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Original poster

Estate agents working hours?

68 replies

Onaladder · 30/06/2023 10:47

My partner and I both work at companies. Different locations.
It's nearly impossible to find a good time to go view houses during weekdays unless after 6pm, even then it's tough considering commute time etc

We have been searching for a year and one of the key challenges to our house purchase is.....
Estateg Agents working hours! can you believe it, yes there are the crazy market volatilities, the fluctuating and rising interest rates...the doom of the UK economy, we might get fired etc etc but one of the biggest challenge we are having is getting viewings

I am not from the UK but in my country, Estate Agents work the hours that are more suitable for people who work, like they usually do evenings or early morning during the weekdays and longer work in the weekends but they take days off during the week.

Here it looks like they work exactly same hours or less. Mostly I get "We don't work after 6pm I'm afraid" or "Our saturday viewings are fully booked, you must book at least one week or two weeks in advance"

Sorry just venting because I am so fed up with the agents and the housing market in the past year...and still ongoing...

Do people take days off to view? how does everyone do this while working hard....

OP posts:

BillyNotQuiteNoMates · 02/07/2023 14:57

I don't know where you live, but here estate agents work long hours. Monday - Saturday 9-6, and will do their best to accomodate your requests. UK estate agents need to do qualifications to be sales negotiators, although anyone can do viewings, if they have a DBS. As for the teachets moaning that they can't just take day off, what's wrong with going after work? It's not as if you need to be in school until 6.

Fallulah · 02/07/2023 18:08

I’m a teacher and I finish at 5-5:30 most days. Depending on what’s gone on, you can’t just leave early. Also those after work slots are very hard to come by! Around here the last viewing was often at 5pm in the week.

BillyNotQuiteNoMates · 02/07/2023 18:43

Fallulah · 02/07/2023 18:08

You might choose to stay late, but that's a choice. You could finish your own job in the evening, rather than expecting other businesses to pander to you.

Original poster

Onaladder · 02/07/2023 21:55

Ah this is very interesting! I didn’t know my thread would bring up so much debate between sellers vs. buyers! It’s just where I came from the buyer is buying a property so the business tailors to the buyers’ needs (because they are ‘selling’) but I think I realize in the UK, it’s very much tailored to the sellers.

I mean if I am bit surprised to hear that if a buyer is serious enough, he/she should make time for it no matter what, while the same won’t apply to a seller because I guess a seller will always have desperate list of buyers in the UK

I do have a job that is very difficult to just take a day off, or even a half day without in advance notice. So it’s not easy to arrange a time that works with the already fully booked agents. They can do flexible hours the agents no? Not work from 9-6pm straight? I think that’s the system for most other countries.

Anyway no point in my post because I wanted to get advice on how to manage the viewings here from a buyer’s perspective but just getting reprimanded for not being ‘serious’ about a house purchase…

OP posts:

RufustheSpecuIatingreindeer · 02/07/2023 22:11

They can do flexible hours the agents no? Not work from 9-6pm straight?

dd works from 8.30 til 6 or 7 (7 three times a week) every day…and every other Saturday

SilverGlitterBaubles · 03/07/2023 06:09

In the UK estate agents are working on behalf of the seller not the buyer.

SheilaFentiman · 03/07/2023 06:28

Additionally, more people work from home now, so if you are renting near where you want to buy, taking an hour out at short notice is more doable.

Does your DP have more flexibility, could he take time off more easily?

GoodChat · 03/07/2023 06:56

I find it interesting your very important job offers no flexibility at all so that means you think everyone elses jobs should, to suit you.

shinepud · 03/07/2023 08:26

BillyNotQuiteNoMates · 02/07/2023 14:57

Working until 6 is not at all long hours outside of Western Europe and the UK! Most people work from 9 to 6 in many wealthy first world countries.

When I think or working evenings/long hours, I think of working till 9 or 10pm.

Don't take this as me endorsing longer hours at all though – I love knocking off at 5 every day in the UK, and I think estate agents should have work life balance too!

