To be pissed off with this estate agent?

[JustWhat]

I'm really cross! I have been looking to buy a property after renting for a few years and in my area there isn't much suitable in my price range. A house came up a few months ago which would have been great but it disappeared the same day and I found it had been snapped up. I have been checking every day and there has been nothing suitable. On Saturday a house on the same road came on the market. I was away staying with my parents but called the agent immediately to arrange a viewing. She said they weren't doing any viewings until Tuesday (today) so I asked to arrange one for this afternoon. She said she would arrange one for this evening after work with the vendor for us-great. I explained we'd seen the previous one and we're very keen and that we'd been prepared to come home from our weekend away if necessary and view it that day.

I've had a call this morning to say someone viewed it yesterday and the vendors have accepted an offer! I explained to the man I spoke to that I was disappointed as I'd been told by his colleague there would be no viewings until today and he said 'ok' and PUT THE PHONE DOWN!

I'm really quite cross! Aibu? Not much I can do I guess but so frustrating!

Put a note through the house door explaining the situation.

Are you prepared to pay above the asking price? If so make that clear to the owners.

If not ask that they contact you if it falls through.

Make an offer yourself. They are legally obliged to pass it on to the vendor

Yanbu, this staff can be incredibly hard work.

It's sounds like there's a lot of demand in your area and not a lot of supply, so you probably aren't the only one in this position with local estate agents. You have to remember that estate agents work for vendors, not prospective buyers, and if they can they will get their money by doing as little work as possible. If they've lined up a few viewings already, and are pretty confident they'll get a good offer on those, then there's no reason for them to make more viewing appointments until they need to. It's shit for buyers, but at other times with different markets it can be just as shit for vendors.

She actually said we won't be starting viewings until Tuesday. I'm just pissed off that that wasn't true and how he seemed annoyed at me (put the phone down!) for expressing disappointment at this. Really unprofessional

He was rude to you on the phone but everything is ok really.

When we were buying I saw a number of houses before they went on the open market.
Good agents know the buyers they have waiting.

It is never unreasonable to be pissed off with an estate or lettings agent. The sooner we have a proper licensing system and some decent laws protecting vendors and buyers (don't even get me started on the lettings market) the better.

In this kind of market, it helps to already be a known quantity with your local estate agent. If you're serious about moving, it's worth putting in some groundwork now.

When we were last planning to move, we got ourselves on to the "actively looking" list with our local agents. They'd already carried out financial checks on us and we knew just how much we could borrow for our mortgage. It meant that they were confident in us as buyers and we were first in line to be called when houses came on to the market. We were the first people to view the house we're in now, put our offer in two days later and it was accepted by the weekend. It's the way it goes.

That is really unprofessional and rude! If that estate agent was working to sell my house I would want to know about it. A lot of sales fall through and having another interested party is important. I would feel like telling them personally.

OP, do you have a mortgage in principle and proof of sufficient funds? If you do, make it clear to the EA you do, if not get them so you're in a position to buy quickly which will always be favoured.

My guess is those properties are cheap and therefore preferential treatment is given to those who can cash buy or have bought several properties with the EA. Which can be incredibly frustrating.

Keep at all the EAs, call them regularly and ask them if they have anything in your price range coming up. You'll become that prospective buyer but you'll also become the prospective buyer they want to get rid of quickly.

But YANBU OP. How frustrating for you.

You need to get on the estate agents radar BEFORE the houses come on the market.
When they get a new listing they will call those who are actively ready to proceed (their house under offer, mortgage etc agreed) before even advertising it.
Many houses never even come onto the market.

I second putting a note through the door, especially if you would go above asking price..

YANBU. The lesson is that EAs are disreputable lying bastards.

You need to get on the estate agents radar BEFORE the houses come on the market.
When they get a new listing they will call those who are actively ready to proceed (their house under offer, mortgage etc agreed) before even advertising it
This. We get emails from an estate agent who know our needs, area etc and they send them to us before they appear on rightmove.
If they think they'll get an offer from viewings thay are already booked then booking more makes no sense.

The other thing is that some vendors have their house listed with more than one estate agent.

If you can go over the asking price phone the agent back and tell them you are willing to.

We are currently selling out house and it's a nightmare, people don't realise how long it takes to get a house 'viewing ready', even a normal clean and tidy house, so for me to have allowed a viewing a day before I was ready to go to market it would have had to of been for something special, maybe a cash buyer? One that would pay over the odds or possibly even a neighbour who didn't really need to view?

