What do you think of estate agents... honestly?

The Good Agent

Hi all,

We're conducting a super quick survey via our Facebook page asking what people really think of estate agents. There's only one question. It would be great to get your honest opinion.

<snip>

Once we get the results, we're going to create a word map. There are some "colourful" responses so far!

All the best,
Barry

Victor

Can you clarify who "we" are?

Why is this done via an app?

Can you contact me please to discuss this?

bath handle

If there is one thing worse than estate agents it is idiots pretending to be estate agents.

The Good Agent

Fair comment. I got in a bit of trouble, and snipped, for not disclosing who "we" are so, just for posterity, we are an estate agent called The Good Agent and we are trying to get a sense of the public view of estate agents. Not surprisingly, it isn't great!

We thought it might be interesting to create an infographic of the words used to describe estate agents.

No spamming was intended.

Regards,
Barry

Victor

bath handle wrote: »

If there is one thing worse than estate agents it is idiots pretending to be estate agents.

Behave.

Oh, and what your job title / industry.

dory

The Good Agent wrote: »

Fair comment. I got in a bit of trouble, and snipped, for not disclosing who "we" are so, just for posterity, we are an estate agent called The Good Agent and we are trying to get a sense of the public view of estate agents. Not surprisingly, it isn't great!

Well let us tell you right here then if we can't on your poll.

I believe EA, in general, are a bit dim. They don't see the change in Ireland as fast as other people, or more likely, they go along with the pretense in a bid to fool people. The are incapable of taking decent photos, writing proper descriptions or using spell check. They have the vocabulary of a 12 year old.

They are seen in the same light as used car salesmen were back in the day.

Blackjack

dory wrote: »

Well let us tell you right here then if we can't on your poll.

I believe EA, in general, are a bit dim. They don't see the change in Ireland as fast as other people, or more likely, they go along with the pretense in a bid to fool people. The are incapable of taking decent photos, writing proper descriptions or using spell check. They have the vocabulary of a 12 year old.

They are seen in the same light as used car salesmen were back in the day.

Thats not entirely fair. Their Job is to get the best price for the Vendor - however, I do think there is an element of delusion on behalf of a number of vendors - the agents should really be telling them what things are really worth, rather than letting them stick it on the market for 20% more than it's ever going to sell for.
All that does for a number of places is they chase the market down.

Chinafoot

A friend recently told me that the estate agent that is handling the sale of her house declined to take photographs of the bathroom, the smaller double bedroom and the box room. The reason given was "they look too small in the pictures so there's no point.

I, and most people I know, will not waste my time with a property that doesn't have a picture of a bathroom. It reeks of "we have something to hide" and it's also bloody lazy.

Oh and when advertising on Daft, don't just put up a picture of your company logo. Very, very annoying.

amdublin

Some are good. Some are bad.

Danbo!

I've only dealt with them a bit, involved maybe 7 or 8 rental viewings in march last year and the same the year before that.

My general opinion with the ones I have dealt with was that they really didn't know what they were talking about. They'd say yes if they were unsure. One even gave out hell to me on the phone for being 5 minutes late to a viewing and when we did arrive, he ran us around the house and then said he had to go, no time for questions. If the landlord knew I'd say they wouldn't be impressed. On most other occasions they were late (very late) without apology.

I've also been keeping an eye on the sales market with a view to buying in a couple of years and have some pet peeves about ads on daft etc.. Fair enough if its a rental don't go mad with pictures, that's understandable, but a PROFESSIONAL try to SELL a house without pictures is a joke. There are a lot of ads with no pics at all, very poor quality pixelated images, a house with 8 external photos and one internal picture of something irrelavant such as a shower head or banisters, photos taken with wide angle lenses with so much distortion its obvious they are hiding a tiny room, photos of the EAs logo, etc.. etc..

If you want to sell a house you need approx 15-20 decent photos, and a plan of upstairs and downstairs. It makes things so much easier and doesn't waste anybody's time.

bizzo

Rung an estate agent in cork about a house that i was interested. Left an email the same day. The guy rung me last wednesday. Three and a half months after my enquiry.

I lost my job after xmas so really it was a blessing.

Still though.. what a douche

Johnny Bitte

Dealt with a few while buying a house.
1 guy was so sure we were buying it was really ignorant. Even tried to convince my Da they knew each other.
The one we did buy from seemed ok but when we finally got the contracts signed was away on holidays and no one knew where the key to the house was!?!?

Tried to sell recently and the EA came took the worst pictures possible and wrote a descriptions similar to" its a house on a street it has windows"

Will be renting now and wont even bother with an EA.

From what I can see lazy is a word for a lot of them.

myflipflops

Here's a prime example of some shockingly lazt work from an Estate Agent:

http://www.daft.ie/searchsale.daft?id=576124

A 210k apartment for sale.

Number of pictures of the actual apartment: 0

In my opinion, this also means 0 reasons for a potential buyer who sees this ad to make any further inquiries.

Not exactly working overtime for the seller in this instance.

The Good Agent

Thank you all for your comments. It seems this infographic that we'll be making will be heavy on one side.

If you do want to throw a one or two word answer into the below poll (there's only one question), that would be great.

http://polldaddy.com/s/3E18B1BE21EB5C25

You don't need to give any personal details and you shouldn't be faced with any intrusive advertising.

In case the earlier post was missed, for full disclosure, I work for an estate agent and this is just a really quick bit of market research.

