Estate Agent Question

[MuffinTheMilf]

if an EA were to tell you that a house was 'brand' new on the market (and said it had 'just come in' more than a couple of times what would you take that to mean - 1 week? 2 weeks or more?

Just trying to get the measure of this EA.

I would say 1 - 2 weeks but also check if it is really 'new on the market' because some houses I have observed are withdrawn briefly from the market, the agent changed and then brought back on at a new usually 10% higher price.

The new agent then markets them as 'new to the market' and then promotes them again about a month later with the hike in price knocked off with a big red sticker saying - just reduced.

I would think that they were trying to pitch the house with whatever positives they could come up with.

It's been on since 8th December I've found out tonight on Zoopla, so 6 weeks, I know there was Xmas/NY but even so I wouldn't describe that as brand new. She also told me that properties were being snapped up - I queried as a few down in our area have been on the market at least 6 months. She responded by saying - those that have been on a while are hanging about but new ones on are being snapped up.

Me thinketh she may be talking bollocks . Perhaps trying to make the market sound much more bouyant than it actually is.

I generally assume that EAs should be listened to with about the same attitude as a snake oil merchant in a Moroccan souk, and let them prove otherwise. (All due respect to any EAs on MN, I'm sure you're the exception)

Good hunting

YY Third - sadly that's been mainly my experience of estste agents to date too.

I realise you are all just repeating tired old cliches here but let me give you my perspective as an estate agent. If I were selling your home would you expect me to do the best possible job for you? Would you expect me to highlight the positives of your property and do my best to sell it at the best possible price I can get for it? I assume your answer is yes otherwise you would be a moron!

Let me be clear, I am not advocating lying and asked a direct question I would always give you an honest answer, as would every other colleague I have worked with. Playing devil's advocate, brand new to the market could be a subjective answer; it is "brand new" to that agent as they have never marketed the property; it is brand new in contrast to others they have had on their books for 6 months and so on. Personally I would usually use "brand new" for up to a month. If you asked the agent to state when it came on the market and they lied then that would be a different matter.

In my experience I get lied to frequently by customers but have never knowingly lied to a single one, if I don't know the answer to a direct question I find it out from the owner and report back.

Examples of customer lies include, but not exclusively.......

"I want a valuation to put my house on the market" - sometimes true but very often they just want to know how much their house is worth because they have had work done to it, curious about the price in current market, need to remortgage etc. This can constitute a whole afternoon's work on my part, not to mention the written valuation I then have to write up and send to them.

"I've already got my mortgage in place" - some people have but this is the minority. Some think they have looked into mortgages but then find out that they can't get the right mortgage deal, have bad credit, monthly payments are higher than they thought etc and the sale falls through because of it, often impacting a chain of people.

"We are just about to put our house on the market" - so I take them to see at least 10 properties that they cannot buy even if they love them. Then they decide to keep looking until finding something they love before putting their house on the market, having wasted everybody's time.

Gazumping - this is purely down to greedy vendors or unscupulous purchasers, it honestly is not in an estate agent's best interests to keep marketing a property once it is under offer, unless you think that the purchaser is not being honest about their circumstances and ability to buy in which case you have to do the right thing for your client - the vendor - and explain to the purchaser that until they can prove intent to proceed then it will continue to be marketed. On a percentage basis, unless you were to get about 100k more for the property it really would not be worth trying to squeeze an extra few thousand on the sale price once you have a sale already agreed, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush as they say!

If a purchaser really wants a property that subsequently goes under offer, it is far from uncommon for them to immediately start offering more money out of desperation. An estate agent is required by law to report any offer to the vendor but it is purely the seller's decision to accept, most estate agents would advocate staying with their current buyer.

Nobody can be pressured into buying a house, there are no "sales tactics" on such a big purchase because I have never known anyone to buy a house because the estate agent pushed them into it and they regretted it later. You either like/love the house and want to buy it or you don't.

Of course the estate agent is going to tell you all the good points of the property - THAT IS THEIR JOB! You get paid by the vendor who sells the property, not the purchaser, and until there is a different system whereby purchasers pay a percentage of the fees (this happens all across Europe and the US) then there will always be that bias and it is unreasonable to expect otherwise.

You wouldn't expect to go to a car dealership to buy a 4x4 and the salesman to tell you "I wouldn't buy that, it's a gas guzzler" so why anyone would expect an estate agent to do so baffles me!

Rant over. If you have any comments bring them on!

I would runtybunty - and I'm not imPressed with this EA from the sellers POV either - she couldn't answer any of our questions about whether the vendors were in a chain, knew zero about the house, said she would phone us with the info we wanted yesterday - didn't. She knows we're interested, knows we're in a very good position to buy, yet other than trying to convince us the market is in a better shape than it is she's done nothing to sell the house to us.

Having sold a house in Australia, where EAs really do work for you, (though their fees are higher), it's a shock to see how poorly this one has been advertised - the photos are appalling and nothing to draw you in. I've sold in the UK before and tbh if we sold here again I'd dispense with the EA altogether!

I have had one good experience with EAs and I'm sure you're a good one and must get tired of the reputation - I get that as also in a profession that gets knocked but like I say, ime most of the EAs have lived up to their reputation (and I'm talking from a vendor's POV, not a buyers).

Also I wouldn't expect an EA to tell me a house is a bad buy and to point out it's faults but I do expect honest answers to direct questions. So when I asked her 2x how long it had been on the market I expect her to say 'just before Xmas'.

Actually a car salesman did tell us he wouldn't buy the (petrol version) car we were looking at - respected him for his honesty and bought a car from him.

I may have got a little bit ranty in that reply but I had just come read another thread criticising estate agents and get so tired of having to constantly fight against the reputation that ea's have, whether they deserve it or not.

I appreciate that there are good and bad ea's muffin, no different to any other profession, but as someone who always tries to do a good job, both for vendors and buyers it is frustrating to read comments that assume you are dishonest at worst, incompetent at best. In the case of the property you are interested in I would go back to the estate agent again, discuss your concerns about why she hasn't answered your questions and reiterate how interested you are in the property. As I said, there are always good and bad and she sounds a bit disorganised. I personally don't think that bigging up the state of the market is that bad. A good property priced correctly will often sell very quickly regardless of market conditions.

I honestly think the uk system needs to change to be more in line with the rest of the world in how houses are bought and sold.

Offhand I can't think of other jobs where you can do 4 months of work for a customer, pay for advertising, countless viewings, liaising with solicitors, surveyors etc and not get paid anything for the work if the sale breaks down.

It's very much a law of averages because roughly 50% of all sales will fall through due to bad surveys, not being able to get a mortgage, vendor decides not to sell, purchaser decides not to proceed etc etc. If you are getting paid 6% commission then you are going to get a better service than your average local estate agent where the fee is 1.5% and the agent who does the work is on a very low basic salary with a small bonus for selling a property, for this you work evenings, weekends, and bank holidays. Can you imagine the uproar in the UK though if fees were this high?

Everyone has the opportunity to sell their home privately. Obviously you have to accept that it won't be on rightmove or property search sites, it won't be advertised in local or national publications and you will have to do the viewings yourself but anyone can avoid having to go through an estate agent if they choose.

Anyway, I'm sorry you're experiencing problems with the agent in question and hope you can get an answer to your questions soon.