Estate Agent or Do viewings yourself?

rach83

Couldn't agree more with lush walrus statements. I work in agency and have done for the last five years. People who think estate agents are out to make a quick buck are mistaken. Yes some properties do sell quick but in the main a lot of the properties we sell stay on the market for months and need a hell of a lot of pushing. The overheads are huge. People don't appreciate the cost of advertising, the cost of being on web portals, erecting for sale boards. Just our newspaper advertising expenditure a year (in one paper) is £22,000 and when you are a small independent that is quite a few sales. The rent on our offices is £16,000 plus salaries, running cars, business rates and the costs related to sales that don't materialise. I've known sales which we have actually ended up running at a loss. There was a case a few years ago where we had a property on the market and the owner died. It took 5 years to resolve and we ended up marketing the property 3 times due to some real complications with the solicitors and executors administrating the estate and which would take forever and day to explain. I have tried in the past to sell my property privately but I got nowhere. At the end of the day estate agents are the professionals and although their fee maybe high you will end up in the long run with a better profit.

Fairdo_2

lush_walrus wrote:

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!!!

Blimey. Got to agree with lush walrus here. I was reading through, looking to see if there was a balanced perspective and finally got it.

I am not and never have been an Estate Agent, but I have spent nearly 11 years sat inside various Agents offices and I have seen very good and very bad in my time.

I fear the ones that have responded to this are people that, at best, have had negligable service and, at worst, crap service.

Although homes may have appeared in the paper once, most Agents will have got on the blower straight away and pushed the property to get the amount of viewings you achieved. It still costs for the advertising space. A board costs and takes a while to organise. The phone calls cost and so does the postage to mail out the prospective purchasers.

I would say that if any of you have a lack of confidence that the AGent will not be able to show your property in the best light, I am suprised you would have signed the contract in the first place.

They should have enthused you to the fact that they loved your property in the first place and this should be almost infectious. If they didn't give you that impression, they would not have deserved your business in the first place.

Even if they charge more, you should get what you pay for. In reality, it doesn't happen with every Agent and it won't be the same person that does the viewings each time.

My advice would be to get to know as much as you can about the shortlisted Agent, even to the extent of being introduced to everyone in the office and making sure they all know about your home.

If you are paying them, they should respect your wishes and oblige, even if they think you're a pain in the !!!!!!!

This is a big responsibility and you need to feel confirdent in your Agent.

meanmachine_2

rach83 wrote:

At the end of the day estate agents are the professionals and although their fee maybe high you will end up in the long run with a better profit.

Forgive me, I'm a little old fashioned, but to be a "professional" don't you actually need some qualifications and some skill? The only EAs I've encountered are barely literate school drop outs.

The fact is, with sellers packs on the horizon and the net making advertising a home virtually cost free the days of the estate agent are numbered.


And sorry, but for 10 years you people have had it easy. Properties have been selling themselves. Now that there's a tiny amount of effort involved, you actually think that is real work? :rotfl:

**Boardguide note: edited to remove offensive remark **

Fairdo_2

Just a bit more of my two pennies worth, but I forgot to mention, if you guys sold your property so quickly, that could have been because of the acumen of the Agent. If you sold privately, how would you know what properties were actually selling at? (not being marketed for).

lush_walrus

meanmachine wrote:

Forgive me, I'm a little old fashioned, but to be a "professional" don't you actually need some qualifications and some skill? The only EAs I've encountered are barely literate school drop outs.

And sorry, but for 10 years you people have had it easy. Properties have been selling themselves. Now that there's a tiny amount of effort involved, you actually think that is real work? :rotfl:

I'm sorry, but this view is frankly offensive when replying to a post that someone has written regarding their job, and Im sure for this reason many sensible people will completely discount your view.

I, as an example of someone involved within Estate Agencies, am a fully qualified architect, and as such regard myself as an educated person. Although I do not work day to day in my agencies, I am the person who hires our staff, and I can tell you that they are of course all literate and 95% of them are educated to degree level, including two of our secretarys. Not an untypical breakdown of any agency.

