Your experiences (good & bad) with estate agents

lauralla

I have just started working as an estate agent, with my sister. It is a small company and we're only just getting started.
I'd greatly appreciate your advice/comments/good and bad experiences about estate agents. Tell me what you like and don't like and what you'd like to see when you both buy and sell a house.
I'd like to increase business, but I also want to be a reputable and honest estate agent (if possible!;) ) and would value your opinions.

Thanks

Frostygills

Don't send old 'orange' men who only love old style houses, to do a valuation on a new style house.
Don't flyer the same street with your clients details saying 'Just sold in your area' without your clients consent and if you do, don't letter drop their house.
Call once in a while, even if you don't have much to say. Rather than only doing something when called.
Keep track of you clients details and what's going on, rather than making it up / not writing down details and call your client up with info your client called to tell you the day before.

Be friendly, honest and helpful. That's all I ask of an EA.

*can you tell I'm not too happy with mine?*

coal9011

Why don't you become a Traffic Warden? That's a much more honourable occupation!

A_Nice_Englishman

Being familiar with, understanding and complying with the OEA Code of Practice and the law would be a good start and put you ahead of the agent I used when i sold my house.

http://www.oft.gov.uk/advice_and_resources/resource_base/legal/estate-agents-act/

http://www.oea.co.uk/code_of_practice_sales.htm

lauralla

coal9011 - that's not very nice! People have such low opinions of estate agents, and I know that they are mostly entirely justified!
I'd like to at least make a difference in my local area (and of course have a succesful business, but not at the expense of peoples respect).

Thanks for your replies, I appreciate your thoughts.

WestonDave

This may or may not be useful.

When we moved last September we got the usual few valuations on our property - commission was all the same and no-one would budge. We put the house on the market with the two brother firm in the shopping street of our area. They clearly knew the local market as they specialised in it, put together quality particulars which we felt were very fair and not overselling, advertised in the local paper, on their own website and on rightmove. They accompanied all the viewings - house sold for the asking price (busting a local ceiling so we knew it wasn't under priced) within a week (speed was more important that absolute price here). We were given their mobile number so if we wanted to contact them out of hours we could and even now when passing by they acknowledge us. We had a few problems during the legals with delays etc but they were always helpful and we never felt fobbed off.

We bought a house marketed by a high profile local independant (est 18XX etc), who fancy themselves as the top dogs locally, better than the nationals etc. House was originally marketed at £385k, we looked at it after it had been on a month and had already been dropped to £370k. Particulars were overselling to the point of being in danger of misdescription - e.g. modern bathroom which was actually at least 10 years if not 15 old, kitchen breakfast room which was actually a 20+ year old kitchen with an IKEA table in the middle etc etc. We had originally decided to view it thinking if it was as described we could probably afford it (with a bit of a price drop on negotiation) as we wouldn't have to do anything to it. It was clear that actually depsite new carpets and coat of paint it needed rewiring and a new heating system, plus a new kitchen and bathroom long term. To cut a long story short we left it, the price dropped to £350k, we offered £340k and after a load of silly games the agent finally bottled it when we left him to stew thinking we were seriously considering another one round the corner (we weren't as it was mank but they didn't know that).

Anyway after that ramble - what we liked was a local expert who was straight about the price we could expect and acheived it rather than promising something skyhigh just to get the sale, the feeling that they were doing something (good details and the viewings) for the fee they were getting and the feeling that they realised that it was stressful and were available to us. What we didn't like was smart alec city centre wideboys trying to con us, and playing stupid games (especially as they pretended it was their client which we know for a fact it wasn't!).

My advice is to have less business if necessary but don't give people unfair expectations just to win business. The poor lady we bought from almost certainly left the deal feeling she'd lost £45k - in reality the extra was never there in the local market unless someone from London came in for it (which in its state was never likely). Of course you act for the seller but if you deal with buyers in as fair a manner as you can then they won't leave the deal swearing never to darken your door again and may even instruct you on any subsequent sale. Sorry if this is a bit long!

lauralla

WestonDave - thanks for your comments. Its really helpful to hear someones good comments about an estate agent, and I believe that this is the sort of experience that everyone would like to have when buying/selling their house - after all, its supposed to be one of the most stressful events in a persons life.

kdean

Good luck in your venture I do hope that you acheive what you want.

