Auctioneers not being ar*ed?!

skeptik

Is it just me or are the auctioneers in this country gettin fierce lazy? I want to view 3 houses for sale this week and when I rang the auctioneers yesterday to arrange the viewings I was told someone would have to ring me back. I got no call today so I rang them and yer one on the phone sounded pissed that she had to do her job. I wouldv'e thought with the way things are that they'd be jumpin at the chance of a possible sale, clearly I was mistaken! Oh and this has happened with other auctioneers too btw

Bullseye1

They had it too easy in the good times. Now they actually have to make an effort to sell a house.

Penn

I'd say it's that they've let so many employees go and houses being harder to sell meaning that they are more thinly stretched, rather than being lazy

marketty

Its amazing really, even looking on daft (I'm not buying right now but just keeping an eye on things) the amount of ads that are up for a year or more, often very wishfully priced and with only one or two crappy pics of the outside of the property. Pure laziness, not many people going to be interested in arranging a viewing if they have no idea of the condition of the interior, ten minutes work to take a few pics could make all the difference in getting viewers

skeptik

Penn wrote: »

I'd say it's that they've let so many employees go and houses being harder to sell meaning that they are more thinly stretched, rather than being lazy

I would have said that was a possibility except for the tone of her voice and the little sigh I heard over the phone. This woman was annoyed she had to do some work.

mikemac1

Went to view a place in Killester in Dublin, agent arrived half an hour late, ok that's forgivable as he told me he had to drive from Stillorgan in Dublin and it was the evening rush

Only he forgot the keys so we could not get in :rolleyes:


No bother, told I'll meet him the next evening and he'll drive across the city and be there on time
And then I turned off my mobile and never showed up that evening. He wasted my time so I wasted his, a lesson was learned

If the agent messes up around OP and you lose interest in the house then you mess then around

Maybe I'm just childish

ejmaztec

If there's a mortgage application involved, they probably assume that the one needing the mortgage isn't going to get one, so give it up as a bad job and go back to surfing the net.

slimpickens

Or maybe your are just a bit of a dick mikemac1

Seems to me that the lad was willing to meet you outside normal office hours to facilitate a viewing on the opposite side of the city.

He made a stupid genuine mistake in forgetting the keys.

So you maliciously make him drive through rush hour traffic again the next evening.

skeptik

mikemac1 wrote: »

Went to view a place in Killester in Dublin, agent arrived half an hour late, ok that's forgivable as he told me he had to drive from Stillorgan in Dublin and it was the evening rush

Only he forgot the keys so we could not get in :rolleyes:


No bother, told I'll meet him the next evening and he'll drive across the city and be there on time
And then I turned off my mobile and never showed up that evening. He wasted my time so I wasted his, a lesson was learned

If the agent messes up around OP and you lose interest in the house then you mess then around

Maybe I'm just childish

I would say you were dead right and only for the fact that these fools are the only auctioneers selling 2 of the 3 houses I want to see I would have been going elsewhere also and leaving them hanging.

skeptik

ejmaztec wrote: »

If there's a mortgage application involved, they probably assume that the one needing the mortgage isn't going to get one, so give it up as a bad job and go back to surfing the net.

That is a very big, and very very wrong presumption to make and one that could cost them money.

NakedNNettles

mikemac1 wrote: »

Went to view a place in Killester in Dublin, agent arrived half an hour late, ok that's forgivable as he told me he had to drive from Stillorgan in Dublin and it was the evening rush

Only he forgot the keys so we could not get in :rolleyes:


No bother, told I'll meet him the next evening and he'll drive across the city and be there on time
And then I turned off my mobile and never showed up that evening. He wasted my time so I wasted his, a lesson was learned

If the agent messes up around OP and you lose interest in the house then you mess then around

Maybe I'm just childish

Auctioner is probably sticking your number in the public jax as we speak.

......blowjobs available 5p, ring me!

Maybe i'm just childish.

mikemac1

mikemac1 wrote: »

Went to view a place in Killester in Dublin, agent arrived half an hour late, ok that's forgivable as he told me he had to drive from Stillorgan in Dublin and it was the evening rush

Only he forgot the keys so we could not get in :rolleyes:


No bother, told I'll meet him the next evening and he'll drive across the city and be there on time
And then I turned off my mobile and never showed up that evening. He wasted my time so I wasted his, a lesson was learned

If the agent messes up around OP and you lose interest in the house then you mess then around

Maybe I'm just childish

what a shít thing to do to someone

geeky

My wife and I have rented three houses in the last 4 years. With a couple of very notable exceptions, I've found estate agents to be badly organised, barely motivated, unable to respond to people in a reasonable timeframe, very sketchy about organising viewings and often incompetent.