SheilaFentiman · 03/07/2023 08:53

As others have said, I suspect it is also what the homeowners want. I was shown around the odd place in the evening by the owners (I did all the first viewings as my husband worked away at that point, though it was more the norm to do two viewings before offer)

RidingMyBike · 03/07/2023 09:03

The estate agent works for the seller, not the buyer. The buyer isn't the 'customer' in that sense. And they can get enough people in for viewings in the times they offer to be able to sell houses, then no incentive to work even longer hours. I don't know what the rate of time wasters is normally but we had a fair few viewings cancelled when we were selling, or potential buyer not turn up at all. And this was people who'd been assessed as able to proceed rather than just wanting to be nosey.

We quickly realised when buying that we simply had to make ourselves as available for viewings as we could be otherwise we wouldn't get any. And no one would care as the house still sold.

Update your property alerts to 'instant' so you get notified as soon as something comes on the portals. Register directly with estate agents so you get advance notice of new properties. Those things both get you ahead of others. Many have open days/block bookings on Saturdays as it's a lot easier for the seller and the agent so try to get in on those.

SheilaFentiman · 03/07/2023 09:58

Quite a lot of properties have virtual tours now with someone walking round with a camera

GB81 · 03/07/2023 13:40

Or even better an immersive 3D tour, my partner offers these.

Badbadbunny · 03/07/2023 15:17

SheilaFentiman · 03/07/2023 09:58

Quite a lot of properties have virtual tours now with someone walking round with a camera

Yes, and very useful, but for some reason, estate agents won't let you put forward an offer until you've viewed in person, which is a real pain, as we're currently looking for a flat for my son who's starting a new job in a city 150 miles away. So we have to look online for pictures, description and the virtual tour, and still have to actually book a viewing in person, even if we're fully happy with the pictures/video. It's stupid as he signed up for 3 different student flats without seeing them in person during his Uni years, and they turned out fine, but they won't let him do that for "real" flats for his work!

What's more annoying is that most seem to allow 10 viewing slots only, so it's hard enough to even get a viewing, and then when you've spent all day and a tank of petrol to spend your 5-10 minutes viewing it, you're then "put forward" for the landlord to decide who to let it to, and the EAs say that they usually put forward 5-10 people! They say sometimes everyone who viewed it wants it!

We really couldn't believe the housing market had got so bad. But his new city is a university city AND a teaching hospital city, AND a tourist city, so there's lots and lots of competition for everything that comes onto the market and prices are just rocketing due to high demand and greedy landlords.

SilverGlitterBaubles · 03/07/2023 17:18

Most are required to be in for meeting prior to opening so work from 8/830 to 6/630 and if they also work Saturday that's a 60 hour week that's a lot of hours for often not a lot of pay.

Original poster

Onaladder · 03/07/2023 19:52

@SheilaFentiman DP is unfortunately busier than me haha but we are trying to do viewings from 6-6:30pm where the agents can accomodate us and we usually booked all day Saturday to do at least 2-3 viewings. I think it's hard because we are looking at all of zone 1-3 in London so it takes at least 30mins drive between each viewing. It doesn't help that we are looking for a garden flat which is a rarity in London!

@GB81 Yes I love those 3D ones, they are super helpful, they help more in deciding whether to see the ones that we are not super sure about... but we ultimately try to see in person if we like the property online

@RidingMyBike yes I took your advice and put alert, and I also started to go to rightmove everyday to see the new ones posted! Hopefully will find something

@shinepud unfortunately I work in areas where the work hours are longer so getting off at 6pm would be considered early... I think in most jobs in the UK, people work less hours though and very relaxed generally compared to the US and some countries in Asia where I had worked before, so maybe that's why generally service providers don't work after 5pm, Shops also close much earlier here. I do wonder if that is causing the overall low productivity in the country or it's something else entirely (but that is a different discussion)... but I do love London for its respect for peoples' lives and the relative work life balance, and I did move here partly for that despite the cut in salary...but this housing situation is the worst incomparable...

OP posts:

WhimHoff · 03/07/2023 19:56

Some businesses work different hours, some don’t. If you want to be proactive in the property market book time out of your day.

SheilaFentiman · 03/07/2023 20:57

Do you find that you are generally viewing properties where kids live? I can imagine you might be when looking for a garden flat.

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