All the best,
Barry

Zamboni

:pac:
'The Good Agent'.
Sound like 'The Honest Politician'.

I have no doubt there are still honest professional reputable estate agents but they are clearly an endangered species.
The boom period gave your industry a unique chance to become incredibly inneffective as sales were effortless.
Your industry grabbed that oppurtunity with both hands.

arybvtcw0eolkf

Zamboni wrote: »

:pac:
'The Good Agent'.
Sound like 'The Honest Politician'.

The poster 'The Good Agent' gave me good advice on a degree my son is taking, 'Property Economics' - it was appreciated at the time and has been spot on to date & has given my son confidence in his degree..

Just thought I'd add that.

Kosseegan

Is the o/p the same "Good Agent" who was in the newspapers recently setting up a new Estate Agency?

lainey316

Today Lowe have listed all their properties for sale via Rathmines office as being actually located in Rathmines (ignoring the fact that the property is actually in Drimnagh or Inchicore or whatever). That's slightly over the stupidity level I expect from an agent when listing. Slightly.

mikemac

Went to a viewing once and the agent showed up without the keys and gave me five minutes of various excuses.
So that was a wasted trip for me after rushing from work and paying for a taxi

Arranged another viewing the next night and the agent came out especially to let me view the place. He had drive pretty much across the city to get there

I never showed up, yeah it was childish but I don't regret it. He learned a lesson

So good agent, don't forget the keys

dory

In Cork, one neighbourhood has completely disappeared thanks to EAs. Anything on the west of that neighbourhood takes the name of the 'burb nearest to the west etc.
Bizarre behaviour. I always wonder what actually happens when people move into these places and the postpeople don't recognise their address.

iguana

I thought about buying a house in Ireland during the boom and the behaviour of the EAs was outrageous. Every viewing had to be an open viewing, if you couldn't make it then tough. When we put a bid on a house nobody ever bothered getting back to us, we had to call them a few days later to be told that we'd been outbid. That kind of lack of professionalism was bad enough back then, they were being lazy because they could be. But from anyone I know who is looking at houses now, they are still being treated in the same way.

When I looked at houses in London there was one agency which had most of the best properties on their books. I called to arrange a viewing and the agent had me meet him at his office, had a chat with me about what I was looking for and then drove me around the whole area showing me each house that might meet my needs. After that, they called me to tell me about any house I might like and made appointments that suited me. I never, ever once went to a viewing with another prospective buyer in attendance. (That's true for each agency I dealt with.)

When I sold my house, just as London prices were starting to fall I used the agent I bought through. The reason was because partly because he was helpful when we bought and partly because he was up front that house prices were no longer rising and that we would have to have a realistic approach. He said his agency wasn't interested in wasting their time asking for unachievable prices, as that wasted their time, the vendors time and annoyed the buyers. He pointed out that the two similar houses on the market were overpriced, suggested we go in lower, took photos of every room, sometimes several for different angles. We had 19 viewings in 2 and a half weeks and then went sale agreed for exactly what he'd guessed we would.

The reason why they did so well was because they treated the buyers like valued customers. Each agent was basically assigned a buyer and it was their job to get that buyer to buy as they would get a portion of the commission when the buyer bought no matter what house on their books they purchased. (It seems to be the opposite way in Ireland?) Here the attitude is that the vendor is the customer and the buyer is scum. But the fact is the agent is a sales person, they might work for the vendor but the buyer is the customer. In a boutique the sales assistant works for the store owner not the customer but a salesperson who had that attitude wouldn't sell a pair of tights, never mind a whole outfit with a hat and bag, which is surely their goal.

The Good Agent

Hi all,

I just want to say a big thanks for the feedback... and to say that this comment made me chuckle:

'The Good Agent'.
Sound like 'The Honest Politician'.

Also,

Is the o/p the same "Good Agent" who was in the newspapers recently setting up a new Estate Agency?

We have been in a couple of papers, it's good to know that people are reading the articles.

Just to give you an update on the survey (145 respondents so far), the most frequent positive description of estate agents (yes, there were a few positive replies) is "knowledgeable" and the most frequent negative description is "liars".

The question is: did the people who described them as liars just see through what the others thought was knowledge? I found this quite interesting.

The survey will be open until the end of the month at http://polldaddy.com/s/3E18B1BE21EB5C25 if you would like to have your say.

I've said it before, but just in case someone missed it: I do work for an estate agent and we are doing a bit of market research.

Thanks again,
Barry

Spiritofthekop

I've recently started looking at houses just to get a feel of whats out there with little intention to buy for a while as houses are due to continue dropping and to be really honest most of the EA have come across like complete idiots without a clue bar maybe one lad who was very professional out of 7 so far.

When you turn up you could nearly say that they look like the have just come from the toilet in the house after relieving themselves of something. Shoddy looking suits, hungover faces and not a clue about the house.

Most of who I've meet so far are very unlikable types of people if I'm being honest with zero professionalism.

Do you need any qualifications to be an EA?

amdublin

Danbo! wrote: »

, a house with 8 external photos and one internal picture of something irrelavant such as a shower head or banisters, photos taken with wide angle lenses with so much distortion its obvious they are hiding a tiny room, photos of the EAs logo, etc.. etc..

If you want to sell a house you need approx 15-20 decent photos, and a plan of upstairs and downstairs. It makes things so much easier and doesn't waste anybody's time.

I love when they have a picture of the downstairs loo or the en-suite and the pic is literally a pic of a toilet