Do estate agents tell fibs?

[Katurah]

Every house I've looked at just recently the agent showing me around tells me how they've got 19/20 viewings that day etc etc.

Our house went on the market Monday morning and our agent is doing the viewings. They always block out 11-1, 15 min appointments - max 8 viewings by my reckoning. We currently have 7 booked in for Saturday. Is this a good number?! I've viewed houses with our estate agent prior to choosing them to market and they also said "lots and lots of viewings in today". One I viewed last Saturday up the road reckoned they had 30 in?!

Is it just a sales tactic?!

Where are you looking and selling? Sounds like a lot to me and 15 minutes isn't long.

Only if the day has a ‘y’ in it, in my experience. They’ll say exactly what you want to hear.

I'm in Sheffield - buying in the same area that I'm selling!

Some online agents you can 'follow' the property and then you get an update every time someone else books a viewing, makes an offer..etc. Much better.
Having been an EA all my working life, yes a lot of not all agents do this. Or overlap two viewings on purpose and tell the second people they're running behind because they've had sooooo many viewings there all day

Do estate agents tell fibs? Do bears shit in the woods?

Yes they do, but it's very easy to tell when they are - you can see their lips moving . . .

I'm really happy with my choice of agent, they seem a bit more genuine than many I saw and very experienced. I was just hoping for more viewings I suppose based on what agents have been saying to me. It's a nice house! We'll see what happens I guess! We've seen one we hope to buy so wanted to sell quickly ideally.

Viewings are more about quality than quantity, lots of agents will really pest people into looking at homes that really don't meet their needs and wants and it's really a waste of time for everyone involved.

That's a good point actually!

"It only takes one"

I’d say 7 booked in is great!
We had an open day on our house (south east, commuter territory) and we only had 2 24 hours before (went up to 4 on the day)

7 sounds like loads to me!

7 on one day sounds like a HUGE number to me!

However, salesmen - whatever their line of work - tend to be "selective" with the truth, in order to let you hear what you would like to be hearing.

7 viewings on one day is fine, they’ve likely done that in such a short time frame so it looks busy and inspires urgency when potential buyers consider making an offer.

Our house sold on the 9th viewing (mostly because the people the agent sent to do the viewings hasn’t bothered to familiarise themselves with the house 🙄)

Yes they lie, but then they are highly motivated sales people who have (hopefully) sold many homes.

Double stacking the appointments sounds really likely, an open house worked for us (i was highly sceptical), id focus on whether any offers were made by the high numbers of viewings and adjust strategy to suit.

7 viewings is great. Especially in this current climate of stuff not selling. Though, don’t be too surprised if some cancel/fall out.

My friend is an EA, and she never lies to her clients. No joke, as I used to work with her, and hear her on the phone/talking to clients.
She did get in trouble a few times from HO for being that way. But, she didn’t care as the clients nearly always bought her gifts like flowers, champagne, gift vouchers etc. The clients loved her as she was honest with them.

Sold one on the first viewing. Waited until the others booked in had a chance but ended up going with the first as single person moved with his job and all his cards were lined up waiting. Seven seems a good number to me. Yes they do lie.
I went in to ask about a house in the window and wanted to view it they said I couldn't as it had been sold. I said I was aware it had an offer but would like to view. No, it was sold. Scotland.
I then informed the young lad that " It bloody isn't it is MY House!"
The offer was £2,000 below the asking price and it was offers over. I think it was someone the estate agent knew but I made them pay the asking price as we couldn't afford to move without it. If I had hung out I could have got more but we needed to move quickly for family reasons. It was a lot of money less then. The house is worth ten times the price in 30 years! Good luck with your viewings and move😀

I wouldn't brand them all as liars, but some certainly seem to think it's part of the job.

I once made an offer on a flat that was supposedly on the open market. The EA who did the viewing seemed very pleasant and chatty - among other things he told me his father was a vicar! Maybe he was, but this was evidently supposed to make me trust him. I knew from the EA blurb that the property was owned by one of the EA staff - at the time it was a rental. They are obliged to state whether the agency has a personal interest in the sale.

When I made the offer, slightly under asking price, he told me it could only be accepted if I could exchange contracts that same day. Well, of course I couldn't - I'd never heard of such a thing.

Thought it very odd but didn't think much more about it until checking the sold price a few months later - it was WAY below my offer.
Evidently the agency had only been going through the motions of having it on the open market. Presumably it had been sold to a mate or son/daughter for well under market value - plus in order to minimise capital gains tax, which would have been quite a lot.
From then on I've always taken anything an EA may tell me with a couple of barrels of salt.

Thanks everyone. We'll see how my seven go. Hoping a couple of them want it and push the price up a little bit🤞🏻

7 is amazing. The most I ever had was 3 in a day, in the South East.

The all lie in my experience, even the nice ones.

We were buying a house that had fallen through on exchange. We asked why.
We were told convoluted story about the buyers mother.

We asked if it was actually something in the survey.

No, we were told, there was nothing that came up in the survey, it was clear.

We said, if it fell through because of the survey you have to tell us.

No they said, no problems.

Will they sell us the survey?

No, they are heartbroken, they can't face it we were told.

All utter bollocks, the lot of it.

Is your house a open day/house viewing?

When I viewed mine it was a open house - 15mins per person viewing time which I thought was not enough time. Luckily we were last in therefore manged 20/25 mins

It's not an open house as such as people have a set appointment. That then have set up a 2 hour a slot next Tuesday for second viewings/ more viewings. They seem to sell the vast majority within 2 weeks so it's a model that seems to work for them.

It's just a 3 bed end of terrace so doesn't take a huge amount of time to look around. I suspect they like appointments to run into one and other though - when I've viewed with them in the past their is the inevitable rushing to answer the door and the next viewers being asked to wait in the lounge for their tour.

I shall be happy with 7 then! I just secretly hoped for 20 lol x

Awww good luck

our house is recently on the market. we have had 1 viewing so far, in about a week, with two more booked in the next few days. now i feel like that's weak, tepid interest and we should have put a lower price! argh. good luck with yours, 7 sounds like LOADS to me. but you don't want 20 time-wasters, you want some seriously likely folks...

Of course they tell lies! They want to push you into moving quickly and paying the highest price possible. Don't be lulled into a false sense of security and start believing they're your friends or have your interests at heart. They are sales people, first and foremost.