I’m getting so pissed off with the estate agents

[Wellthisisshitty2]

I spoke abut which agent to go with with loads of people on local forums. A lot of people have had trouble with a few, I went with the least worst, basically! They were the ones we bought this house off in the first place.

We have had a few viewings. The feedback has been mainly that they can’t afford it. Which begs the question, why have the agents sent them round, to which the agents say, all they can do is ask what the budget is. So that’s irritating.

We have also had a couple who have outwardly said they “just wanted to have a nose”, agent said they were told they were FTB.

Also, the agent really isn’t helping sell it. I’ve shown two people round, who quite rudely pulled up rightmove sold prices in front of me and were almost pissed off asking why it’s on for 60k more than we bought it for 3 years ago.

One reason is the market here, everything has gone up accordingly. We wouldn’t have been able to afford to buy here now. This house is not over priced for the area at all. We actually went went with the lowest end of all
the valuations as we want to move quickly.

(To put it in perspective, a decade ago, a three bed house here would have cost you 90-100k. Now it would be £250k. Everyone is being pushed out of the city to areas like this as the city gets expensive).

Another is that we bought it as a 2 bed property. It’s now a four bed! The previous owners removed one of the bedroom walls to make one of the bedrooms huge - we put it back up and also converted the garage into a studio bedroom with shower room (the garage was partially converted but very badly so they couldn’t call it a bedroom, we had it finished to the proper standard).

Also, they can see from the old photos they were waving in front of me that the house was a complete hole when we bought it, we spent 25k renovating it.

They both were taken aback and both said they had asked the agent why the big price increase and they said they didn’t know. When I pointed out all of the above, they were both like, oh, fair enough, I hadn’t realised - even though they had the old listing calling it a 2 bed with the old photos and old floor plans in front of them 🙄

I wonder how many other people have looked on line and not realised the house is totally different to when we bought it!

I raised it with the agent and asked them why they weren’t pointing this out to people who had asked but they didn’t have an answer for me. The same agents sold us this house - they know what it was like when we bought it!

I know we are going to have to change, I’m just so pissed off that they can’t seem to do their job properly.

This house is not over priced for the area at all.

Are you sure?
It doesn’t really matter what you spent on it doing it up if you spent on it to make it a nice house to live in. It doesn’t automatically follow that you can then add the full cost of refurbishing on to the price you want to sell it for. If viewers are telling you it’s too expensive for what it is, and you aren’t getting offers, they may well be right.

Honestly, it sounds like they are encouraging people to come round who they know will lowball you. It wouldn't surprise me if they're pushing it into their existing list of home searchers saying 'it might be worth you viewing this because they need to move quickly.'

You'll only ever know what they're saying if you get someone to mystery shop a viewing for you.

'All we can do' is absolute BS. They can always do better.

I understand how you think adding two rooms adds value to the house but that's very individual. Bedroom conversion garages are quite often rubbish and when I spot a house that's done that, I only ever have the garage bedroom as a place to dry washing, in my head. They often look like hallways and are freezing cold.

Re: big room turned into two. Well, I physically NEED a big room due to a disability.

I'm not saying you didn't do a good job. I'm just saying that thinking you've added value by turning two rooms into four might not quite add the value that you think it should add. Especially if it now means that there is no garage space left at all, which is something I find valuable.

The advert should state the home has been extensively renovated by the current owners and now has two extra bedrooms - somewhere near the top. I don't quite know how they're managing to find all these muppets. I always pull up old floor plans and photos and compare them with current advert before I view, but maybe that's because my viewings take a 5 hour round trip that causes me a lot of pain, so it's worth investing the time on the computer before booking.

Regardless, I too am sick of EAs and you have my sympathies.

No, it’s really not.

It is on par with the market, it’s actually at the low end of the valuations from 4 local agents who came to value it (and all gave the same valuation).

Viewers thought we bought it as a 4 bed. We bought it priced as a 2 bed. They hadn’t looked at the previous listings properly.

You may have turned it from a 2 bed into a 4 bed, but you haven't actually added any extra space.
The house isn't any bigger than it was before.

The general feedback seems to be the house is overpriced, buyers won't care what you spent on it and if you recuperate your costs or not. They'll be comparing your house to others for sale of similar size and price in the area.

The garage was already converted. Just very badly so they couldn’t call it a bedroom! It was a double garbage so only half is converted (it’s not like a corridor!), so we still have a full size useable garage as well.