Furthermore, all of our staff are able to communicate to a high degree, are amicable, capable and very professional in their everyday work. I wonder how you preform at work when on a website such as this you manage to be so offensive?

rach83

meanmachine wrote:

Forgive me, I'm a little old fashioned, but to be a "professional" don't you actually need some qualifications and some skill? The only EAs I've encountered are barely literate school drop outs.

The fact is, with sellers packs on the horizon and the net making advertising a home virtually cost free the days of the estate agent are numbered.

And sorry, but for 10 years you people have had it easy. Properties have been selling themselves. Now that there's a tiny amount of effort involved, you actually think that is real work? :rotfl:

I have to say that given this is my job I do find it very offensive that you without even knowing me can brand me as unprofessional. I would draw your attention to the NAEA website (National Association of Estate Agents) http://www.naea.co.uk/ and more importantly to the education page http://www.naea.co.uk/the_naea/general_public/qualifications.asp for your information I have just done these exams and my agency already belongs. We are also members of the https://www.rics.org if this isn't professional enough for you i'd like to ask you what is. How would you like it if I criticised your professionalism in your job without even knowing you!!! Rude is not the word.

Fairdo_2

Have to agree with the Agents on this one.

I was talking about balancing the view earlier on and the recent post has undermined it.

I think Lush Walrus and Rach83 put very considered points across and I did my best to explain that there are two sides to every debate.

Opinions are great, but when they are unfounded and abusive then it should be discounted.

There are good and bad in most walks of life and, in case it was not read properly in my earlier post, I have had plenty of experience (not as an estate agent) of both the good and the bad. It is unfair to tar all with the same brush and in my opinion, there are more good than bad.

Estate Agents go through a tough enough time as it is and biggoted opinions do not help to put a balanced view on the matter.

I looked through the paperwork Estate Agents go through for their exams and QUALIFICATIONS and it looked too much like hard work for me to do without the vocational requirement, so I opted not to take them. Even though I have to go through plenty of exams myself. Mind you, as Financial Adviser, I suppose my opinion won't count as I am probably also own there with the lowest of the low!!!!

lush_walrus

Well done Fairdo for your well articulated comments above, and to Rach83 for her eloquent reply. I don't feel that any of us should hold any embarrassment over the field we work in and the services we provide.

We live in times where there is freedom of choice, and ultimately anyone who does not value the work of EAs and associated fields have the opportunity to go it alone. Sellers packs or no sellers packs, estate agents provide access to the wider community, hold the ability to negotiate, accurately value property (and not as a general rough guide but a guide as to what people at that time WILL pay for that property rather than an average of a street) and communicate across the chain.

virgin_moneysaver

Fairdo wrote:

Just a bit more of my two pennies worth, but I forgot to mention, if you guys sold your property so quickly, that could have been because of the acumen of the Agent. If you sold privately, how would you know what properties were actually selling at? (not being marketed for).

the agents didn't sell it, the people who bought were word of mouth who then rang the agent to arrange an initial viewing - the EA then asked me if I wouldn't mind showing them as they were to busy to attend

I know EA's have overheads like any other business but I think on balance the fees structure in house conveyancing is not that fair - my solicitor has been brilliant, I've had numerous phone calls, the mountains of legal documentation & various appointments with him & he is going to get less than half of what the EA is getting

meanmachine_2

Haha. This thread makes me laugh.

The people on here who actually have to deal with agents - in other words buyers and sellers - seem to have a different opinion of them than the agents themselves.

And no, my opinion cannot be "discounted", thank you very much. For it is held by someone without an axe to grind who regards the majority of EAs who I have had the misfortune to encounter in very low regard. I speak as I find.

And can all the agents on this board please answer me this one question: do you need ANY qualifications to be an agent? And no, pointing to the web sites of voluntary bodies as evidence doesn't count.

I don't doubt that the odd (very odd) agent is an honest, intelligent person. It's possible that the agents on this thread fall into this category. The trouble is I have yet to meet one in person.

No wonder, in a recent survey, a majority of vendors regarded their agents as lazy and incompetent.