To think estate agents should call me?

[AntiHop]

DP and I are actively looking to move house. We've decided on an area (a different part of London to where we live now). I have registered with local estate agents and we've seen around 10 places over the last 3 months, which I had seen on rightmove and then contacted the agents about.

What surprises me is that we've had very little contact from estate agents. After viewing places, I've only once had an estate agent call me to follow up about what I thought. Only once has an estate agent called me to tell me about a property I might be interested in.

Is this to be expected? I thought estate agents were supposed to be pro-active? If I was any of the people selling those houses, I'd be annoyed that the estate agents aren't following up leads. Our flat is not on the market yet, but I don't think all the estate agents I've dealt with know that.

If properties are in demand the estate agent doesn't really need to work for their commission, just pay right move to show the adverts.

I would look at marketing your property yourself if your property is a fast moving area.

Most people check right move religiously when looking to buy so no real need for agents to do very much.

You need to get your own place on the market if you want to be taken seriously as a potential bitter experience

When I was house hunting I registered with every EA in the area. Never heard from a single one of them. I think they just let Rightmove do the work

It depends really. Sometimes a busy market means they don’t bother or need to, sometimes they’re just a bit shit and aren’t proactive. Or they don’t think you’re serious.

If the latter, get your property on the market and then chase chase chase - every Monday email your contact at each agency with “Hi John, has anything new come in that matches our requirements? As a reminder we’re looking for...” You need to be at the forefront of their minds when a new instruction comes in.

Maybe that's the thing essential and refuse, that they don't think we're serious as our place is not on the market. The market in the area we're looking at is not particularly fast. Places take weeks or more to sell, so it's surprising that EAs haven't been more proactive.

We're not going to look at any other places now until we've put our place on the market, so it will be interested if EAs act differently once we've got an offer.

On the plus side for us bizzy, our flat is Shared Ownership, so we sell it via our housing association. So no need to deal with and pay for EAs, unless our place doesn't sell in a certain number of weeks, then we can choose to also use an EA if we wish.

I'm shocked about how bad some of the marketing is for some houses. Some really terrible photos. Lack of floor plans. One place was marketed by an online by EA. They made it so difficult for me to view. Cancelled 3 appointments that I made and made we wait a few weeks for an appointment. I now see the seller has changed EA to a high st one for that property.

My parents moved recently. They had the same experience as you until their house sold and they became "proceed-able" at which point agents started ringing them before newly-acquired properties even hit Rrightmove.

I was looking over quite a large area so registered with a lot of EAs.

One was absolutly fab - called me wiht properties they thought I might like (based on what I ACTUALLY wanted) and I really wish I could have bought with them!

A coupel called me with unsuibalt things "Miss we have a brand new 2 bed in" ok great, sq footage? Parking? "650, car free development" right well you know i'm looking at minimum 800 sq ft and with ability to park on street at least...! Tower Hamlets car free developments were the fucking BANE of my flat hunting life.