Estate Agents, Belfast

exasperated_2

If you have sold your house recently, were you happy with your estate agent and why, how far did they go for you, who were they? If you were unhappy, why? Are you selling now? How is it going for you? Who would you recommend, who would you stay away from?

seatzie

I was happy enough with the one selling for us, the one who we were trying to buy off was a nightmare. What I have seen time and time again is that estate agents don't realise they should be nice and helpful to prospective purchasers, yes the person selling is paying their fee, but similar to a shop giving good customer service, if you're buying a house and getting a good service from the estate agent selling it, you're more likely to hang in there to sort it, whereas if the estate agent doesn't return calls, is impossible to get hold of, is ignorant, argues with you when you're trying to do a deal that would suit everyone, tells you that they've spoken to the vendor and if you can offer £1500 more the house is yours..........even after the vendor rang you that morning and said they were fed up with their estate agent and they have told the agent to accept our offer at the lower price, then you ain't gonna be happy.

Estate Agents should remember I may be a buyer this time but I may be looking to sell in the future and if you're treating me like crap why would I get you to sell my house in the future?

Generally East Belfast, MCW formerly Philip Johnston, tend to be kings of the market in that area and have been for a long time.

mr.roboto

Over an 18 month period from Aug 95 onward, we dealt with 6 different EAs during a sale/rent/buying process.

I can honestly say that 4 out of those 6 would not last 2 weeks in any other business, their customer service was THAT poor. We encountered all of the bad practice that seatzie mentions on a regular basis. At that time they didn't have to try too hard to sell - and they knew it. I am so pleased to see the market freezing/dropping as perhaps it will begin to sort out the wheat from the chaff in the property market, and make these parasites work for their money.

Now then, in terms of recommendations, we found Christopher Pooler (http://www.poolerestateagents.com) to be very helpful. Not operating in Belfast, but Peter Rogers (http://www.peterrogersestateagents.com) were also very pleasant to deal with.

Good luck!

master_blaster_2

well
i sold my house in may of this year and i used mcw residentual ....
i have to say i was really delighted with the service ... i had one girl to deal with most of the time ( if she wasnt available they would put me onto someone else ... who was equally helpful)
they called my each time they had an offer, followed up by a letter ... they checked out the sellers ....advised which ones "seemed" serious
the sale went through no problems in the end ( we took it off the market twich ... once as the purchaser was taking an age to sing the contracts and once cause i wanted to ridwe out the rising market) ... and that was no problem .. they eve keep to the fixed rate i had agreed with them even though the house went up alot in the intervening months!!!
i would defo recomend them to anyone ... although i would advise to haggle over thier % and try to get a fixed price if you can

laughingsheep

I sold my house last summer via Cowley on the Cregagh road and had an all round positive experience. They presented the house well, providing good quality brochures and representation on their website (which is easy to use for buyers, UPS in contrast is the worst property website I have ever come across!) Their communication was good and rates were reasonable - as far as estate agents go!

Buick_Lewish

exasperated wrote: »

who would you stay away from?

I would stay away from them all, but Jordanstown Real Estate in particular. Called three times to arrange a viewing but still waiting for their call.

Confronted the vendor with this story and he was shocked as he lost a potential purchaser.