How difficult is it to get a viewing?!! Are your EAs more accomodating?

googler

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

I'd been seeing a private physio rather than NHS & he does this for this reason. Knocks off early a few days of the week & on the other days he works quite late because he understands that PEOPLE WORK, so by working late a couple days a week he's making himself available for them .... and he's always busy!! Get's to enjoy an early knock off during the week to get things done too, so it's win-win for him.

Shame the EA's don't operate a similar mindset.

The key differences being, though;

The physio gets paid individually by everyone who has these late appointments. The EA doesn't, and has only the hope and expectation of being paid if and when the house sells.

EAs deal with buyers, yes, but they also deal with other businesses, and if they worked Saturday, Sunday, a brace of evenings during the week, and took 2 or 3 days off Mo-Fri, they'd be out of step with the working patterns of the surveyors, solicitors, mortgage advisors, and others that do business Mo-Fri 9-5. How would that work out, when a seller's solicitor needs to get in touch with the EA and they're on an 'off' day?

I said on another thread, EAs and realtors outwith the UK have long since embraced a 24/7, can-do, customer-comes-first attitude, but you won't find them doing that for the kind of fees that EAs work for here. Not even close.

Riggster

EAs are !!!!, no doubt about that.

But if they offered evening and weekend viewings, they'd have to pay their staff more, increase their commission and would be undercut by other EAs and wouldn't have so many houses to sell...

Most vendors will do their own viewings. We viewed most houses on a Sunday with the vendor.

Good luck.

Kynthia

I've actually found the EAs to be quite accommodating where I'm looking. I'm not looking near where I currently live and have a long commute so I only do weekend viewings. I've generally found the EAs good at doing Saturday viewings and arranging vendor led viewings late on Saturdays and Sunday mornings. Occasionally I get told that I can't see a property that Saturday as it's vacant and there's no-one available to show it until the following Saturday. However I once had a viewing cancel on me that day. Having already made the journey to the area I rang a different EA and told them the situation and was there any chance of seeing a certain property in 2/3 hours. Even though it was a Saturday lunchtime they were great. They got back to me with that property and another 2 suggested that they could do immediately following so that I could still make my late afternoon bookings.

tim123456789

Mobeer wrote: »

EA selling my place was happy to do viewings till 7pm M-F or daytime Saturday (and so was I).

But when I was looking around it seemed that no EA would do a viewing after 6pm, and few would consider Saturday mornings (normally "too busy").

I personally find it really odd that EAs are like this - why not finish early one day a week and work late on another? People who can afford to buy are almost certainly working during the day.

EAs are at least no worse than shops - was shopping recently in a town where most shops opened 9-5 M-F and 9-12 Saturday.

They don't even need to "shut" early.

They just need to employ someone who is dedicated to accompanied viewings, who works out of hours.

At least one agent that I viewed through employed such people for normal day time viewings (he was a "retired" EA) so what's so hard about out of hours? There are lots of (suitable) people who are available for casual evening work.

googler

tim123456789 wrote: »

They just need to employ someone who is dedicated to accompanied viewings, who works out of hours.

At least one agent that I viewed through employed such people for normal day time viewings (he was a "retired" EA) so what's so hard about out of hours? There are lots of (suitable) people who are available for casual evening work.

... but then we'll have threads from buyers who've viewed with these 'casual' viewing staff, along the lines of

"The EA didn't know anything about the property"
"The EA hadn't been to the property before"
"The EA just opened the door and left us to it"

etc
etc

And, from the perspective of a seller, would you want someone who maybe hasn't actually been to your house, possibly is entering your house for the first time, to be responsible for selling it to your buyers?

As I hinted at elsewhere, in territories like the US, sellers don't hire the agency - they hire the agent, and the agent takes responsibility for their client full-time. However, the agents there get paid an amount commensurate with this (often) full-time role. You wouldn't catch them doing this for the rates that apply in the UK.

tim123456789

googler wrote: »

... but then we'll have threads from buyers who've viewed with these 'casual' viewing staff, along the lines of

"The EA didn't know anything about the property"
"The EA hadn't been to the property before"
"The EA just opened the door and left us to it"

So what?

You want the convenience of out of hours viewings you have to accept some compromises.

And the same to the seller If he isn't prepared to conduct out of hours viewings himself then he has to accept some compromises.

and in the US it's not unknown for buyers to be shown around by their own "buying agent" with the selling agent nowhere in sight

googler

tim123456789 wrote: »

and in the US it's not unknown for buyers to be shown around by their own "buying agent" with the selling agent nowhere in sight

Indeed. The OP opens the thread with the statement that the buyer is the most important person in the process, but our system, in E&W at least, has evolved to one where the buyer has no representation until later stages, and the seller pays all. In Scotland, buyers are represented by a solicitor from pre-offer stage.

Kildare

I've found most of the estate agents in my area to be pretty accomodating.

I'm a commuter so not home until 7pm in the week, but a couple of estate agents have set me up on 7.30pm/8pm appointments - I see the vendor not the agent and to an extent the vendors need to make themselves available for the times when the agent can't come round (evenings / some weekends). I book most of my viewings all day Saturday, and I book them all 30 minutes apart - again I've found estate agents to generally be accomodating, I ring them in the week and explain I'm seeing several houses and this is the times I have on Saturday, can they fit me in.

I had one estate agent offer me a Sunday viewing which I was suprised about. The EA we're on with said at the outset that they don't do Sunday's as everyone deserves one day off a week. Plus if you're selling its the day you know you can do your washing and no-one's coming over

CustardAndPickles

We came across a whole variety of estate agents when we bought. A lot seemed to depend on how much of a corner of the market the EA thought they had.

For instance, one firm of EA had two staff members and a receptionist. They dealt with mid-price specialist properties, and while one of them was lovely and helpful, the other was a complete horror of a woman who took weeks to arrange a viewing. The delay was because she was waiting for the seller to call her, at which point she would ask the seller to provide a key to the property. She wouldn't do it until the seller contacted her because "Here at our firm, we don't pester our sellers".

The second firm we dealt was larger but we only seemed to see the youngest EA, who must have drawn the short straw in getting to show us properties because they were all dreadful. He tried very hard to put a brave face on things, even pretending that one flat that was clearly abandoned and had been for months judging by the piles of dead flies was still in use, it was just that the owners were "away for the weekend". Then he showed us another flat where plastic sheets had been put over the windows to stop draughts - this was "removable double glazing". By the third and final time we saw him at another duff property, he was all embarrassed and wouldn't make eye contact. We felt very sorry for him, it was funny in the end.

However, we then dealt with the last firm, who was a long established local firm. They were very dynamic, good at answering calls and arranging viewings. They were a bit cheeky in that they took us to see a house with a "sold" sign on - the sale was in the process of falling through and while the seller hadn't quite given up on the original buyer, they were putting it out there again. However we were quite prepared for lots of "tricks" and pop psychology, so we weren't especially surprised. When we bought - via this final firm - they chased our slow solicitor even more than we did. We were pretty impressed all round really.

I guess it just goes to show - theres some good ones out there...you just have to hope that the property you want is with a good firm rather than a useless one!

DRP

Overall , most of the EAs I have dealt with have been quite good for booking viewings. The smaller co's for obvious reasons are less flexible. The city centre firms with a dozen staff are usually very flexible , with viewings til 7pm mon-sat.