@ BreeVDKamp - I'm no expert unfortunately but I've been buying and selling for quite a while. When I first bought/sold a house it was in the pre-internet days and on Saturdays and Sundays we would walk around town with all the other couples going from estate agent to estate agent - like a house-hunting conga through the city centre.
Sounds bizarre and unthinkable now. The only way you would hear about new houses for sale was through the local paper, for sale boards, the estate agent's window and would you believe it, when you registered, the agents used to actually write to you with new houses for sale lists.
Now people only look in estate agent windows when they end up in a town by accident on a rainy afternoon with nothing to do!!!
The way the market is now, the power of the agentsis in controlling access to the internet portals - that is, only estate agents are able to enter houses on Rightmove etc.
In the old days you physically met the agents a lot when you were house hunting but now, you find your own house online and you rarely meet the agent in person - whether buying or selling.
I don't know my feeling is the bust/boom cycles don't bring out the best in people and estate agents are at the heart of that and the dealing with estate agents is like seeing a problem through a magnifying glass.
Anyway, enough harking back!
It's staggering after all these years how rubbish many agents can still be at filing property details on Rightmove... flats with no lease details, no indication of which floor they are on what the service charges are. Houses with pictures taken of light fittings in the dark, washing hanging on chairs. You know, it's unnecessary! They are taking the piss out of people.
I wouldn't pay for it but some people are still taken advantage of by these shysters and tricksters.
I would never give control of my biggest financial asset to these guys so I always do it myself these days - use an online agent who allows me to write the details and gives me control of photos and so on and on average charges about 80% less - it's a no-brainer as they say.
The last time I considered using an agent for my house sale, he turned up and wanted to take photos there and then, I said ok but I'm going to replaster and paint this wall so I'll send you a new photo. He produced a brochure with a picture of this wall with the unplasted hole still in it. I said, look, I'll send you a new picture - neither he nor anyone in his office could work out how to load up a jpeg from my camera - so they said!!! Couldn't be bothered or know less about technology than their customers.
Obviously they didn't get the job - I don't need liars/incompetents handling my life's work, why would anybody entrust something so important to these guys?
And I've come across this so much. It's not a rare event. It's every day. I rang up an agent the other day about a house in a rough area and she told me - you wouldn't like it there!!! I can't do any viewings - the rooms are full of rubbish etc etc etc.
I suspect she was putting buyers off with a view to getting the owner to reduce the price to sell the house to a property developer mate. It's a dirty business and no mistake.