AIBU - All Estate agents are *uc*ing snakes 🐍

[tinx]

Title says it all… estate agents are the scum of the earth sick to death of them and their bullshite lies
They bang on about sellers being time wasters, in my experience EA have wasted so much of my time
No integrity unprofessional lying low life twats all of them !!

Any EA’s on here please give us some advice on how to deal with other alien/reptilian/zombie EA’s

Thanks 👋

@tinx - what a horrible reply to @vodkaredbullgirl. Maybe you should count your blessings. And of course all EAs aren't awful.

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER I know that feeling, property we went to view was a high flood risk, asked estate agents when it last flooded, the response was I'm not sure but they now have a flood defence. I asked if the house has flooded since the defence and he said hebhad no idea . Surely if your trying to sell a house that floods you would have that information, or am I just expecting too much??

BlackishTulips

I had an awful one when private renting. Gave me total runaround.
Yanbu

^
This

YANBU OP. I wish they were all like the ladies on Selling Sunset but too much to expect for us plebs!

@luckylavender

I wasn’t being mean at all !! I lived in a council house for most of my life growing up

If she felt I was being rude I apologise but honestly it wasn’t meant to be I actually meant she had been spared having to deal with house buying process. Not that renting is easier either

Thank you for your reply though the world needs decent more people

I was “fired” by an estate agents for refusing to use their mortgage advisor

😂

Then when buying current place the estate agent hounded us with calls almost daily for updates (the solicitors were updating each other and doing their thing - which is why we pay them)

I ended up having to block the estate agent as he was calling when I was in hospital in labour 🙈😂

Our experiance is the opposite, estate agent is great solicitor on the other hand is rubbish

‘Title says it all’

Not really. It says ‘ucing snakes’
If you are going to call them out at least do it properly.

YABU.

When we sold our house in the UK, I used a firm that was owned and staffed by women and they were great.
Very efficient and they dealt with the annoying buyer for us too.

I agree that there are a lot of smarmy men in the business but it's definitely the type of business that a Women Only firm should do very well in.

I've bought and sold 10 houses in different parts of the country over the last 25 years. IME there are some very good and professional estate agents and some truly dodgy ones.

Twice, as a buyer, I have become entangled with the truly dodgy variety. The main issue seems to be as others have said that they will select their preferred buyer based on whether the buyer will use their in house financial services. Higher offers from people in a better position to proceed, such as cash buyers, are not passed on to the vendor or are passed on but with warnings of why the vendors should not accept their offer despite it seeming (and being) the best offer from the most proceedable person.

In these circumstances the best way is to initially approach and present any offers to the vendor and circumnavigate the estate agents as far as possible. At least then you have a chance of success.

It's particularly an issue in a hot market such as we have now or with highly desirable or under market value properties.

I've dealt with a few EAs and like any other profession you get duds and shysters as well as great people.

The EA that we engaged when we had to sell my grandmother's house after she died was amazing. I was executor of DGM's will and her house was up the other end of the country, and I had to get permission for every step of the process from a group of 8 beneficiaries. All a bit of a difficult process and quite fraught.

Our EA was incredibly kind and calm and kept us updated about the sale really promptly. He had a really thorough knowledge of the local housing market and found us a buyer willing to make a really fair offer within weeks. He then kept the sale on track despite solicitors on both sides being rubbish. He was so helpful and really earned his fee.

He was the head of his own local, independent firm of estate agents, having set up on his own after working for a national outfit for a few years - maybe that makes a difference.

EAs when we were buying were also fine. Reliable, again good at liaising with solicitors, friendly, no complaints at all.

Some letting agents that I've viewed or rented flats through have been absolutely appalling, though, from outright lies to not passing on information about bills that cost us significantly.

@novacancy3

I highly suspect this is what happened with my offer
They told me investors were offering on this house and since I’ve spoken to an investor who backhanded the same estate agent over 20k to accept his offer over other higher offers !!

They need to be in prison tbh

It's obviously a profession that many unsavoury sorts find attractive to get into, but then you could say the same about the police, car dealerships and garages, tradesmen (the ones who like to rip people off), consultants and surgeons (the arrogant ones with the god complex), teachers (the ones who get off on bullying kids), vicars (the ones who abuse their power and position of trust) etc. etc. Would you call ALL police the scum of the earth? Including the many thousands of decent, honest officers who want to be a positive, helpful pillar of society?

Unless we're talking about inherently objectionable 'occupations', such as pimps, drug dealers or burglars, you'll find good and bad people in every job out there. Buying and selling houses is a normal and essential part of life for many - and you don't have to use an EA as a seller, if you don't want to. As a buyer, they come as part of the deal, representing the seller - but many sellers manage quite well to be arseholes on their own, without needing the EA to help.

Sorry you've experienced some of the bad ones, but we've known a lot of good ones too. The last property we sold, I would not have been without them - they saved us from so much uncertainty and potential pitfalls from known dodgy buyers (yes, it works on both sides) and were respectful and honourable throughout when dealing with the buyer on our behalf.

I have bought and sold 5 houses in my lifetime and sadly I have to totally agree with you! Examples of their behavior……..
failing to pass on to us offers on our house as they deemed them to low,
bringing a potential buyer to our house, letting themselves in with a key without checking that it was ok with us. When buying we were not allowed to view a house as we did not want to arrange our mortgage through them and, worst of all, we were not allowed to put an offer on a house which had just gone on the market as the friend of the EA had just put in an offer for the full asking price.
There is a special place in hell reserved for estate agents!

