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.

You seem hugely irate and not in the right head space to sell. Short tempered and intolerant. Is there something else going on with you or do you usually behave like this.

yoru agent is sending viewers your way, someone may like it and be soon enough able to proceed. If you only have those proceedable they likely habe already found someplace.

So calm down and try to have some patience.

Apologies to any estate agents, I know there are some good ones. But let's face it, as a career it doesn't attract the brightest and best does it..

The whole system is infuriating, you have my sympathy op, and I wish you luck and a smooth move when it comes.

Agents don’t really ‘sell’ a house. Buyers tend to know what’s a good house for the price in an area. Agents are there to answer queries and move the process along. If people are looking they prob have in the region of the money you want but feel it’s more than they want to spend or think they can get more elsewhere.

Apologies to any estate agents, I know there are some good ones. But let's face it, as a career it doesn't attract the brightest and best does it..

As I hinted further up, part of the problem is the fees really are quite low, compared to established property markets in comparable countries. As such salaries for entry level staff are not attractive. Which is never going to attract the best and the brightest. It's a self-perpetuating problem.

There should be formal qualifications that are mandatory. The regulations that exist should be effectively enforced. (Contrary to popular belief the industry is covered by quite a lot of regulation, it is just not effectively applied) And fees probably need to rise.

None of which is likely to happen any time soon.

@Mildura what qualifications do you think they need?
Unless you think conveyancing should be done as part of the EA package? Or acting as FAs? Or surveyors? Energy performance/assessors?
But as the role currently is I'm not sure which/what qualifications would add value for clients?

They've all got a qualification in bullshit, that's for sure 😂

But good customer service is likely to be reflected in sales… we actually used a local independent that had less houses on their books but sold them, rather than the big chain that had lots for sale with few sales. Poor customer service is likely to show in poor sales figures.

Your EA sounds rubbish @Wellthisisshitty2 I would give them notice as soon as you can as per the contract.

It’s true I have never been asked to “prove” my financial situation before a viewing. That is talked about on Mumsnet a lot but I’ve never experienced it personally and have moved house in several different areas. The EAs I have encountered have seemed to take things on trust - after all they don’t want to put too many barriers in place of people booking viewings and some people are very private about their finances. Also, a viewer might not know they can’t get a mortgage for a high enough amount until they actually make a mortgage application for a particular house. Decisions in principle are a useful guide but not as thorough as a full mortgage application.

BUT the EAs could & should at least be filtering out the people whose own house isn’t even on the market yet. That is a question they could ask and it seems a strange thing to lie about when the same viewers are sharing the information with you that their own property is not yet even on the market.

You say that the fees are low, but the solicitor doing all the legal work, gets paid a lot less than the Estate Agent and yet they have to have legally qualified people, at least supervising unqualified staff.

I recently sold my late mother's house. I paid the Estate Agent £4344 and the solicitor (a fully qualified solicitor and partner) £1385.

In my view, the Estate Agent was paid far too much for too little. They advertised the property, got viewers in and got some offers, all within a couple of weeks of marketing. After that, my solicitor and I basically kept them up to date with progress, until exchange and completion.

On the other hand, the solicitors took care of all the legal aspects of the transfer, which is of far more importance to me as a seller and the buyer's solicitor wanting a good and marketable title, than the 'sales' techniques of an agent.

Personally, if the Estate Agent were to obtain further qualifications, like they do in America, they would need to be a lot more knowledgeable and take on a much bigger role than they do at present.

I think something to remember though is that the solicitor always gets paid for the work they have done. Whereas the EA doesn’t get paid for a lot of the work they do because sales collapse and most work on the basis of no sale, no fee.

This helps to explain why EAs fees can seem high for what they have done if a sale goes through and is fairly straightforward.

Just about to post more or less this.

EAs work on a 'no-sale, no fee' basis. As such, for those properties that don't sell, or where a vendor withdraws, or whatever reason it doesn't go through, those costs still need to be covered by the sales that do go through. Makes it seem like fees are high when you're just looking at one individual transaction.

Yup ... and even when a sale does go through it can be the result of months of work done prior to even agreeing the sale.

When we sold my Dad's flat the EA did 30 viewings on it before a price could be agreed. That's a lot of hours so whereas their commission seemed high at first, by the time we came to pay it on completion, we actually felt they had earned it.

I've sold 8 homes over the years. If a house isn't selling it is because of price or condition. There is nothing else. Just price or condition. Up to you to figure which it is.

Or up to the estate agent to advise and earn their commission perhaps?

I don't really understand peoples argument... I looked at houses based on number of room not floor size.

We need 4 bedroom so looked for 4 bedroom, we wouldn't have even considered a 2 bed regardless of if its 'the same size' because who searches by size.

There are houses on my street the exact same size as our current house that we are moving from (terraces originally built identical) but worth more because they have been rejigged to give an extra room (PITA though as it means moving the stairs). Because a 4 bed (especially post covid with more people needing an office for homeworking) is far more useful to big families than a 3 bed with 1 very long room.

We ended up getting a 3 bed and are splitting the large room into two but frankly it would be so much easier if it had already been done and definitely would have been a HUGE selling point.

I think increasingly people are looking at square footage though. Nearly all property details now include the square footage which people use to decipher how big the property really is, as photos can be misleading.

If the sale doesn't go through, the vast majority of solicitors don't get paid either. A lot of the cheaper conveyancing companies have a no completion no fee contract. While some solicitors do expect clients to pay them for the work done so far, that is often not the case, especially where the transaction has failed due to another party.

It's not the case that the vast majority of solicitors work on a no completion no fee contract. Most don't whereas most EA do.

It is the case Twiglets. Do you work in a conveyancing firm?

I don't need to.

But I won't debate this with you any more, other people who read the thread will know the truth of it that most solicitors still present a bill if the deal falls through.

Whereas most EAs don't, unless you've gone through an online EA like purple bricks.

You might not need to but you are dishing out advice on lots of threads as if you do.

They do?

I remember looking at about 10 from as low as £900 all the way up to £1800 (two years ago) and I didn't see that mentioned, not even once.

My house that I'm buying is listed as a slightly different square footage on every website Ive looked at... its also obvious that this refers to the main block building and non of them take into account the extensions.

I seriously wouldn't trust sqft/sqm listed on an EA advert.

I find looking at the square footage as listed on the EA details more useful than looking at the photos to get an idea of the size of the property.

Though I do agree that square footage can be slightly different on different agents websites as they may measure the space differently. So as with everything to do with EAs, take it with a pinch of salt.

@Wellthisisshitty2 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.

😲😲😲 What did you say to them?!?! The bloody cheek