Frustrate Agents!!

cmssjone

What is it with bloody estate agents?

I'm trying to view houses and all I seem to get is fobbed off. Phoned one guy today and asked about a property to be told that someone would ring me back if it was still available - obviously too difficult to check himself. I wish this was an isolated case. The apathy these people show is unbelievable. An agent I contacted 1 month ago never got back and surprise, surprise, the house is still on the market. I phoned him back the other day and he still wouldn't commit to a viewing. Bunch of wasters...

Rant over!

quartertofive

Well,

That's only a guess but here is the way I see it:
Owner wants to sell a well located and nice property. Agent says, hey I know my cousin is looking for something, Ill try to get him a sweet deal. All that's coming back to property owner is..."Sorry, nobody is interested". Then cousin makes an offer, obviously on the low end and waits. After some time the owner gets frustrated, desperate or just want's to have it sold, and accepts the offer. Everyone is happy, bar the owner and all other people who were interested...actually, only agent and cousin are happy. HAHA

Example 1
A house in attractive town with population of approximately 13k. Builder was known for exceptional built and finish quality. Detatched houses in this estate were selling for 500k plus in good times. This one was on sale in 2012 with asking price 195k. I was interested in this property but couldn't even view it. Agent said there was an offer made already (hours within advertising) to which I replied that I understand and would still view the property as asking price sounds good to me. He was giving me all sorts of reasons to why it is too late. I didn't get to see the house and it sold for 185k as it shows in PPR

Example 2
Trying third time to arrange a viewing of another property in the same town. Same story. Agent makes an appointment and cancells at latest opportunity. Previously was promising to get back to us but never did. So I made another appointment and it was cancelled again, as I was sitting in the car in front of the property waiting for an agent for 40 minutes already.
Agent wouldn't answer my multiple phone calls so I ring from my wifes phone and voila "...good afternoon, this is X speaking, what can I do for you?" well, I said, you could show me that house, could you...please...."Unfortunately we have just had an offer on that house and owner is considering it" OK I say I would still like to view the house as am ready to make an offer as well, obviously higher one. She got confused and started giving me some stories to which I said I am not interested in listening to that I would like to view the property and make an offer. She just said she will speak to owner and will get back to me.


Am I missing something?
I was very polite, accepted multiple changes to arranged date/time. I want to buy and have money. After all, it's agent that should be chasing potential buyers not the other way round.

hyperborean

All very normal for estate agents, its what they do

Gran Hermano

Drop a letter into the owner asking them is there a valid reason why their estate agent will not let you view/make a bid.

odds_on

I'm beginning to think it is not just estate agents.

I'm looking for a motorhome - emailed two Irish dealers (one in Dublin and the other down the country) and one in the UK, the same day in early February.

I had a reply from the UK dealer the same day, one Irish dealer replied after 10 days and the other hasn't replied yet.

flintash

thanks guys for sharing. More and more I get tempted to contact home owners myself than trust in estate agent.Although I believe there are decent estate agents doing the right job: pushing prices up- working for their custumers. But this is not in buyers interest obviously

fasttalkerchat

I had arranged to view a house to rent. While we were waiting I saw a house on the same street with a to-let sign and a phone number. I called up and asked a few questions and arranged a viewing later that day. It was about 15% cheaper and direct with LL.

Then the agent showed up, it turned out I was there to see the house that I had just called about. I said I had just called about that one and he asked me to wait a few minutes and he went inside. I could see him through the window on he phone. He came out and said sorry that house is in a terrible state, its weeks away from being ready. I said that's fine, I'll get an idea of the layout and can come back in a few weeks for a 2nd viewing. He refused to show me it.

I went away thinking there must have been rats or something terrible in there. An hour later I get a call from the landlord asking if I was coming because he was waiting for me. Really confused by this stage I went along anyway. Not a thing wrong. I told him the story and he said he suspected that agency of trying to do him before.

If they weren't getting their cut they would make sure the house lay empty.

My experience of househunting is that avoiding agents is best 90% of the time. A bad agent lies and bull****s, a bad landlord doesn't bother pretending to care.

P_1

fasttalkerchat wrote: »

I had arranged to view a house to rent. While we were waiting I saw a house on the same street with a to-let sign and a phone number. I called up and asked a few questions and arranged a viewing later that day. It was about 15% cheaper and direct with LL.

