Are all EA’s awful

[kirinm]

I’m so unbelievably sick of people who lie and are massively incompetent being heavily involved in one of the biggest purchases of your life

EA1: house we are officially ‘buying’ - can’t even get a basic question answered by the seller or their solicitor despite us being nearly 10 weeks into a fucking impossible purchase.

EA2: made an offer, she called broker to check we could borrow what we offered and then tried to find out if we could borrow more.

EA3: have been trying to arrange a viewing for over a week. We are excellent buyers due to being ready in our other purchase but willing to pull out if something else comes on. (EA doesn’t know we have had an offer accepted). Only responds by email every 24 hours to say oh no more viewing slots can you do X day only to then say, it’s pretty full up.

And you have zero option but to have to stay pleasant with these people. There are some agents we simply won’t deal with due to their conduct but when you’re as desperate as we are at the moment, you have to start considering compromising your morals. (There is one agent we absolutely won’t deal with as her overvaluing is nuts and she’s renowned for it where we are - she’s pure greed).

Sorry, just a rant. I’m so pissed off with this whole nightmare.

Yes because I sold my own bloody house 2 months ago. Jesus Christ. We aren’t viewing other houses for fun. We are viewing other houses because our purchase is on the verge of collapse.

Sorry but we would still be saying make an appointment once you have pulled out.

If you take the tone with estate agents that you have on this thread I am not surprised that they are not being very communicative with you. You seem to have turned the dial on aggression incredibly quickly. Is that just because this is an anonymous forum, or are you like this in real life?

You suggested I’m dicking somebody around when I’m not. Perhaps don’t accuse somebody of dicking people around. Asking for a viewing of a house you are potentially prepared to buy isn’t dicking anyone around.

Yup, same here over the past 30 years too, so nothing new.

First experienced it when we were trying to buy our first home. Did what everyone says we should and trawled around the agents giving them our details, price range, requirements, etc to be put on their "hot" lists as they were then called. Complete radio silence - not a single phone call nor leaflet in the post. We were looking ourselves every weekend, driving around the areas we wanted, trawling the estate agents, and often seeing properties come onto the market that fitted our requirements, but the agents didn't bother letting us know.

Then when we found a property we wanted, we asked a few pertinent questions to the agent, who simply didn't bother finding out the answers nor replying - simple questions that the vendor should have been able to answer via a phone call. Zilch, nothing. After 2 or 3 times of asking the agent, we just called round to the house on the off chance and knocked on their door one evening. Vendors very friendly and answered our questions no problem at all - said the agent hadn't contacted them!

More recently, with our son looking for flats to rent. Same poor service and attitude from the agents (several different agents). Not interested at all in helping. He put his details on all their websites hoping they'd contact him when something new came onto the market - again, zilch not a single one of them contacted him. He's on his second rental flat now. Both times, he's asked the agents entirely normal/simple questions that really should have been answered in the leaflet/brochure/advert, such as is it a washer/drier in the kitchen photo or just a washer, or as both flats were "unfurnished", just what was being included as some photos showed an otherwise empty flat, but with a wardrobe, whether curtains are included or not - pretty simple stuff, again, but the agents weren't remotely interested in asking the questions and telling our son. Last one, they advertised it as available for hyper fast internet, but when he made contact with the internet service provider, they said they'd have to lay the cabling for it, through the communal corridor, drill through the wall into the flat, drill through internal walls to lay the cable to the lounge area etc - son knew that such work would require approval from the landlord and the managing agent for the block, but it was like getting blood out of a stone to get the estate agent to even ask the question as to whether the LL and managing agents would allow it - it was a deal breaker - son couldn't take the flat without ultra fast broadband, but it took best part of a month of chasing the estate agent to get the yes/no.

Oh! Estate Agents. In my world an EA is an Executive Assistant (like a PA but to Directors) so I was going somewhere entirely else with this.

I like Executive Assistants better than Estate Agents on the whole.