There should always have been 3 bedrooms upstairs (all doubles). We didn’t take an existing bedroom and cut it in half - we put it back to the two double bedrooms it should
always have been.

I don’t get people who can’t understand floor plans!

It’s on for slightly less (about 10k less) than other houses the same size in the area have been. Most have converted half the garage into a bedroom, it seems to be the thing with these houses. It’s hard to find one where it hasn’t been converted to bedroom/extra reception room.

it’s not about recouping costs. We didn’t do it up to sell, we intended to stay here for years but then life threw a curveball.

It’s priced accordingly to other houses which have sold. They do take time to sell here. It’s not a desirable area that people flock into (although people are having to now as the better areas get too expensive), and locals are pretty much priced out so it takes time.

I’m just pissed off that the agents don’t seem to be doing anything to help sell it.

Viewers thought we bought it as a 4 bed. We bought it priced as a 2 bed. They hadn’t looked at the previous listings properly.

But they are telling you they don’t want to pay the price you are asking for it knowing it is a 4 bed.

No, they were annoyed that the price had gone up so much and wanted to know why! They thought I had bought it like this. That’s what they were pissed off about.

All it took was saying - did you not realise we bought it as a two bed for the penny to drop. The agent should have told them all that.

It’s priced slightly less than other practically identical
houses in the same area which have sold recently.

The only other feebqck we have had is that they didn’t have the funds, loved it and would like to make a offer but their house wasn’t even on the market yet, and a couple of people who weren’t able to get a mortgage.

This has been despite telling the agents we only wanted people who were ready to proceed to view (ill family member so it’s not easy getting the house ready and everyone out for viewings).

And the ones who readily admitted they were just curious really pissed me off.

If the house is overall still the same size and you have just added walls and lost the garage ? Why is it worth more ? I can definitely see why people would query that.
I think you might need to re price.

Everything has gone up here. It’s in line with all the other houses.

We haven’t lost the garage. There were two garages, all the houses have a double garage. One internal and one sticking out to the side. The internal one had already been partly, very badly converted. We still have the other garage (most houses here have converted the integral garage).

It was priced MUCH lower than comparable houses when we bought it three years ago as it was in such a bad state and needed a lot of work and it was sold as a 2 bed -after they sold it to us, they said the vendors were nuts, if they had put the wall back up for a few hundred quid and marketed as a 3 bed, it would have have gone on for more. I know the overall area is the same size - but it does make a difference to market it 2/3/4 bed.

Which is partly why it looks like such a huge leap in price. It was an absolute hole when we bought it, priced low to sell.

All the houses in the area have significantly risen in value over the last few years, partly due to a new tram into the city opening.

The two people who quieted it had a bee in their bonnet about prices in the area in general, but jumped on me as it was a big leap. Until I told them the reasons, which the estate agent should have done.

With kindness:

Also, they can see from the old photos they were waving in front of me that the house was a complete hole when we bought it, we spent 25k renovating it.

Now you said you're not looking to recoup the renovation costs and that's fair enough, but some renovations are worth far, far more than others. Lemme give you examples:

House 1: removed 50 year old carpets, bad wallpaper, kitchen, bathroom. Put in new bathroom, kitchen - bog standards types that everyone has.

House 2: replaced every single window with new double glazed, installed a combi boiler, new central heating system, ripped out old lead pipework for copper, kitchen not quite to my taste but functional, 1 bathroom good, 1 bathroom dated

No word of a lie, I was house hunting for 2 years solid until I recently found a house to purchase, and that was house 2.

House 1's cosmetic changes are worthless to me, because I don't want to rip out electrics and windows. In those 2 years of house hunting, I haven't seen a single property, including looking over 50% above my budget (which in itself is far from small in the areas we've looked at), where the decor is to my taste and I really like both kitchen and bathroom. Those things are extremely personal, and a lot of people simply replace them.

House 2 is more valuable to me because I really, really don't want the upheaval of ripping out wiring, boilers, windows, pipework. I want an easy life, thanks very much.

So, I have to ask, what exactly did you spend 25k on?

And, as the pp said, you haven't actually increased the floor space, you've jigged it around. In a stagnant or falling market, buyers don't look at whether the paintwork is fresh and everything is smart, they look at the price per square foot.

I still completely sympathise with your situation, but I wonder if the above might shed some light on the concept of what actually adds value to a house.

