Unable to view anything - is this how agents are now?

[HangerLaneGyratorySystem]

Last year I sold my home of 35 years, took 2 years and 4 agents, they were all as shady as each other. Anyway, now I am the buyer I thought it might be slightly easier - particularly as my agents always seemed to be working hard for the buyer not me! I have to travel for about an hour to get to the area I am looking in, but with nothing to sell and ready to go, I can't understand why agents are either unavailable, can't take a call or can't return a call. I wanted to see 4 houses this weekend so yesterday I tried to book the first 2, both said they'd get back to me, neither bothered - then I saw one of the houses was sold.

I've also enquired twice about houses that suddenly went under offer (in a completely different area), agent said they'd take my details and get back to me if the sale didn't proceed. Sales didn't proceed, they are still for sale, just went back on the market after a couple of weeks, still no call. I've also been through Yopa, you get a sort of call centre and then an emails saying "your request to view will be considered" they then email you tell you to register online and then you are given an appointment at their convenience.

Final example (for now), I had to ring a sort of switchboard agency, they said oh Ms X local agent will call you back. Course she didn't, so I emailed her and asked could I view at the weekend. Reply comes 4 days later "our client is not accepting viewings this week". No problem, I replied, how about next week. Silence. Its is now next week. Still silence.

It's Thursday tomorrow and I have nothing booked to view this weekend purely because agents will not book viewings. Is this what we are meant to expect now or is there something I am missing?

This is what it's like now. Or, it's certainly been my experience in the 3 years I've been trying to find a house to buy.

If they don't have anyone available to show you a house at the weekend, they won't tell you, they'll just not call back. Often.

If they know they have lots of bookings from actual locals, they'll only call you back if none of them are interested.

If the vendor hasn't given them any availability at all, they'll often just not tell you.

If they're short staffed and have no-one available for viewings, they won't tell you.

If you send a 'please let me know if this sale falls through' email, unless you actually viewed the property and seemed interested, they won't contact you if it does fall through.

Most of the agents in my area don't operate a pre-Rightmove mailing list of their own anymore.

Some of them do a 'sneak peek' video on Facebook. But in my experience, that's often the day it hits Righmove anyway.

They often won't tell you if there's a lot of interest and you need to get to the viewing more quickly than you've previously asked for these days, either. No 'I can book you in for Saturday but it will probably go this week.' I think I've had them say that once in three years.

EAs are massively understaffed these days, as far as I can see.

The only tip I can give you is to never, ever use the 'call agent' button next to a Rightmove advert. Always google the branch phone number and call them direct.

And for weekend viewings I tried my best to get them lined up on the Friday or Monday before the Saturday I wanted to view - but even then I had to threaten to pull out of all of them because by Thursday they'd only confirmed 1 out of 3 - and they knew I was doing a 5 hour round trip for them as well.

It seems to me that the only way to secure viewings on decent properties these days is to ask them when they want you to come and to make yourself available for them, even if it's at 2pm on a Tuesday.

I should just add, a lot of estate agents make a great deal of money through referring solicitors, EPC assessments, mortgage brokers, surveyors and the like these days. Some of the referral amounts they get can be shocking (one example I heard was half the conveyancing fee - but more often it's 150-200 for each type of referral, except EPCs). So, you have to ask yourself, how much do they actually care about selling houses when they're making so much money selling other things?

The best agent in my area ONLY sells houses. They don't refer anyone for anything, they won't even offer to get an EPC done for a seller.

So, I honed in on them for a while with pretty good success. They've certainly been the most pleasant to deal with, anyway.

Are you ringing the actual local estate agent branch directly, and are you telling them you are a cash buyer ready to proceed immediately?

Last time I moved this happened to me.

One agent in particular refused to book a viewing, said they were fully booked.

I asked if the seller knew he was refusing to let me see the property and the answer was that they were unavailable.

Seemed unlikely so I went to the house and knocked on the door. The owner couldn't believe it and explained he had just called the agent to ask why there were no viewings and the agent said there has been no interest yet.

Just lies around!

He showed me around the house quite happily.
I had a buyer and was in a rush to find something so it's not like I was just browsing.

Very poor behaviour.

The agent rang me weeks later to finally book a viewing and I told him I'd been already and bought somewhere else and how annoyed the seller was with their lies.

So if you know where the house is trying just going and knocking. It can't do any harm.

I was in pretty much exactly the same position as op earlier this year… and yes, I’d gone in person to the office and told them I was a cash buyer and serious about buying. A massive struggle to see properties.

I did finally have an offer accepted, but don’t get me started on how hard it was to arrange a builder to access the property when I needed a quote for work the survey brought up 🥴

I've just remembered 2022. My partner called an agency 4 days running and left voicemails every day wanting a Saturday viewing (this was an agent who always gets vendors to do viewings). Not once did they answer the phone nor return his calls. On the Thursday I suggested he phone head office and tell them we've been trying to get through to x branch since Monday. They were very apologetic and put him through on an internal line, which was answered straight away.

