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Original poster

Estate agents

13 replies

SilverDoublet · 03/11/2025 23:34

Our house has been on the market since the last weekend of August/first week of September. 8 or 9 viewings later and there are still no offers on it despite the agent we went with telling us they had loads of interested potential buyers and cash buyers before we chose to go with them. They had just sold 2 very similar houses on our road for record prices in July and ours is listed at least 200k less than what they went for. I have been hearing nothing from the agent after each Saturday viewing, I'm trying not to pester them but I thought they would at least have the courtesy to let me know how many parties view it each week, and if any seem interested.

Instead by Wednesday or Thursday each week, I'm the one calling them, and being hung up on. Then they just leave a voice note to let me know the time of the viewing the following Saturday. Is this normal estate agent behaviour or should I change agent? Is it just a bad time of year to be selling? When I finally got feedback it seems it's only 1 or 2 parties viewing it each week despite it being on open view. Where am I going wrong? I'm getting pretty fed up as we are still living here and I spend about 5 hours cleaning and tidying before a viewing, so the house is immaculate.

OP posts:
SheilaFentiman · 03/11/2025 23:49

lots of people are waiting for the budget so that may have an impact

mondaytosunday · 04/11/2025 00:51

What do you mean you are ‘being hung up on’? If an agent hung up on me then a call to their manager would be my next step!
The market is very slow at the moment - sure property is selling but unless you are in a hot pocket two months in the market isn’t long. If you want feedback tell them. I find feedback is fairly useless though. One couple may not like that the garden faces north, another thinks the third bedroom is too small. Nothing you can do about that. Also the market does die down naturally in November/December than picks up in January.

avignon1234 · 04/11/2025 01:51

Change estate agents, but first check what the deal was (i.e. so you do not incur charges). I had a flat that I wanted to sell, and was surprised when the valuer / estate agent told me I could easily get £140k plus, had a list of buyers/ seachers on tap for this sort of price. Also tempted into an auction at a much higher commission for a quick sale. He didn't even really look at the flat properly. I was thinking £125k was the market value having done my research, and had my doubts about the £140k. We then got a ridiculous amount of time wasters around the £90k mark. We never heard from him again, we were phoned continually from some call centre staff who were not communicating with each other, and were not even sure what property we were talking about, or any offers. Beyond dreadful experience. Eventually it did sell for £120k, which was probably lowish, but we were SO sick, we accepted it. We were particularly annoyed about the auction aspect, we were told that if it went to auction, they would have to complete within X days...they didn't, it took months and months, delays, promises, it was simply a normal sale. It felt like the estate agent was actually working for the buyer, not the seller and an "auction was not an auction". We had to pay double the commisson due to it being an auction, and even then, they got the sale price wrong, and their commission, so we had a buggers muddle to sort. I would strongly advise getting someone you trust, a smaller outfit is sometimes better, with an agent you can trust is working for you.

XVGN · 04/11/2025 07:41

Give them notice to quit at the end of your contract. Make sure you know when that is.

Next time, interview the EA's and make sure that you agree a service level agreement with them first about how often they'll keep you updated and examples from previous clients. Do not sign a contract for more than. 8 weeks, Expect to pay more than the cheapest commission to get good service. Make sure that they have a formal sales progression model once you get an offer. Finally, ask to see their TwentyEA stats to demonstrate how well they perform versus their competition.

Good luck.

housethatbuiltme · 04/11/2025 10:27

Sellers are obsessed with pestering EA to harass viewers.

Look if they didn't make an offer that IS the feedback on how interested they were. EA phoning up and interrogating them will not make them think 'ah yes, I really like that one and just forgot to make an offer'.

Viewer contact EA not the other way around, EA list your house to a pool of buyers, organize viewing, do basic fund checks, offer advice on offers and send the memorandum... they do not exist to force customers to do surveys, thats not actually any part of their job and does not help sell houses.

Feedback is useless too as viewers will avoid it or lie, most will not want to slag your house off, any issues likely are either obvious (say if you live in a filthy smoke/wet dog stinky hoarded house etc...) or cant easily be changed (distance to important things, layout issues, parking issues etc...). Often there isn't even a real reason other than it just 'wasn't right for them' or they 'didn't love it'.

columnatedruinsdomino · 04/11/2025 10:49

As viewers we thought it was really bad service if we weren't contacted by the EAs for a follow up opinion. I expected a follow up from our EAs on all viewings when we were selling as well. They get paid enough!

columnatedruinsdomino · 04/11/2025 10:51

Plus it's not 'interrogating' by the EA it's asking eg whether the viewers are considering an offer, if the property was in the ball park of what they were looking for, all sorts of things.

columnatedruinsdomino · 04/11/2025 10:53

Op, you say yours is 200k less than similar houses, I wonder if viewers think there's something wrong as that's a big price difference.

Original poster
SilverDoublet · 04/11/2025 11:25

columnatedruinsdomino · 04/11/2025 10:53

Op, you say yours is 200k less than similar houses, I wonder if viewers think there's something wrong as that's a big price difference.

No, it is listed at 60k less asking price than the other 2 houses were listed. The other 2 houses have South facing gardens, ours is north facing. The other 2 houses went for 150 - 230k over asking....

OP posts:
suburburban · 04/11/2025 11:30

I think this budget is having a bearing on the property market

GasPanic · 04/11/2025 11:41

Some estate agents will tell you any old rot to get your business. They will overvalue the house, tell you that they are going to spark a bidding war, that they have a pool of buyers ready to go, that they sold the most houses in the area over the past 6 months etc etc.

The bottom line is that if your house is on RM and represents value in the current market someone will be interested, irrespective of whether the agent is the most wonderful person in the world or not.

Personally I would always want a relatively short contract with an agent, because then if they turn out to be annoying you can switch to someone else in a relatively short time period. Not that switching probably makes that much difference.

rainingsnoring · 04/11/2025 21:08

Are they really hanging up on you? Why don't you complain if that is the case? That's terrible.
I think you need to give them notice and interview some other agents.
I wonder whether your market has changed since July though. There is a poster on here who lives in SE London and was talking about houses flying in her market and prices rising rapidly when nearly everyone else was saying the opposite. She commented recently that it has changed in the last couple of months. I think the budget and perilous state of the economy has people worried now.
Either way, sack the agents, find a good new one and make sure you price realistically for the current market, not the one from July.

KeepPumping · 05/11/2025 11:35

housethatbuiltme · 04/11/2025 10:27

Sellers are obsessed with pestering EA to harass viewers.

Look if they didn't make an offer that IS the feedback on how interested they were. EA phoning up and interrogating them will not make them think 'ah yes, I really like that one and just forgot to make an offer'.

Viewer contact EA not the other way around, EA list your house to a pool of buyers, organize viewing, do basic fund checks, offer advice on offers and send the memorandum... they do not exist to force customers to do surveys, thats not actually any part of their job and does not help sell houses.

Feedback is useless too as viewers will avoid it or lie, most will not want to slag your house off, any issues likely are either obvious (say if you live in a filthy smoke/wet dog stinky hoarded house etc...) or cant easily be changed (distance to important things, layout issues, parking issues etc...). Often there isn't even a real reason other than it just 'wasn't right for them' or they 'didn't love it'.

Edited

"if they didn't make an offer that IS the feedback on how interested they were."

Exactly, potential buyers don"t owe anyone feedback, price to sell and there will be actual offers.

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