Your EA is dreadful and I would dump them. I would hunt out one who don't sell a single service to a buyer or seller: legal, broker, moving firms, EPCs, and purely focus on the agent who literally only sells houses, because in my experience, those are the ones who genuinely care about selling as it's their only income stream and they can't survive without it. The WORST agent I came across offered 16 different services in total and they couldn't give a shit about selling houses, because they make so much money elsewhere.

"Everything has gone up here. It’s in line with all the other houses."

If you right about that - you don't need to worry too much about what the agent does or doesnt explain, it will sell itself if it's priced right. Wishing you better luck with your next viewings.

We have only been on the market just over three weeks.

My issue is with the agents. We asked only to send people to view if they were in a position to proceed as we have some pretty horrible circumstances at the moment which makes it difficult to get everything tidy and everyone out of the house. So far, it’s mainly been people who aren’t in that position, or people who want it and then it’s turned out they can’t actually get a mortgage. Or want it, but they haven’t put their own house on the market.

I know houses here take a while to sell. locals can’t afford it, so you rely on people being priced out of other areas. It’s the messing around I can’t stand. I’d rather have no viewings until it’s someone who is ready to proceed if they want it.

The agent just says, “all we can do is ask, sometimes people aren’t truthful.” And they aren’t telling people information when asked. They don’t seem to give a shit.

So it’s really frustrating.

Most of the 25k was spent on making right work the previous owners had done.

The ones previous to them had put in new windows, boiler and rewired. The ones we bought off had pretty much wrecked the place with half done DIY, split up, left it as it was and sold it. But they still made a pretty good profit as over the last decade this area has risen in price massively.

I find almost all estate agents to be totally crap at their jobs. They can't spell, produce listings which are rubbish and hype up the wrong things, can't seem to put photos in any kind of order.

They send totally unsuitable listings to people whose requirements they are well aware of and badger them to view properties they're not at all interested in just to make it appear they're getting interest.

They seem to know very little about the properties they're selling and always have to "contact the vendor" for even the most basic info. They don't chase for feedback.

Basically every word that leaves their lips is bollocks and they have no interest at all in getting you the best price for your house, they just want it sold quickly.

I only wish rightmove allowed individuals to list as I would never again pay an EA a massive fee to do bugger all in order to sell my house again.

The agent just says, “all we can do is ask, sometimes people aren’t truthful.”

That's simply not true. They can ask to see an Agreement (/Decision) in Principle and proof of savings/deposit before they allow people to view.

They need to work better and stop sending you speculative gobshite.

I'm so sorry for your wasted time :(

when it comes to choosing an agent, I went on rightmove and found houses in my area then did recently sold or under offer and did a tally chart of which agents were getting sales and offers, then went with the one with the most.

Which is one way of doing it I suppose. But market share doesn't guarantee good customer service, sometimes the opposite.

Often a smaller outfit with fewer houses listed will be able to offer a more attentive and professional service.

I would never again pay an EA a massive fee to do bugger all in order to sell my house again

Part of the problem is that the fees aren't massive, compared to some other countries the fees are really quite low. Which leads to poor quality staff and service levels. Which then means people aren't prepared to pay much because the service is so dire. And the cycle continues.

It is the price. The agent has won your business by over valuing and is now sending over buyers they think have the budget for the more accurate price x

In America they charge 6% and have to be qualified, iirc.

I agree with this.
Yes redecorating and renovations are expensive and time consuming, but you are often doing it for your own personal needs/preferences/tastes.
That's why the DIY/carpet/kitchen showrooms do very well out of house selling/buying. We spend a fortune doing our places up, then the next buyer spends a fortune ripping it all out!
If you haven't added space in this kind of market then I unless I wanted exactly what you done I wouldn't want to pay a premium for it.
Hopefully a buyer will turn up for you soon.

I also wouldn't be doing viewings yourself either, that's the EAs job.
I've never needed to be 'sold' to.
Yes as a FTB I wanted to know council tax bands and lots of things that didn't really matter, but really as soon as I walk into a place I know if it's for me or not, I don't need someone else trying to guide/push me towards making an offer, I know what I want and I expect most buyers do.

You are getting viewings which would mean that the Rightmove advert is appealing and the price not too far off the mark which is a good sign.

Just remember that people quote moving home is one of the most stressful times of your life for reason.

I think it varies by region and market conditions but in my area it would be considered really rude for an estate agent to ask for personal financial information just to view, it would put people off massively. At offer stage fair enough, but asking the question for viewing sounds right but obviously does leave you vulnerable to dishonesty...part of the stressful experience really and (speaking from someone whos recently moved) it doesnt get any less stressful when you've agreed a sale!