Crazy EA tactics?

Ellie007

After reading Nickmack's thread re: estate agents mind games, an episode came to mind from a few years ago when we last sold and wondered if anyone else had any examples of 'mad' marketing...!

We signed up with the local EA, literally two minutes around the corner from the house. They were a typical EA, no crazy gimmicks etc. Ads in EA window, middle page of local rag, Rightmove.

On the first week of marketing our house, they decided to try a new method of marketing for all the houses on their books....

They decided that they would remove all pricing from the ads - so every house was in the window and in the newspaper as POA...?!!! We are talking bog-standard terraced houses in a London borough. Really? Would that ever work????

Oddly enough, after two weeks, not a sniff. I suspect the EA the other side of the road noticed an increase in interest though for their portfolio!

After numerous complaints, they finally gave up on the 'strategy' and started putting prices next to the houses again. Ten viewings in the first few days. :cool:

So, anyone else have tales of crazy EA tactics that they would like to share?

twink22

One EA we have viewed a few houses with has a habit of asking what I think the property is worth and then telling the owners we have offered that! I have had to tell him we are not offering that, we don't want the house I was just answering your question! Maybe he's trying to convince the vendors to lower the asking price as its always on the over priced ones!

moneyistooshorttomention

Well we have a well-known EA locally that is part of THAT "chain" aka C******wide and I don't know if its standard tactics for that chain of EAs - but:

- a lot of their houses have few photos

- their room measurements are in metres (ie have to translate them to see what size the rooms are) and that's if there actually ARE room measurements there at all

- they never have printed details ready to hand over when anyone asks for them (at least not for the first couple of weeks)
but don't fail to "helpfully" instantly offer a viewing (have come to the conclusion that a lot of the initial "viewers" of their houses are fake ones accordingly (as they wouldn't have viewed in the first place if they had had all the photos and room sizes)

- have noticed one of their latest houses on the market is marketed as "chain free" and I can see clearly that its rented and the tenants are still living there (I reckon that counts as worse than the vendor still living there and not moving until they are ready to - with all the tales I've read on here about tenants "sticking to their legal rights" and refusing to move out when they are supposed to)

Dukesy

We have one EA locally that, as you'd expect, advertises in the weekly county paper. However, unlike every other EA that advertises similarly, they never put the number of bedrooms on their newspaper adverts! I would have thought that would be a fairly important thing to include, but OH and I have come to the conclusion that by not including the number of bedrooms on their 'taster' advert, they believe that maybe they'll tempt people to consider houses they may not have done ordinarily. Possibly. Or maybe they're just rubbish EAs!

moneyistooshorttomention

Dukesy wrote: »

We have one EA locally that, as you'd expect, advertises in the weekly county paper. However, unlike every other EA that advertises similarly, they never put the number of bedrooms on their newspaper adverts! I would have thought that would be a fairly important thing to include, but OH and I have come to the conclusion that by not including the number of bedrooms on their 'taster' advert, they believe that maybe they'll tempt people to consider houses they may not have done ordinarily. Possibly. Or maybe they're just rubbish EAs!

From what I can see, it seems to be pretty common to give "taster" type descriptions of places with the aim of tempting people in.

I don't know about anyone else - but I expect to feel I "know" a house pretty darn thoroughly just from an online look at it and feel suspicious whenever I can see some details have been withheld from me (be it photos of every room/outside space or plans or room sizes in feet and inches).

That's why I don't give much credence to "Ooh we had ever so many viewers" - to which my instant thought is "Did you give full details of your property online - or did you reel some of them under false pretences...as they couldn't see what the place was like without physically going and seeing it?" I will now only believe the "loads of viewers" comments if I can see the houses' online details for myself and check that they are indeed full ones (therefore there's a good chance all their viewers were genuine ones who went in full knowledge of pretty much what they were expecting to see).

Ivana_Tinkle

Once we were selling an ex-council house, and the agent was adamant we shouldn't mention in the listings that it was ex-council as it would put people off viewing. I don't think it was as crazy a tactic as it sounds, because we did have a few viewers seriously consider it who never would have viewed it had they known upfront it was ex-council, but about half our viewings never materialised because they arrived, saw it was a council estate and ran away in a huff!