I have worked in an estate agents as a "sales co-ordinator" which is basically the person who does all the phoning around to find out what is going on once a sale has been agreed, and the one who gets it in the neck if something has happened.

I agree that many times EA's do things that are not totally above board and no doubt you will be avoiding that. However, in my experience, I think that people expect a lot of estate agents. They do get paid a lot of money and I do not necessarily agree that they can totally justify the amount charged (I was not paid on commission, salary only).

The information that you get from an estate agent once a house has been sold is all second hand. The only way they get it is by phoning other people and asking. You can never guarantee second hand information and many times it is extremely difficult to get that information. You have to be very pushy to do the job (which is why I only lasted a couple of months and did not like it at all) and Solicitors very rarely want to speak to estate agents, they usually are very busy and having people phone up a couple of times a week for "an update" does not help matters (have been a legal secretary for most of my working career, barring the six months in estate agency). I have worked on both sides and I must admit was a bit easier on the agents after I had done my stint on their side of it. Clients do beleive that because they pay the estate agents so much money they should be able to tell them what is going on once it has been sold, that is not so easy, solicitors generally will only speak to agents that are directly involved in their part so it means phoning agents dealing with other parts of the chain to find out what is going on (third/fourth hand information). The majority of the fees I think are for marketing and not for the time up to completion.

The most important advice I can give is never tell a client something unless you are 100% sure that you are correct. When I sold my property a year ago, 1 week before completion I was told that it had all fallen through, obviously I was in tears and was counting up all the money that I thought I had lost, luckily what had actually happened was that the bottom of the chain had fallen through but they were buying without selling and so it did not effect our sale.

coal9011

My sincere apologies to you lauralla.

You sound like a very nice young lady and every success to you. But it will be an uphill battle for you to win the "respect" of the general public. Ask your sister to reply honestly: " have you ever manipulated both the buyer and seller to close a deal?" You will be able to tell if she's lying to you or not!

I'm afraid that "honesty" and "Estate Agency" just don't go hand-in-hand.

But anyway, good luck to you!

lauralla

Well, coal9011, she has only been going a few months as an estate agent (she is actually an independent mortgage advisor, and until they got busy, she looked after the EA stuff too) and we have yet to sell a house, though we have about a dozen on our books now....so the honest answer is, no she hasn't manipulated anyone!

It is a difficult balance to achieve, keeping the vendors happy and not saying their house is scruffy and needs re-decorating completely etc, but also not raising the buyers expectations to expect a house that needs nothing doing to it.............

Badger_Lady

Each client is different - some of my friends need someone to take care of everything for them, and trust the EA to value, market and view the property relieving that part of the stress.

However, I like to keep on top of my EA, and I feel happier when I get regular emails / phonecalls from them telling me everything - feedback, number of enquiries, when adverts are going in... when I don't hear anything, I assume they're not doing any work.

* The EA has to accompany all viewings - I've been shocked by my recent experience by how many will just leave it to the owner! I had serious words with the national EA marketing my home when they kept saying "they didn't have time to show round" (guilting me into doing it myself).

The worst example of this was:

I told them I was fed up and they would have to make time for my property...

They said they had booked a viewing Friday evening, but half an hour before the appointment phoned to say: "We will have to cancel it because the agent's grandmother is ill... we know you're not happy to do viewings, so we'll give the viewer a call to cancel now, although they're travelling some distance so they're probably already on their way...".

In other words, forcing me to do their job!!!

* They also need to react to feedback - one of my EAs posted an advert on Rightmove, but put funny symbols in the filenames of the photos so they didn't display. I wrote them a long, polite email explaining this and telling them how to rectify the problem, followed up by a telephone call.

After 3 weeks I still had red Xs on the website instead of photos, so I switched agent.