she had just left her name and address she would have been overlooked. Sad but that's how it is.

You either get out there and house-hunt properly or if you can't be bothered or don't have time then you get someone to do it for you.

Demonstrate to the EA that you are a serious contender by keeping in touch with them on a regular basis. |Phone them up at least a couple of times a week. It only takes a few minutes.

If you want the deal of a lifetime then you have to put in some effort to get it.

Equally applies to the OP.

lessonlearned

ess0two wrote: »

Equally applies to the OP.

And your point is......

Yes indeed, Sussexchick was floundering and getting somewhat frustrated but I think she is learning fast. :rotfl: She has had the good sense to post, listen to advice given and learn from it.

I took some time to advise Sussexchick on how best to proceed because she seemed as if she genuinely wanted to learn.

I advised japmiss to be more pro-active because he seems to be under the misapprehension that all a prospective purchaser needs to do is to register his details with the EA and then wait for the EA to find him a suitable property.

Because it hasn't happened that way for him, he has become frustrated and angry. As I hope I've now explained to him, and anyone else who needs to learn - that's not how it works.

I think a lot of people genuinely do not fully understand just exactly what EA's actually do. And they certainly don't know how to get the best service from an EA.

It has to be said that a lot of people start off on the wrong foot by coming in to the process with a shed-load of very negative misconceptions. Many people, vendors and purchasers alike, start off the process as if they were spoiling for a fight.

A lot of people seem unable to grasp that buying and selling a property is simply a business transaction. However, many would be vendors and purchasers seem incapable of behaving in a businesslike and professional manner. Instead they treat the process as if they were in a gladiators' arena.

Yes of course there are weak and ineffective EAs who shouldn't really be in the business in the first place. However, it also has to be said that there are also many vendors and purchasers who have no sense of ethics and who behave outrageously. Gazumping and gazundering, lying, cheating, misleading everyone.....

It's a rare EA who is prepared to stand up to a client who insists on accepting an offer from a gazumper and who is brave enough to tell the client that what they are doing is morally wrong.

In such cases it is the client who is behaving badly, not the agent. The agent is accused of being a sleazebag - screwing the purchasers out of every penny for a bit of extra commission when in reality it is the vendor who is behaving shamlessly.

I have seen many EA's in despair over the antics their clients get up to and many EA's are genuinely disgusted at such behaviour.

I have on occasion remonstrated with clients for what I consider "conduct unbecoming". I even asked one to leave my office and never bother coming back.... Why because they had treated my staff so badly.

Lashing out at all EA's and tarring them with the same brush, accusing them all of only wanting to "pull the wool over your eyes" is just a lazy generalisation, barely worthy of comment.

However I will address his criticism.

Some EAs & LAs are better at their jobs than others, same as any other profession. Some are lazy and dishonest, some are
hardworking and try to serve their clients well. Again just like any other profession.

You may not believe this but - Quelle Surprise - some of them even have ethics and morals.:rotfl:

lessonlearned

SternMusik wrote: »

I had the same experience when I was buying last year. I had very specific criteria regarding size of the property, location (that should be easy to check you would think) and orientation (south or south-west facing garden). 99% of the property details they sent me were way off my requirements. I exclusively relied on rightmove in the end.

The other thing that bugs me about agents is that when you come into their ofiice and ask "Have you got any properties in this part of town with at least 80 sqm/ 860 sqft of internal floor space?" they look at you like you are an alien. They are meant to be property professionals. In my experience agents only know the blatantly obvious facts about a house, such as the address and how many bathrooms there are. Anything more sophisticated (floor space, orientation, has it got planning permission, length of lease, you name it) - they haven't got a clue.

We had quite an interesting discussion about square footages on another thread quite recently.

The idea of thinking in terms of square footage in "pre-loved" residential properties is one in which most people, clients as well as EA's, do not think in terms of in this country, unlike say the USA.

New build literature will always quote the square footage, because developers take build costs into account as part of their pricing structure.

Commercial properties will also use square footages too as a means of evaluating "space", especially in a city centre where space is in short supply. However, where residential property in the resale market is concerned measuring space in this way has slipped under the radar - it is not seen as being particularly important.

In the UK the "second-hand" residential market will use a wide range of different criteria, location, proximity to local amenities, a stunning view, good schools, orientation of the the garden etc.

Measuring square footages is just not one of the criteria used so it's not surprising that the average receptionist in an estate agents office would be nonplussed when asked such a question.

The other big problem with EA offices is that most of the staff never get the opportunity to view any of the properties on their books. It is usually only the person who does the valuation who actually sees the property and gets to know very much about it.

I think most EA's miss a valuable trick here because it is usually the front line staff ie those at the "coal face" who have to answer queries. It would be so much better for everyone concerned if they were taken to see the properties they are trying to discuss.

As for viewings, a lot of EA's employ occasional or temporary staff who only ever do viewings. These poor souls are little more than an errand boy or girl - someone who meets you at the property with a set of keys. They may not even work in the EA's office, they just pop in, pick up the keys and meet the viewer at the property. They have probably never set foot through the door before. Of course they know nothing about the property - their function is to a enable a viewer to have access to a property, nothing more. They will know nothing about the place and will be unable to answer your questions.

In some areas negotiators will do viewings but not always.

I agree things could be so much better organised but here's the rub. How much would you pay for a better service.

For example would you like the services of a one-to-one Realtor - like they have in the States, Australia, New Zealand. If so then commission rates would be much higher, which would of course, simply be added to the price of the property.

EA commission rates in the UK are typically 1-3%, in other countries they can be anything between 6 to 10%. For new builds in Europe it is even higher.

It's like anything else - you get the service you pay for.

japmis

lessonlearned wrote: »

Yes you are.

Also totally unrealistic and a little ignorant of what an EA actually does.

It is not the EA's job to find you a house. It is their job to market the properties on their books. The difference is perhaps a subtle one but the fact remains it is up to the proposed purchaser to be pro-active and source a suitable property themselves.

Simply leaving your name and contact details with an EA and then sitting back and waiting for them to hand you the perfect property on a plate is never going to happen.

If you want that kind of service then you will have to pay for it and employ a relocation agent. Whether you are looking for a rental or to buy the principle is the same - you have to put in the legwork.

There's absolutely no need to call me ignorant. I'm 100% aware that the EA is not working for me but for their client, the vendor. I'm also 100% aware that I need to do all the groundwork myself (I wouldn't have it any other way, it's my money and I need to be convinced myself before parting with it).