Estate agents- any sympathy?

tbs624

The Times carries the story today of one of Britain's largest Estate Agencies (Humberts) being close to collapse. The second largest (Connells) has reportedly started to raise their fees in an effort to keep afloat.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/money/property_and_mortgages/article3949822.ece
humberts

Connells also has a lettings agency.

So can tenants now also expect the "admin" fees to rise too?

And should we have any sympathy for the estate agents?

Tozer

Sympathy? Absolutely. An awful lot of people may well lose their jobs through no fault of their own.

benb76

no, the good ones will survive.

iolanthe07

I have absolutely no sympathy whatsoever for Estate Agents. They made huge profits during the good times by taking a percentage of unrealistically high property prices - what goes round, comes round.

lynzpower

I have a great deal of sympathy, given that I was an Ea for all of about 5 minutes in the boomtime of March 07.

Think about it, crap basic ( 10k) plus 100- 200 quid for each completion. And that was a good payer. I am staggered by MSers who continually seem to think that individual EAS are/ were lining thier pockets- IME few EAs got much money, but the company was multimillion profiteering.

Plenty of them claiming tax credits now I reckon, whilst drafting out their JSA forms.

wymondham

Yes and no. It's sad many will struggle through no fault of their own, but they have had it exceptionally good for quite a while now with house prices being so high.

In the scheme of things, the estate agent charges one of the highest fee's for doing the least work in my opinion. I can't see how it be justified an estate agent who does not need any professional qualifications charges more than a solicitor.

Please note that this is in regards to the estate agent offices, not their employees - I'm not interested in how much the employees actually earn as this is unrelated.

geoffky

never ever. most but not all are lying scumbags who would sell crack if they could..

Strapped

I have every sympathy for the people (mostly youngsters) who will lose their jobs, but I'm not surprised to hear that Connells may go under - sorry, but they are absolutely useless! Dare I say, they deserve to go bust.

Tozer

geoffky wrote: »

never ever. most but not all are lying scumbags who would sell crack if they could..

That's a pretty offensive and ignorant generalisation. They are commission based salespeople. I think to acquaint them with drug dealers is ridiculous and shameful.

I have no particular love for estate agents but think it is sad when anyone loses their job.

simonjstone_2

im an estate agent, well not anymore. i lost my job. my company had intergrity never ever ripped off anyone and i myself hold them in high regard and wont say a bad word about them. when the market does turn like this. people not just agents will lose there jobs. what is so bad about estate agents? when there are other options out there that you could use, why do you come to us.
1 we save you trouble
2 we deal with all the time wasters
3 advertise your property in ways that would cost you more than your agents fee if you went it alone.
4 we negotiate one of the most emotionally charged and stressful times in your life (both buyers and sellers)
5 we have to keep things moving when a lot of people with out the skills we have make them fall through.
6 we sell houses better than joe public. we know what to say how to present and how to deal with issues that joe public cannot

how u find us with as much distain as you do is disgraceful. pick holes in my spelling or whatever but i work damn hard and absolutly gutted to lose a job i loved and was good at. me and my partner may have to struggle now for a while but to you people or say you have no sympathy i am left speechless at your lack of compassion

MissMoneypenny

tbs624 wrote: »

Connells also has a lettings agency.

So can tenants now also expect the "admin" fees to rise too?

And should we have any sympathy for the estate agents?

I should imagine that they will be trying to get money from everyone and increasing their fees for the LLs too. Can LLs afford to pay more to the LAs? Will the LLs want to give more money to the LAs? It would be a big gamble for Connells, as they will need other LAs to follow suit.

The winners will be the LLs that don't use letting agents, as they should be able to secure the tenants for their properties at the expense of those LLs using LAs.

Do I have sympathy for EAs? It's going to be an hard time for all those losing their jobs and houses, so yes, I do have sympathy for this group of people too.