Estate Agent or Do viewings yourself?

CL

Estate Agent or Do viewings yourself?

Just wondering what peoples thoughts were on this, do you prefer the Estate agent to take potential buyers around your property or do you prefer to show them round yourselves,

From a buyers point of you, do you have a preference?

Thanks for any help

alared

Why have a dog and bark yourself?

They do very LITTLE as it is for their THOUSANDS of £s commission as it is.
So don`t encourage them!

nelly_2

alared wrote:

Why have a dog and bark yourself?

They do very LITTLE as it is for their THOUSANDS of £s commission as it is.
So don`t encourage them!

lol and completely agree.

seabiscuit_2

I try to get them to come and do viewings - however ive had to do the last few and today was their first proper viewing - they were in and out of the house within 5 mins - and the estate agent didnt really make much of an effort (i dont have much luck with estate agents it seems)

Lemoncurd

From a buyers point of view - Estate agent. In most cases I felt under a lot more pressure to get it over and done with quickly if the owner was there, there were also a few owners who were so off putting that we just wanted to get out of the house ASAP and totally put us off (not sure how different we would have felt about the properties if they hadn't been there).
On the plus side there were some great sellers who went out of their way to be helpful and provided us with lots of useful information, it certainly is useful to speak to the owners at some point. For the houses on our shortlist the owners did actually show us around but when I arranged second viewings I arranged it so that an agent would show us around instead because then we'd feel more comfortable having a good look at the properties and also got a bit of insight into what the agents thought of the properties as well.

bridiej

Interesting comments, I was going to do the viewings as I'm at home all day (work from home) and just get the agent to chaperone if it was a lone male as would feel uncomfortable on my own.

Might rethink though given Lemoncurd's post...

Anyone else got any thoughts on this?

dragonsoup

Having been home once when the agent was showing a would-be buyer around, I would always do it myself. She was so obviously unacquainted with the house she couldn't do it any justice at all. Her gasp at my ensuite bathroom ( 20ft sq!) was louder than the clients.

Yes I did ring up the agent and complain and he didn't send her again.

virgin_moneysaver

I've just had the bill for the estate agents which amounts to just a little over £2k - they showed 1 client, I showed the client who bought & I had to show a further 4 times with various aunts, mothers -in -law & friends, it appeared in the paper once & they put a board up AFTER I showed the clients who bought - this also happened with my last house 12 years ago - both times it's sold in 3 days & by word of mouth - next time I will consider trying myself before signing away wads of cash to an EA

alared

virgin_moneysaver

£2k down the swanee for very,very little service.

Then there is the other all too often scenario if you don`t use an agent. Buyers offering £2k less because "you have`nt got estate agent`s fees to pay"

midge31

virgin_moneysaver wrote:

I've just had the bill for the estate agents which amounts to just a little over £2k - they showed 1 client, I showed the client who bought & I had to show a further 4 times with various aunts, mothers -in -law & friends, it appeared in the paper once & they put a board up AFTER I showed the clients who bought - this also happened with my last house 12 years ago - both times it's sold in 3 days & by word of mouth - next time I will consider trying myself before signing away wads of cash to an EA

Just sold our house after 2 days on the market, we showed one couple round, the estate agent another. We made it to the paper once, and they didn't even get round to putting the board up. Now owe them £2400!!! And to think that the EA was giving us a sob story when we signed up saying that the housing market had slowed and they have to work sooooo hard to get any purchases....yeah right :rolleyes:

lush_walrus

midge31 wrote:

Just sold our house after 2 days on the market, we showed one couple round, the estate agent another. We made it to the paper once, and they didn't even get round to putting the board up. Now owe them £2400!!! And to think that the EA was giving us a sob story when we signed up saying that the housing market had slowed and they have to work sooooo hard to get any purchases....yeah right :rolleyes:

I think the point that you are all missing is that the majority of Estate Agents have very high overheads and where your house may have sold very quickly, others dont and need to be advertised and pushed for months or even years in some cases.

Also, go to any estate agent, and they will have staff most of which spend the majority of their day on the phone chasing chains, solicitors, calling people who have just viewed properties to get feed back and calling people on their mailing list to tell them about new properties that have just come up for sale.

Bottom line is despite what everyone likes to think, there is a lot of work goes on behind the scenes at an agency, same as advertising agency and job agencies.

If you want I can post on here the monthly outgoings at my agencies, Im sure a lot of you would have a heart attack!!!