YANBU - anyone who is selling something is inherently dishonest. Agents leech off the process so are even more dishonest.

[quote tinx]@novacancy3

I highly suspect this is what happened with my offer
They told me investors were offering on this house and since I’ve spoken to an investor who backhanded the same estate agent over 20k to accept his offer over other higher offers !!

They need to be in prison tbh[/quote]
I once met someone who openly boasted of his ‘arrangements’ with local EAs. He was a developer who’d buy run down properties in a relatively cheap area, do them up cheaply and sell on at a healthy profit, usually to landlords.

The EAs in question would presumably fob off any other interested parties, after receipt of nice fat brown envelopes.

The case I have personal experience of, concerned a flat that was tenanted at the time, and (as had to be stated in the blurb) belonged to one of the EA staff.
In between their purchase of it and the sale, prices had increased massively, so there would have been a hefty CGT bill.

Once I’d viewed it, with what seemed a perfectly nice and straightforward EA, my offer of about £220k was turned down for what seemed a very odd reason, but I could only accept it.

Only to find out 2 or 3 months later that it had sold for around £180k. Presumably to a mate, or a dc of the owner. They were only going through the motions of having it on the open market.

YANBU - anyone who is selling something is inherently dishonest. Agents leech off the process so are even more dishonest.

Eh? Does that include everybody who is employed, and thus selling their skills, labour and services? Poppy sellers too? Buying and selling is a fundamental part of life in all societies - why ever would the act of earning money through selling something make you inherently dishonest?

A few years ago I'd been keeping my eye on an unoccupied property that was clearly overpriced and had been sat on the market for over 6 months.

When I eventually arranged a viewing, on entering the house the agent had to shove a large amount mail out of the way to open the front door so we could get in... so it clearly hadn't had much interest or viewings for quite some time.

I made an offer 12% below asking, which was much closer to the realistic market value, I then heard nothing back from the agent for over a week despite me making several attempts to find out if my offer was acceptable.

I eventually received an email from the agent informing me that my offer hadn't been accepted and the vendor had accepted another offer... no attempt at all to see if I was willing to increase my initial offer.

I'm convinced the agent had a friend or relative or perhaps just an investor who they had a "special arrangement" with who was interested in the property all along but the agent had told them to hold off from offering knowing how overpriced it was, wait for someone (me in this case) to come along and make a low offer, then the agent can tip off their "preferred buyer" who can put in a slightly better offer and then the agent can push their offer as being the best one on the table to the seller.

The house had clearly had little to no interest in it in the 6 months it had been sat on the market yet as soon as I submit an offer another offer suddenly materialises out of thin air, the weeks delay in me hearing back from the agent was them presumably giving their chum time to get their finances in place to submit their offer.

@MorningStarling

YANBU - anyone who is selling something is inherently dishonest. Agents leech off the process so are even more dishonest.

Yeah, M&S, Heinz, the local pie shop, your mate selling her kids' clothes on Facebook. Crooks, the lot of them!

Don't talk nonsense!

YABU for asking for help/advice from the very people you are calling 'scum of the earth'

I'm an EA and find your post highly offensive, you don't make me want to offer up advice or help. Let's hope you are not speaking to people like this off the internet, because if you are that may just be where your problem arises

@MorningStarling

YANBU - anyone who is selling something is inherently dishonest. Agents leech off the process so are even more dishonest.

Ridiculous comment. So is the lady in my village selling her homemade cakes dishonest? An estate agent is providing a service, of course they get commission it's not a charity

@Yants, yes, I bet you’re right.

The ostensible reason my offer (in my pp) was turned down, was because I couldn’t exchange contracts that same day! Well, of course I couldn’t - I’d never heard of such a thing - I hadn’t even begun to instruct a solicitor.

But the EA was so smooth and plausible - said it was quite usual in the case of a professional landlord. And I was stupid enough to believe him - until I later checked the sold price courtesy of nethouseprices.

At the viewing he had been very pleasant and chatty and had told me (among other things) that his father was a vicar. No doubt that had helped to make other mugs assume that he was on the level.

@willithappen

YABU for asking for help/advice from the very people you are calling 'scum of the earth'

I'm an EA and find your post highly offensive, you don't make me want to offer up advice or help. Let's hope you are not speaking to people like this off the internet, because if you are that may just be where your problem arises

@willithappen completely respect your comments

Thank you for your contribution

Obviously I’m not talking to anyone like that

Op. Regarding the heading of your post.

I may be wrong but I think it is actually illegal for an estate agent or anyone else, for that matter, to fuck a snake.

Do check with the local branch of your RSCPA.

YANBU.
Probably not as dramatic a story but I got a call from the letting agent ‘reminding’ me that I was at the end of my tenancy.
Ok I said what do you want me to do
‘Contact the LL’
I said ‘Doesn’t it lapse into a periodic tenancy anyway’
She couldn’t tell me WHY I had to contact my LL! Just that I had to.
They were only letting not managing the property which was done by my LL herself so no idea why they called.
Rubbed me the wrong way. Not sure if im being U but in decade + of renting I’ve never had this.
Thé agency didn’t even get half the details right upon letting and we had to sort it out =•=