Why is it so hard to buy a house?

[angell84]

I am buying my first house. So far, I have contacted six different eatate agents about viewings of different houses in the area that I want to buy in.

Four simply did not reply at all.
One arranged a viewing on a house. We arranged a date and time. Then she simply stopped answering my emails altogether.

The last one. I asked to see a house on their website. She said "Well I cant' because I don't have the keys yet, hopefully I will get them in a few weeks time".

Who knew it was this hard to even VIEW a house?

Any tips on how to deal with eatate agents?

Speak to them, don't email. If you're in the area then go to their offices (if they have one).

I'm in my third house and have not had a problem arranging viewings.

Go in and have a face to face chat and explain your position.

I’d be tempted to knock/put a note through some of these houses door and tell them how shit their agents are. Maybe you can arrange a viewing and bypass them altogether.

Have you a mortgage in principle? I think this makes you sound serious enough for them to arrange a viewing for you

I am a cash buyer! Right - don't phone or email them. I will go into the offices tomorrow. Thanks for the tip

Surely, any professional company should answer emails?
I have never met such a bunch of incomptetent people in my life

They never deal with emails as they’re prioritising trying to reply to the avalanche of emails they’re getting for sales in progress - from solicitors, buyers, sellers etc. You need to phone them and sound serious. They will ask you for loads of information on your first call.

It is ridiculous to me.
I looked at buying a property abroad. I sent one email. She arranged to meet me the next day. She drove me around five different properties. She had detailed information about each property.
Here, the standard is completely unacceptable

I am already really stressed and I am four days in. Why are they so unprofessional?
I am sighing, because I can see this is going to take much longer than I thought. I think that if I even get to a stage where I bid on a house, the estate agent is going to be as inefficient as possible and make it as long drawn out as possible.

It is like they don't want you to buy the house!

How do I probe that I am serious about buying when I am a cash buyer? Bring in ny bank statement showing proof of savings?

Very unprofessional. In my experience similar things happened with crappy agencies, agencies that didn’t actually have a particular house on the books but wanted to look busy. Usually in a very hot market when houses were flying off the shelves. Are you looking somewhere popular?

In Liverpool. I will go into the offices and talk to them myself tomorrow. This is the first time that I an doing this, and I just rang my mother and asked what her experiene was with estate agents. She said that she nearly lost her mind with them. She said she made an offer, and the estate agent said "oh no he won't accept that it is too low", and then she rang the owner and asked him, and he did accept her offer.

Oh well, I will just have to knucle down for the slog, and know that it will be over eventually

Estate agents in Liverpool are (in my experience) absolutely appalling - until you make an offer. We were stood up at viewings, arrived at viewings where the estate agent had the wrong keys, were given the wrong address for viewings, arrived at viewings where the front door was open with nobody there... The house we eventually bought had been on the market for 5 months before the agent had put it on Rightmove and even then there were no pictures of it - we only viewed it because we liked the road.

As previous posters have said, you need to call (don't email and definitely don't message through Rightmove!) and lead with the fact that you're a cash buyer. If you're in South Liverpool, there are a couple of estate agents that are notoriously slow or over value hugely, happy to go into detail via pm.

Good luck!

I have never found that but I wouldn’t use email to book a viewing. I would phone the office.

@angell84 taking proof of your cash buyer status would be a great idea - they will need this anyway. Unfortunately we don't work like overseas estate agents in the UK - here we may pay less commission but the buyer does all the work! In my experience agents will rarely respond to emails unless they already know you. They get most information about you from a telephone call so that would be the best way for you to go forward.

As far as the offer you put in for a property, don't forget that the seller needs to get the price as high as possible as they are often paid on a percentage of the selling price.

Buying (and selling) houses in England can often be an horrendous experience which is why, after divorce and death of a family member, it is considered the third most stressful experience to go through.

Good luck!! Oh and don't expect your cash buyer status to bring you any price reductions or speedy completions I found that to my cost recently !

From the point of view of a selling a house, I went with an online agent and found the responses much quicker. And unfortunately, I found cash buyers (in the sense of chain free, not complete cash in the bank) less reliable than a chain, because of the notion than prices would come down for a (supposedly) speedy sale. Buyers in a chain are usually more committed to going through with it when they've offered, because their own sales/ purchases depend on it, and understandably first time buyers want to get the best deal, not just get through the sale. Have a look at the purple bricks/ emoov websites?

Hmm. As a cash buyer - I won't be bidding lower than the asking price.

I did think it would make me more attractive to buyers, only for the fact - that it simplifies and speeds up the process, of not having to deal with mortgage brokers.

