Am I missing something?

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So we've been house-hunting for fecking ages. There's a lot of rubbish out there at the moment but every time something half decent comes along I can't even get through the door to view it! I call up, the agent fiddles about for a couple of days, then I chase them but unfortunately the house has gone.

I have been actively lied to by agents saying they can't contact the vendors to arrange a viewing, when in fact there is a viewing arranged the next day which results in an offer and the house being taken off. I never hear anything and have to chase the agent.

This has happened four or five times! What am I doing wrong? Should I visit the vendor directly myself? Really wondering where I go from here.

Are you in a position to proceed with a sale quickly eg FTB with mortgage in principle or otherwise end of chain? Do the agents know that you're a serious buyer? Is it worth looking around a few properties that they've had on the market for a while (even if they're not really possibilities) so the agents get to know you and that you're actively looking? Perhaps ring them every week just reminding them that you're looking and asking if they have anything about to go on the market so you can get ahead of the rest. The only thing I can think of is that the agents are offering properties to people who are selling through them first so they can get chains moving.

yeah some of the agents really seem to game the way they use Rightmove. I'm just coming up to moving and have been searching for months in a narrow area so I got to know all the local agents and see how they approach things differently.

Once they know you're serious and that you're under offer, a lot of them seem to like to give you an early heads up and ideally to view a property just before it goes online. I guess it's to do with giving the vendor confidence

I am just about to buy one that's been newly refurbished and having seen the way this particular agent works, I just asked directly if I could be the first to see it, took a day off to go midweek when the painters were still there instead of waiting till viewings officially started on the Saturday

Yes I'm in a good position: ready to go, FTB etc. But because I have a pretty huge search area (the whole county!) I haven't been able to build a relationship with every agent. Maybe I need to make more of an effort. I suspect places get whacked on RM even though really they've already got a buyer lined up

Maybe they are phantom listings. There was an article in the BBC yesterday about lettings being marketed in this way, maybe it is the same for house sales.

I think you probably do need to get to know the agents a bit (or rather them get to know you), I know it seems old fashioned but I called them all up to "register our details" and they would ask what I was looking for then tell me about houses they had coming up before they were on rightmove and call me whenever there was something new. We were looking for a specific area but still involved about 10 different agents.

We still had to watch rightmove like a hawk and badger some EAs for viewings (some are useless and some were sold before they called us back to confirm a viewing) but it definitely helped.

Are they 'do-er uppers'? In my area I know that agents have direct relationships wit particular developers and send a property straight to them. .

They sold our house like that. We had a few viewings, no bites, and then they said they would bring lots of people round one Saturday and we should go out for the day. Magically - an offer from a company that has developed many many 4 bed Victorian terraces in the area into 3 flats, and then markets them through the same estate agents.

It was a good offer though.

Some agents are a bit shit at arranging viewing (funnily enough the one who couldn't arrange us a viewing down the road is still on the market 3yrs after we asked to go and look at it, the one we bought was fine)
We had a pretty big search area 20miles in any direction from place of employment, we registered with a lot of agents, some sent us lots of crap but some were really really helpful. We tended to find problems with viewings or details were particular to certain agents (Your move!!!!)