It might have been a private viewing - ie one arranged by the vendor.

Also, a good estate agent will have a few cash buyers/investors/people who are ready to proceed on their books. They'll be getting those people through the doors first in a competitive market before opening the door to the Rightmove rabble!

BUT they were very rude to you - and IMO also extremely short-sighted from a business perspective - but the estate agents work for the vendor not you, and you didn't have a 'right' to get in there first.

I agree with Highinthesky

I suspect the prospective buyer of this property is a friend or relative of the EA, and the EA is avoiding all other potential bids on the property.

Stick a note through the door, saying you were very disappointed not to be allowed to view the property etc and suggest that if the current sale doesn't go through, you'd love to view it. Make sure you put both an email address and a phone no. on the note.
I bet they contact you! Every seller wants as many viewings as possible as it potentially increases the selling price.

If what you are looking for is in short supply you need to be more proactive. Put together your proof of funds, mortgage in principle docs etc, go round to all your local estate agents in person, introduce yourself and ask them to let you know when things come on the market. Then phone them every week to remind them of you.

To give you an idea of how it works, we had 2 valuations on a Friday morning, and gave one of the two estate agents the go ahead on Friday afternoon. We asked that we would not go on the market or do viewings until Monday as we wanted a couple of days to clear out some stuff, put away personal items etc.

The estate agent asked if they could come round on the Saturday morning to take photos, do a floor plan and the energy certificate. We agreed and cleared off for a couple of hours. They phoned us and asked if while they were there, they could let a couple of buyers have a quick look through the front door, just to get an idea of size, as they were showing them other properties in the area, we said ok but not proper viewings till monday.

On Monday morning the estate agent phoned at 9:30am with three different asking price offers, all with proof of funds. We accepted the one with the biggest deposit, as advised by the EA. The property went on right move etc as already under offer.

We had someone ring our doorbell about 4 days later in tears, they had apparently wanted to live on our road for many years (all houses except for 2 houses split into flats so very rare for a flat to come on the market) and by the time they'd seen it come up we'd accepted an offer.

I think that there's often some hidden agenda in these situations. We were once looking at flats as an investment and saw one on the Friday and put in an asking price offer. On Saturday, the EA said that it had gone to another buyer. OK, but the offer was the same and we were cash buyers. The buyer was a friend of the agent. I wasn't about to get into a bidding war, so left it.

A couple of weeks later, the EA rang to say the sale had fallen through because the buyer had lost a job and couldn't get a mortgage. We didn't pursue it because I couldn't trust that agent to be straight with us. So they effectively lost two buyers.

I agree that you need to be really proactive if there's little on the market and get in touch, leaflet drop, keep on at the agents so they think of you first.

Urgh I don't envy you at all. We went round in circles trying to find somewhere but when we finally did it was the best of anything we had looked at so worth the wait. I hate estate agents with a passion. They tell you what they think you want to hear and do what they think is best for themselves. We emailed all the local agents and told them our minimum requirements and asked them to keep in touch if anything was due to come on the market. This meant we often knew about properties before they became live on rightmove. Even so every single offer we put in somewhere had other offers at the same time. In the end we went in above asking on the one we fell in love with because we couldn't handle any more games.

Ugh, it sucks OP. Try submitting an offer regardless, the one they have may fall through or you may be able to better it. We're in the same situation, in a high demand, low inventory area where listings are already under offer by the time they appear on the website as available. We've submitted our details and financial eligibility (we're in a really good position) to various local realtors and are receiving some 'preview' properties but not the kind we actually want. It's so frustrating and demoralising.

When they get a new listing they will call those who are actively ready to proceed (their house under offer, mortgage etc agreed) before even advertising it

This is the diffence between a bricks and mortar estate agents and an online only one.

We're in the process of buying a house. Unfortunately you have to be on the phone to the estate agents every other day to remind them you are still looking /keen/have your mortgage agreed in principle / no chain in order to see properties before they make it onto Rightmove.

Alternatively, OP, if you're interested in a small area, it can be worth putting letters through letter boxes expressing your interest in buying a house in the road/area. A friend of mine did it and bought her house with the added bonus of no Estate Agent fees which are too expensive IMO.