No need to be personal. They are just people doing a job

I fancy a read, could I have a link to the other threads?

Could have written most of your OP when we were buying in 2013.

Awful experience with EAs. They'd cram multiple viewings into an "open day" to make it look like there was more interest in the property. Was in one viewing with about 6 other parties. EA rep couldn't answer basic questions like was the owner in a care home or was it an inherited property etc.

Most invent fake interest and bids then go to closing date a week after the house was first put up. We were told the property had many notes of interest but we ended up being 1 of 2 bidders in the end.

During viewings one agent on a property that had been on the market for a year actually looked at their clipboard and said "oh we have another viewing later, the Smiths". I struggled not to laugh.

We ended up stretching our budget to what could be (and probably will be) our forever home. I'm just so glad I never need to deal with EAs ever again.

And don't get me started on their valuation process.

Basically tell an owner whatever fanciful price you think they want to hear and talk about high demand in the area just to get the contract.

Then tell them after a few days on the market to lower their price to sell faster.

This has happened to people I know.

I get endlessly frustrated too, but then I remind myself that they just don't get paid enough to care.

e.g.

(ONS)

£37,430
Median gross annual earnings for full-time employees were £37,430 in April 2024, compared with £35,004 in April 2023, an increase of 6.9%.

Estate Agent Branch Manager- job post
Holbrook & Co Hartlepool
Hartlepool TS24 7SE
£28,000 - £32,000 a year - Full-time

Apprentice Estate Agent - Your Move- job post
Your Move Estate Agents
Wallsend NE28 8PA
£7.55 an hour - Full-time, Apprenticeship

Estate Agent Sales Negotiator- job post
Kent Estate Agencies
Tankerton
£26,000 - £28,000 a year - Full-time

Can you explain how I’ve been aggressive? On the other threads.

I’ve sold my house as in sold, completed, don’t live there anymore.

I was told by someone fairly recently that some EA’s have a base salary of £50k. This is London so could be either true or just made up!

YANBU. I've bought five houses and have been lied to by each and every EA. The first house, the EA said there was someone else interested and kept asking us to up our offer. Eventually the seller went with us. But the seller was someone who I knew slightly (worked in the same company, different department) and when I asked her after we'd been accepted, she said there was only us - no one else interested. They hadn't told her about our original two offers.

Similar situation with our current house which had been on the market for two years. On the day we made an offer they supposedly had a higher offer from someone else. Quel coincidence!

Also with this house the conveyancer was bloody useless. He told us about a rights of way issue but didn't follow it up so I did my own research and even tracked down the original builder and phoned him to get the info. The conveyancer eventually admitted he'd got it wrong. We all make mistakes but this should have been fundamental knowledge for someone in his profession but his lack of interest meant he'd overlooked it.

It is so infuriating! We are now in a rental using the letting agent side of the EA. The windows don’t open in the house. Told the agent, no action taken.

LL promised to remove furniture, he didn’t. Agent doesn’t care.

Even the seemingly nice ones are slimy gits. That's my experience.
But DD has a lovely friend who is an EA. I hope she's not a liar at work.

Oh, I doubt that very much. Perhaps the kind who sell £10m + houses, maybe?

Ah, you're the lady with the non-opening window saga. I remember now.

Re: furniture, my LL said she'd remove any furniture I wanted when we viewed, so I got it written into the contract, and she's kept to her word.

Rental EAs are a law unto themselves. Our current one wanted me to review the contract for the first time on the day we were due to move. Err, over my dead body.

You're overdue some good luck some time soon. Keeping everything crossed for you.

We have an estate agent that does that in our area. Trouble is they've been doing it for so long now that everyone knows how they operate and barely anyone will use them anymore.

@KievLoverTwo

I get endlessly frustrated too, but then I remind myself that they just don't get paid enough to care.

In our case, one of the EAs was the owner, not an underpaid staff member, so you really can't blame low wages etc all the time.