What do Estate Agents do?

toc25

We are using a traditional estate agent. I wasn't sure wether it was going to be worth paying the extra money but for us it has been. The estate agent who is selling ours has been an absolute star helping me with the purchase of our house too. Even though the house we are buying is with a different estate agent she has been chasing everything weekly with the other estate agents in the chain and the solicitors.

Obviously it's beneficial to them as they want the sale to complete so they get paid. I think I would have lost the plot by now though without her help.

p00hsticks

Josephiney83 wrote: »

Our vendors' estate agent is much much better than ours. We have to chase ours for absolutely everything, we often call for an update and they say 'oh funny you should call, X happened three days ago'. Meanwhile our vendors agent have been giving us advice on how to get our sale to completion (because obviously that affects their sale). They're just much more 'on it' in terms of the sale progression.

Are you/your vendors using your estate agents to do the conveyancing ? In my experience of buying and selling, once an offers been accepted and the price agreed, I've dealt with my solicitor and not communicated with the estate agent again until the point where the keys need handing over on completion.

Josephiney83

Neither of us are using estate agents to do the conveyancing but as it's ended up a complicated sale (which therefore affects the purchase) the estate agents have had to become involved to get in touch with buyers, chase solicitors etc.

t0rt0ise

I've recently sold a probate house and would not have managed without the EA local to the house. I am not local and the EA has done everything, from advertising to contacting his list of potential buyers to arranging and carrying out viewings and pushing things along when they stalled. He's kept me up to date all along and was well worth the fee.

DazRave

This is becoming quite fascinating. It sounds like the bottom line is that a good estate agent is essentially a type of project manager. It seems the good ones have manners and the ability to track work and nag for outstanding work were necessary.

I'm going to take a punt and say that the people who are then happy with that kind of service are the people who find it uncomfortable to nag for updates and chase people for answers.

Josephiney83

Well, no not really. Just that I have a busy job and would rather pay for someone to do that for me. Plus as I'm paying them anyway for their Rightmove access etc then why shouldn't they do their job?

I'm not really sure of your angle - it's not that I think it's a particularly hard job that other people couldn't do, but that's the same as most jobs.

DazRave

Sorry, yes, I missed out the point about some people perhaps not having the time rather then not wanting to do it themselves.

On the flip side though, my job takes up a huge amount of time but I'm buying a house here, at the end of the day. I'll always find the time to deal with every single aspect if not just to speed up the process but mainly because there's a lot of money involved.

Your point about it not being a hard job is valid, I've recently found out there's hardly any regulation stopping someone just becoming an Estate Agent too. Which I find odd.

Either way, I was trying to discover what the good agents do better then the bad. Was it a case of there being more involved in the service or purely the personal service itself etc.

Missus_Hyde

DazRave wrote: »

I'm going to take a punt and say that the people who are then happy with that kind of service are the people who find it uncomfortable to nag for updates and chase people for answers.

Not in my case; I have no compunction about chasing people up and going for the jugular if necessary.

Plus as I'm paying them anyway for their Rightmove access etc then why shouldn't they do their job?

Quite and it's most refreshing to come across someone who does their job well and to our complete satisfaction.

toc25

For me you hit the nail on the head I would rather not have to be ringing solicitors and estate agents all the time so I'm happy to pay someone else to do it. Although I do work night shifts so I am sleeping a lot of the time during working hours so it would be difficult anyway.