Ironically, their head office is who I'm buying a house through now. They always answer the phone immediately and they are the most efficient agent I've ever dealt with. They once confirmed a booking in 4 minutes! It's just their little village branch who were absolutely pants.

We got that Saturday viewing in the end! But it shouldn't have to take so much work.

That’s not been my experience but I do find some agents not at all proactive. I told one who I’d dealt with before that I had a bit of cash and wanted to invest in a decider upper. His response was ‘well you know where I am’! Like no biddy, you know where I am! I’ve just told you I’ve hit cash and want to spend it so I’d expect you to go through your list and pull out anything in my price range. Then get on the phone to your contacts and see if any are thinking of selling!
But mostly the agents have been professional and good. I’m about to fire one though - he’s given me no feedback at all and I was the one to suggest a price drop almost 10% of what he valued it at. A month had passed and I have no idea what’s going on. So I’m pulling out and signing with someone else.

Few people have any idea how bad EA's are. How many businesses are that incompetent that they only get paid for half of their work (only half of advertised homes actually sell)? EA's make more money managing rentals where the income stream is more reliable.

It wouldn't surprise me if new staff are put on sales first where there is far less money to be made and poor hiring can be identified and fixed. And then when any competence is demonstrated they are moved to the more profitable side of the business.

I think it’s not unusual for agents not to take any more viewings when they know they have offers in the background and one is likely to be accepted. Unfortunately I would say you were too late for those specific houses. The reality is that you are the one who have to chase them and call again and again, a lot of agents are just shit. But it’s in your interest to persist and not wait for them to call you back. If they say they will but don’t, don’t wait and call them again. Pestering is the approach that tends to work. Especially if it’s a fast moving market where you are.

Lots of agents have houses onRM that have already sold / are under offer. My flat sold and they had it on RM until we completed. They’re all awful.

we asked to see somewhere, had the viewing cancelled twice and now they’ve said they can’t even get the vendor to agree times. Ridiculous.

Some estate agents won’t even do weekend viewings at all. It’s expected we fit round them, as if it’s us doing them the favour.

My DS had this and he lived in the town. He did feel like knocking on the door, explaining, and agreeing a time with the owners to go back! Some of these houses he was walking past, or close to, twice a day on his way to work!

He was seriously looking for 6 months and not once in that time did an EA call him first. There was one occasion they recommended he looked at another one as well while in the area. And there was one occasion they rang him when he actually had his purchase going through (this was when there were rumours the market was going quiet).

It was dreadful service, generally.

What they were good at was pushing the process through. DS had two (as one fell through on survey) and both times they were pretty hot on keeping things on track. In fact, at one point, I had to advise him that the sales progressor should be backing off as she was entering into lawyer territory which wasn't her job - her job was simply being a poky stick not trying to give (very poor) legal advice.

God yes this is exactly our experience. The online estate agents have been complete bullshit (looking at you in particular, Yopa). If it wasn’t cutting my nose off to spite my face, I’d rule out any house sold with Yopa or Purple Bricks because they’ve been so shit to deal with so far.

We’ve had slightly better luck with local, physical estate agents whose offices you can call in to and wait for someone to speak to you, but even then one of them wasn’t at all bothered about trying to organise viewings. Took all our details, made all the right noises, never called us back.

Has it always been like this?

Estate agents can be truly awful. Last time we sold (2021), our buyer was repeatedly trying to get a viewing and in the end gave up and just knocked on our door. We showed him around. My estate agent had apparently filtered him out because when they asked if he had sold his own property, he answered no. I was shocked to hear they were filtering out viewings. Turns out he was a multimillionaire who didn’t need to sell anything and wanted to add our house to his collection. (Pretty period property in tourist location). He bought it without searches, surveys and with cash, and from viewing to completion took 5 weeks, we went into short term rental as we were relocating. He was a lovely courteous man too, absolute dream buyer! I did notice our estate agency shortly let our negotiator/manager go who was responsible for this, turns out even the estate agent owner, knew of our buyer as a local prominent businessman.

Problem is, I think some EA try to be too manipulative or play games with the individuals involved or the power of who gets a viewing goes to their head, especially when we were selling and it was a hot housing market.

We have been looking at houses recently. One of the houses we wanted to view has been up for sale since May 2024. I initially put in a request to view through Rightmove but had no reply so then I phoned up to speak to the estate agents. They said they would call me back with a time to view the property. Never heard back from them! Perhaps that is why it has been up for sale for over a year! We have gone on to buy the house opposite, which was up with a different estate agents who couldn't have been more helpful!

Bring on the robots I say

It does seem like it is difficult to get viewings except on a Saturday morning.

Thanks all, still no viewings lined up for Saturday.