I do think it's a hangover from years of having everything easy. One chap in particular was a testament to nepotism (son of the founder).
He tried to push back the move-in date at short notice because of an undefined issue that had come up. Then, all of a sudden, he was able to facilitate it. On the big day, he told us it was lucky for us about that Icelandic volcano blowing (it was around that time) because it meant he had to cancel a golf holiday.
More serious, though, was the fact that they didn't pass on the proper readings of the meters from the ESB when we moved in. This meant that, when a meter reading was actually carried out, we got hit with a bill of over €900. That one took well over a month to sort out.
Those are just the highlights - I've left out the fact that the garden was an absolute state when we moved in, the broken master bedroom window and the pile of rubbish behind the shed (again, he repeatedly promised to get these sorted out). It's not like we weren't paying buttons either - 1,100 for a D12 semi-d.
Then, when we said we were moving, he didn't appear to get that we'd signed a lease for 12 months (as distinct from 12 1/2). Just an absolute and utter numpty.

Next time, I rented directly from an owner-occupier who was moving out. Couldn't have gone smoother. About a month after I moved in, I was walking home when he sees me from his car. He swings in for a chat (could have hit me with his beemer) and stops for a nice chat. I was too taken aback to be anything but polite.

So yeah, estate agents - I'm not a fan.

donalg1

Not a fan of them either, heard of one couple putting their house up for sale with an estate agent and hadnt heard anything about viewings or interest at all for ages so they got a friend to phone the EA to ask about a possible viewing and they were told this was sale agreed and they couldnt show it anymore, turns out the EA's son was trying to get a mortgage to buy the house and the EA was on to the couple telling them they would have to lower the price if they were to get any interest at all!!

Another EA I heard of was still showing a house when the sale had been agreed with another buyer and deposit had been paid, hoping to get a better price or something not too sure why he was doing it really as the sale had pretty much been finalised.

But not all EA's are bad just a few bad apples I'd say, I would imagine it would be pretty hard to motivate yourself to drive out the country or across the city to show a house to someone that has little or no chance of getting a mortgage and just see another viewing being a waste of time, but I suppose they are employed to show these houses and do a job.

Nothingbetter2d

skeptik wrote: »

Is it just me or are the auctioneers in this country gettin fierce lazy? I want to view 3 houses for sale this week and when I rang the auctioneers yesterday to arrange the viewings I was told someone would have to ring me back. I got no call today so I rang them and yer one on the phone sounded pissed that she had to do her job. I wouldv'e thought with the way things are that they'd be jumpin at the chance of a possible sale, clearly I was mistaken! Oh and this has happened with other auctioneers too btw

call into the houses in question and speak the the owner..... when they say you should call their agent...you replied i tried many many times but always get fobbed off.

then watch the sign go down and a different auctioneer's one go up within a few days.

bluewolf

bluewolf wrote: »

what a shít thing to do to someone

And not even just the estate agent, but if it was lived in, the owners of the house who had to arrange to have it in perfect condition again and to be somewhere else at the hour of the evening. I was left in that unfair position on Sunday after my tenant left the house for an hour to very kindly allow me show the apartment to other potential tenants and then they didn't bother showing up.

Anyway, in response to the OP, yes, I definitely think that they have become less enthused about doing their job. I would imagine they might feel it's a little pointless these days but they are the ones who could make the sale, convince people to actually buy a house - I've looked at a lot of properties, and I know how much the "sales person" can influence a decision.

skeptik

Nothingbetter2d wrote: »

call into the houses in question and speak the the owner..... when they say you should call their agent...you replied i tried many many times but always get fobbed off.

then watch the sign go down and a different auctioneer's one go up within a few days.

I wish I could but these are empty houses and as far as I can make out they are being sold for the construction companies that built them. I tried looking to see if they were listed with another estate agent but only one of them is. I'll see how she acts on Thursday, if she is helpful and enthusiastic. If not I may well ring the construction companies and tell them what's going on.

Freddie59

We bought a house in September 2009, when things had really collapsed. We made an offer upon viewing, because the house was - literally - a steal. We had to chase the auctioneer for some seven days to see if it had been accepted, before threatening to withdraw from the sale. It was truly incredible.

It turned out that ours was the only sale concluded in weeks or months.