Dealing with estate agents - how not to pull your hair out?!

ReadingTim

ClaireB182 wrote: »

Thanks for the advice, even if it is patronising. I'm well aware I will have to deal with EA's, all I wanted was some advice. I have a long term illness and I am finding it hard going, just like everyone who moves house. Oh, and we are downsizing not looking for a 'bigger and better house' but hey, assume away........................

Smaller and more suitable then, but the fact remains: if you want to buy something, you're going to need to deal with the person selling it.

But if by "advice", you actually mean sympathy, try mumsnet. That is patronising...:rotfl:

Surrey_EA

ClaireB182 wrote: »

but are then sending properties through which are totally not what we asked for i.e sending mid terrace houses when we have specifically said we dont want a mid terrace.

You would not believe the number of people who end up buying something completely different to what they said they wanted!

rosieflowers

They are horrible! You have my total sympathy OP. Wait til you start making offers, that's when the real fun [STRIKE]lies, fake buyers and confected bidding wars[/STRIKE] begin.

We are FTBs and EAs have really lived up to their reputation

- After viewings, total rudeness when we gave our feedback/ explained that we weren't interested, as well as not actually knowing a thing about the property.

- Completely messed us around with our offer including - we think - an invented buyer. The house was on the market with no offers for three months. We come along and coincidentally so does someone else who bids us right up but somehow our best and final offer was acceptable

- Lied that there was no survey from the sale of the house which fell through the previous year (after we'd spent £500 on our own. When the delay for the surveyor was holding up the progress of the sale, it emerged that there was one that the vendor had provided them with when they started remarketing. I did challenge them on this as I had it in email where I'd requested it before our second viewing.)

- As we get close to completion, pointless pressuring twice daily phone calls with a constant air of disappointment and frustration.

Like you OP I really hated the pressure particularly with the twice daily phone calls in the three+ weeks running up to completion.

My solicitor gave me the confidence to tell them where to go and lo and behold we have got to exchange today on the original timescale without those twice daily pestering calls.

I know they work for the vendor but do they have to be so bloody annoying (and worse)? It has left a really bad taste in my mouth. They couldn't do their job without us buyers either, could they? I just don't think many agents are professional, and they don't really have to be qualified or regulated.

They do earn their reputation in my experience, very unpleasant to deal with.

rosieflowers

By way of advice I would say be really firm with them from the start and ignore unnecessary phone calls.
You're not paying them but they can't earn anything without you and I think some need to realise that.

Surrey_EA

rosieflowers wrote: »

- we think - an invented buyer.

If you were to work out what the agent gained in extra commission, you may think that it probably wasn't worth all the effort!

There are a not insignificant number of incompetent agents, in fact the vast majority make the rest of us look bad!

But, every single time there are two offers for the same house it is assumed the agents invented one of them.

sillyhilly

rosieflowers wrote: »

- Completely messed us around with our offer including - we think - an invented buyer. The house was on the market with no offers for three months. We come along and coincidentally so does someone else who bids us right up but somehow our best and final offer was acceptable

Yeah we thought that too, until we actually looked at the Land Registry and realised that they were telling the truth!

rosieflowers

The difficulty is that you will never know, perhaps there could be more transparency in the system? I do think that would deal with a lot of the issues that people have with estate agents.

And when there are other signs of dishonesty or a disregard for you as a buyer, it does make jumping to such a conclusion easier.

theartfullodger

See how long you can keep them talking: Explain how you're seriously depressed and .................

System

rosieflowers wrote: »

They are horrible! You have my total sympathy OP. Wait til you start making offers, that's when the real fun [STRIKE]lies, fake buyers and confected bidding wars[/STRIKE] begin.

We are FTBs and EAs have really lived up to their reputation

- After viewings, total rudeness when we gave our feedback/ explained that we weren't interested, as well as not actually knowing a thing about the property.

- Completely messed us around with our offer including - we think - an invented buyer. The house was on the market with no offers for three months. We come along and coincidentally so does someone else who bids us right up but somehow our best and final offer was acceptable

- Lied that there was no survey from the sale of the house which fell through the previous year (after we'd spent £500 on our own. When the delay for the surveyor was holding up the progress of the sale, it emerged that there was one that the vendor had provided them with when they started remarketing. I did challenge them on this as I had it in email where I'd requested it before our second viewing.)

- As we get close to completion, pointless pressuring twice daily phone calls with a constant air of disappointment and frustration.

Like you OP I really hated the pressure particularly with the twice daily phone calls in the three+ weeks running up to completion.

My solicitor gave me the confidence to tell them where to go and lo and behold we have got to exchange today on the original timescale without those twice daily pestering calls.

I know they work for the vendor but do they have to be so bloody annoying (and worse)? It has left a really bad taste in my mouth. They couldn't do their job without us buyers either, could they? I just don't think many agents are professional, and they don't really have to be qualified or regulated.

They do earn their reputation in my experience, very unpleasant to deal with.

I have encountered virtually everything you describe, and more. They use the same tactics and tricks over and over again, and they assume buyers do not ever cotton on. EAs' games start the moment you show interest in a property, and they are taken straight out of the EA playbook.

My most memorable story to illustrate their dishonesty was an EA who failed to tell me about a double murder/suicide involving the previous owner of a property I had viewed. I found it out separately myself, and asked the EA if there was anything unusual about the property, to which they told me "No". I think the regulations about declaring things like that have since been tightened up, but I just do not trust EAs to keep to the rules if they calculate they can break them with impunity by not leaving a paper trail.

Surrey_EA

rosieflowers wrote: »

They do earn their reputation in my experience,

Which can't be from a terrifically large sample size.

Once again, that's not to ignore that there are poor/rude/unprofessional EAs out there.

But to declare that all agents as a collective deserve a negative reputation, based on having dealt with one agent during your first purchase feels a little extreme.