Getting on EAs priority list

FelinePrincess

Creux wrote: »

Hi,

Long-time lurker here that registered to share my experiences on this. We are FTBs in the process of buying a house right now, but we began looking at the start of the year.

We'd been planning this for around a year now, keeping an eye on the market while we built up our deposit, so it gave us time to think about how to approach it. Like you, one thing we'd noticed is that houses would come up immediately as STC on RightMove and Zoopla, which meant there was obviously another way of getting in beforehand. To us this meant registering with all of the estate agents, but we needed to stand out from the crowd, so here's what we did:

• Bought a £7 "burner" phone from Tesco to register with, based on the idea that when we're done we can toss it away and not be harassed after we had found a house
• Setup a joint email address to register with, again so that our real addresses weren't spammed and to keep everything separate
• Created a simple A4 summary of who we were and what we wanted. We tried to play it to our advantage by advertising what we thought were desirable features in a prospective buyer. E.g. FTB, Deposit on hand, Chain-free, AIP, ready to proceed immediately, etc. We printed out about 15 of these, one for each agent.
• Going to every agent in the area we were interested in, sitting down, handing over the A4 summary and explaining exactly how good our position was.
• Setup our real phones to receive emails from the joint account, that had been registered with the agents.

What we found while registering was mixed. Most agents explained that they didn't have "priority lists" anymore, as the advent of the internet had made it less relevant. Instead, they explained that to make it more fair they ensured everyone who was registered with them would get an email about a new property a day or so before it came up on RightMove or Zoopla. This corroborated in our experience, and indeed we got many emails over the 7 weeks before they appeared on other sites. Some agents would ring us from time to time, but nothing to note.


Most of the agents were very receptive when we handed over the summary sheet, as it had all of the information they needed to register (i.e. phone, email, house type, area, etc.) We got business cards from nearly all of them. A few agents weren't very receptive, but I place that on them not us. For example, the offices were dirty, they looked totally uninterested, etc. Their loss.


In the end we found somewhere after 6 weeks of serious searching and we're going through the whole mortgage process now. The agent remembered who we were ("the ones with the sheet") and really played our position to the sellers, who accepted our offer and took it off the market after it only being on three days. Good times!

Thanks so much for your helpful post and I really appreciate that you registered to share your experience also congrats on finding your house

I'm wondering how you dealt with what price range you were looking at? Did you give the ea info on this or not? I'm reluctant to share much info with an ea on my budget as they are obviously interested in selling for the maximum possible price but I understand they will need some sort of idea what properties will be affordable to me.

princeofpounds

The really interesting semi-off-market stuff goes first to relatives, friends, or the brown paper envelope brigade.

The first call stuff goes to people who are on the customer list, have done a few viewings, and are seen as being proceedable and interested. Might save the EA a rightmove listing fee, if they are organised and motivated financially to be proactive in this way.

But basically EAs are human. If they are selling properties and they don't have to lift a finger beyond rightmove, they won't. They make the same money if they sell it on day 1 to mr keen or they sell it on day 3 to whoever comes first. The effort will all go into pitching for new instructions from vendors.

If the market turns bad, then you'll have them phoning you all day for any old piece of rubbish.

FelinePrincess

Ether_4 wrote: »

I found my house by walking pass the road. Like cattie, it was not yet even on the EA's website, viewed and placed the bid the very same day. So like last time I did alot of driving around the roads I wanted the house on and called up the EA the following day and now in the process of buying and selling my place

Thanks for your reply. Sorry if this seems dumb but did you just look out for for new for sale signs?

ognum

EatTheRitch wrote: »

An EA's priority list !

Oh dear.
The EA will just advertise on right move like any other. The days of "registering" with an EA are long gone with the rise of the inter-web. (No matter what some old timers might think.)

True, an EA might give you a phone call if they think you might give them a very quick sale (or buy other services as kingstreet says), but they won't hold back on putting it online at the same time.

Nobody gets special treatment my friend.
The EA just wants his commission ASAFP.

Iam currently buying a flat that has never got on rightmove or had an EA board outside or been listed on the EAs website. I am not registered with anyone!

