Impatient or crap estate agents?

[Cornflakesandcoffee]

I'm a first time buyer with no experience buying a property so maybe this is the norm and I'm just being impatient...

I spotted a house on rightmove last Thursday and called the agent that day to see if it was still available/to arrange a viewing, no answer. I tried again Friday morning and was on hold for around 15 minutes. I had to go back to work so gave up and sent a message via rightmove instead. Heard nothing on Saturday or yesterday morning so I called again in the afternoon and finally got through to them.

Managed to book a viewing and they said they would send me the details via email but I've not received anything. I emailed them a few hours later asking them to double check my email address and send details again but I've not heard anything. I have the address, time, date etc so that's not an issue but I just want to make sure the viewing is definitely going ahead as I'll be pretty miffed if I drive all the way there and they don't show up.

Are they normally this disorganised/crap at communication? It's making me nervous about putting an offer in if I like the property!

There can be a delay in confirmation. If you haven't heard by the day of, l would call again.

I would say that’s about the level of service I would expect from maybe 30% of them. We looked for over 2 years so have been through a fair few.

The more extra services they offer sellers and buyers, the less they care about selling houses, from my experience. The very worst agent I ever came across who genuinely cbf beyond belief about selling us an house - any house - offered 15 other services other than just selling houses. They make so much money from kickbacks and other services elsewhere that they just don’t care.

Don’t ever, ever contact them through the rightmove email function or phone number. Always google them and call or email them directly. Rightmove gets so much traffic from people who aren’t really sure they want to move that agents, for the most part, completely ignore inquiries from that portal.

You will probably get an auto generated email 24 hours before the viewing that is a reminder. Expect it to say “we will see you there” even if the owner is showing you around!!

No, not the norm as I've bought and sold 3 places now. Agreed with pp to always contact direct but seems like even that was delayed? I would consider that maybe they already had a buyer lined up and weren't that interested in viewings. In this market, agents are desperate for viewings especially from someone who's chasing to do so.

I once had verbal communication from an agent for a property viewing but on the day, turns out the admin person who booked it hadn't actually told the seller it was happening - so she was hosting a party at that time!! They were a pretty terrible agency tbh and I was glad to not need to use them. But sometimes the agents do have a monopoly so if you like the house, it's the price you pay for dealing with them. Can't be avoided sadly.

Are they an online agency? A high street EA is not normally that bad in my experience but maybe I’ve been lucky!