I am going to be optimistic and go into the office today with a smile! Thanks

I found nearly all agencies and estate agents crap. Just absolute rubbish. I dealt with probably 20 in 5 different areas. I would ring to book appts and leave my contact details but on 6 or 7 occasions, they cancelled the appt without contacting me. I even started ringing to check before making the journey of 100 miles and they just didn't turn up or let me know. They also changed appts without telling me. They didn't pass on all my offers either. The day I had 3 viewings and not one of the 3 different agents turned up, that was soul destroying.

I really really hate them as there is no need to be so unprofessional. I was also a cash buyer and wanted/needed to move quickly but no-one cares.

I will keep you updated. I have to laugh. The eatate agent chronicles. I have to laugh or I'd go mad lol.
I visited three eatate agencies today.
The first one; I enquired about a house that I saw online. Estate agent : "oh that one is just gone". " What else do you have in my budget". EA " oh we have nothing else at all in your budget, the next one we have available is 50,000 more than your budget" - looks at me with gree in her eyes. They are such hustlers! Me: right can you please let me know if anything comes up in my budget.

Second one: Has loads of houses on their website in my budget. I go in: I sit with ine agent, two other agents are laughing about some other poor customer after one of them gets off the phone to them. EA to me: well the only houses that we have in your budget, are these two and they are both tenanted, however they are available with or without a tenant. Me: So if I buy this house, the tenant would move out? EA : ( not caring less hat I actually want a home that I can MOVE into) " well the tenant would ideally like to stay there, but the seller does want to sell, so the tenant would probably move out aftet you buy. Me : ??? Not wanting to kick some one out and I am also visualising that it would be difficult yo make the tenant move.

Third estate agent; maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel. Me: I see a house that is in my budget on your website. EA : yea I see it. They found the one I want to see and they have arranges a viewing for me on Thursday.

I hope it goes well!

The EA you went to sound very annoying.

I have recently bought a house and it's a lot of hard work. As PP have said always call to book a viewing. Sounds ridiculous but check Rightmove or Zoopla every day for new listings (houses in my area we're flying off the market and one I wanted to view sold in a few hours).
Be prepared once your offer has been accepted once you have found your house it can still take a few months until completion- even if you are a cash buyer it doesn't make it any quicker.
The vendors we bought from had queries about some of the searches for the house they were buying and it delayed the whole process. As you will already know make sure everything is correct for you too and that you are happy with everything.

Happy house hunting OP. Let us know how you get on

You are definitely more attractive as a cash buyer. It's just that a lot of people muck about and are not serious when they say they want to buy so they don't take people seriously. I used to tell them I have a solicitor and a surveyor lined up (true). I just need a place to buy.

I used to call agents every week and ask what was about to come on sale. Sometimes we saw properties before they were on Rightmove. This gives the. Agents potential for less work if they don't even have to do photos. To summarise : ring a named person at your favourite agents once a week. Be persistent. Eventually you will annoy them do much they will call you first.

I'm roughly in the same area OP and I'd put money on Reeds Rains being one of the estate agents.

They were appalling with us when we wanted to view a property a few months ago, even worse when we put an offer in to the point we told them to stick it. Vowed we'd never buy through them and missed out on a few properties that we'd love to have viewed/bought.

Even the property we're currently buying through a different estate agent, they tried putting us off the place and spent the whole initial viewing telling us about another property! And it was the MD of the estate agents doing the viewing, remarkable.

Estate agents are leeches from my experience, they make used car salesmen look like the Pope.

In the US you get your own agent to represent you when you are buying a house. As a buyer, you don't pay them anything at all. They arrange viewings of houses you want to see, and will find you other houses you hadn't considered that are in your range/area/style. Once you decide to make an offer, they do all the haggling on your behalf, and when your offer is accepted, they do all the legal paperwork until the day of exchange/closing, when you meet with the buyer in the mortgage office and sign all the papers. Your agent then shares the commission (paid by the seller) with the seller's agent 50/50. Closing in a regular sale usually takes about six weeks.

This way you always have someone working on your behalf, who also has good market knowledge.

We did find the commission to be a bit high (when we were selling), but it was worth it for the peace of mind. It covered all the admin and legal costs, professional photographs, house inspection, professional cleaning and marketing. We had a full price offer within 7 days and our agent kept backup buyers lined up in case our buyers had to drop out.

Whenever I read property threads on here I wonder how anyone ever buys property in the UK without going completely mad.

Have you thought about buying a new build?

''Hmm. As a cash buyer - I won't be bidding lower than the asking price.''

Why ever not?

You do realise that virtually all houses on the market have inflated asking prices (to a lesser or greater extent) to allow some room for negotiation?

@sall74

I agree with that.

@sall74 because I want to buy a house quickly, the house prices are reasonable, and the houses are very selling very very quickly round here.

So why would I offer less than asking price?