I have dealt with this EA before, he called me to ask if I wanted to view that day, the person needed a quick sale. we agreed a price, below it's value in a very hot market that day, no one else saw the property they didn't want the hassle.

All I'm saying is it does happen!

ognum

FelinePrincess wrote: »

Thanks everyone for your replies, they have all been very helpfull. I haven't booked any viewing before as I've only just started looking and the only houses of interest to me have already been sold stc but perhaps I'll try viewing a few which are close to my criteria




I don't feel that I'm "better" than other candidates, I just want to have a fair chance to see newly available properties, which other people seem to be buying before they are even listed on rightmove.

I have a mortgage in principal, FTB with no property to sell and as I'm not paying for my current accommodation I don't need to worry about tenancy notice. I am keen to move quickly on the right house.

I'm not look for special treatment, I just want a chance on the properties that are getting sold before I even know about them

You took this the wrong way, you need to make yourself a better bet than the next person, don't be timid or you will be walked over!

cayennepepper

We bought a house 2 months ago. We made an offer on it the day before it went on the market because the agent had us on his top Buyers list and arranged a viewing shortly after valuing it. We had nothing to sell and a 60% deposit. If you are in a good position, they will come looking for you. If you are the average Buyer, unless you demonstrate that you are very keen and keep in touch with them regularly etc., you might miss out on those hot properties that don't make it online until they are under offer.

ConfusedofYorkshire

I think the idea that an ea will contact you with properties that may interest you is myth. If they are set up worth a mailing list they'll out you on it but they never actually do the work from what I've seen. Both in slow and quick markets.

Creux

FelinePrincess wrote: »

Thanks so much for your helpful post and I really appreciate that you registered to share your experience also congrats on finding your house

I'm wondering how you dealt with what price range you were looking at? Did you give the ea info on this or not? I'm reluctant to share much info with an ea on my budget as they are obviously interested in selling for the maximum possible price but I understand they will need some sort of idea what properties will be affordable to me.

It wasn't so hard for us because the 3% stamp duty threshold is what defined our max budget. We just asked for things in between 170k and 250k, knowing that we'd never go to the max (which we did btw...). They ended up showing us things going for 275k, stating outright that they were prepared to come down. It sounds obvious but your max asking price depends on a lot of things, for example how long it's been on the market, how much interest it's had, etc. An ea might figure you have extra money available, but if it's been on a while and you're in a good position you can just put your offer in and be prepared to walk away. We did, because we knew something equal if not better would turn up.

And it did. In our case we ended up seeing a house we liked more and actually ended hitting our absolute max of 250k, which the estate agent knew. The house was valued at more, but the ea knew the threshold was really the max they would get for it. For me it was/is a case of trying to absorb as much good information as possible, but in the end you learn by doing. I'm sure you'll see

thequant

FelinePrincess wrote: »

Hi,

I keep hearing that when looking to buy a house it's a good idea to make youself known to estate agents so when properties matching your criteria come up you are one of the first to know.

I'm a FTB with an AIP so I thought today I'd go to the various local EAs and explain what I'm looking for and ask them to let me know if anything comes up.

I went into an ea and explained I'm looking to buy in this area, I haven't seen anything of interest on their website and could i let them know what I'm looking for so they can let me know if anything comes up. The man wasnt very keen and said its best to keep an eye out on right move. I pointed out that I am doing that but many houses are get listed already marked as stc and I feel I'm missing out. He reluctantly put my info on a form, he didnt seem very interested in finding out what kind of properties I'm interested in and tbh I'll be surprised if I hear from them.

Did I just get unlucky with a grumpy ea or am I doing something wrong here?

Round my way houses are flying off the shelves and getting onto to this list is absolutely critical if you are to have any chance of buying.


Most people I know who have managed to get onto it have had to sleep with the EA.


If you're not too bad looking, you might have a chance.


Let us know how you get on.

Paulaviki

I think a lot of the larger estate agents aren't that interested but I've found the smaller local ones really helpful and good at contacting us about houses. Luckily in our area they are also the ones who always seem to have the sort of houses we are looking for.