Then the agent showed up, it turned out I was there to see the house that I had just called about. I said I had just called about that one and he asked me to wait a few minutes and he went inside. I could see him through the window on he phone. He came out and said sorry that house is in a terrible state, its weeks away from being ready. I said that's fine, I'll get an idea of the layout and can come back in a few weeks for a 2nd viewing. He refused to show me it.

I went away thinking there must have been rats or something terrible in there. An hour later I get a call from the landlord asking if I was coming because he was waiting for me. Really confused by this stage I went along anyway. Not a thing wrong. I told him the story and he said he suspected that agency of trying to do him before.

If they weren't getting their cut they would make sure the house lay empty.

My experience of househunting is that avoiding agents is best 90% of the time. A bad agent lies and bull****s, a bad landlord doesn't bother pretending to care.

Stands to reason I suppose, estate agents are essentially sales agents. If it looks like they won't get their 'sale' from you, they will just ignore you. Similarly if it looks like you're trying to cut them out of the loop and cost them their 'sale' they will do whatever they can to try to avoid this happening.

68Murph68

There are a number of reasons people often have poor experiences with estate agents.

Some of the reasons include

1) the method by which estate agents get paid - often estate agents have little to no incentive to get the best possible price. Basically if an estate agent is getting 1% of the sale price from a purchasers, the incentive for them to put in
As an example if this is already an offer on a property for sale at €150,000. In this situation the solicitor will get €1,500. Now ask yourself what sort of incentive is there for the estate agent to show the house to other prospective purchasers. If the estate agent gets the price up to €160,000 the EA will only benefit by €100.

2) Its an industry with a very low barrier to entry in terms of educational requirements. During the Celtic Tiger (and even beforehand) it was an industry which didn't exactly attract the cream of the crop. There is little to no regulation of the industry which means that there is little to no disincentive for being less than 100% honest.

3) throw in the historically poor standards of customer service in Ireland

Basically I would advise everyone to have extremely low expectations when dealing with estate agents. If by chance you happen to end up dealing with someone semi-capable consider it a nice surprise.

Sensual Cucumber

A lot of agents especially the smaller ones will not get back to you because the property is already let. There is loads at this and they do it to make their websites/office windows look "busy". I dont know how many times ive called about properties to let, they take your number and say they'll get someone to call you back and never do.

Anyway the last place I moved out of stayed on the agents website for about 4 months after I moved out and I knew for a fact the place was let 2 weeks after I moved out. Got the the OH to call the agent a month later enquiring about the place to let and low and behold the answer was "we'll call you back"

Business is business I suppose but its bloody frustrating

fasttalkerchat

P_1 wrote: »

Stands to reason I suppose, estate agents are essentially sales agents. If it looks like they won't get their 'sale' from you, they will just ignore you. Similarly if it looks like you're trying to cut them out of the loop and cost them their 'sale' they will do whatever they can to try to avoid this happening.

If he told me the LL was going to deal with me directly and walked away I would have understood but he was so spiteful.
I've started having some fun lately getting different people to call for me and asking questions and a price. Then I call asking for a tenner below the minimum they would entertain and arranging a viewing anyway. At the viewing they will accept the offer.
They're up to plenty of tricks too so may as well try it myself!

Estate agent behaviour creates a bad atmosphere for the tenant-LL relationship too. Because I've had an agent try and pull a fly one for an extra few pounds I might try and get away without paying all of the last electric bill and I'm certainly not going to admit to moving furniture to cover a damaged carpet.

fasttalkerchat

Sensual Cucumber wrote: »

A lot of agents especially the smaller ones will not get back to you because the property is already let. There is loads at this and they do it to make their websites/office windows look "busy". I dont know how many times ive called about properties to let, they take your number and say they'll get someone to call you back and never do.

Anyway the last place I moved out of stayed on the agents website for about 4 months after I moved out and I knew for a fact the place was let 2 weeks after I moved out. Got the the OH to call the agent a month later enquiring about the place to let and low and behold the answer was "we'll call you back"

Business is business I suppose but its bloody frustrating

I'm seeing a lot of generic adverts for council houses is estates. No mention of the house number or photos. And when you call they apologise that its actually 4 bed and not 3.
Clearly its a different house but they left up the old similar ad and pocketed the fee anyway.

Dublin25

So glad to see this is not just happening to us!

We've been stood up by an agent, with not so much as a call, text, email afterwards to explain/apologise for being stood up. Calls to other agents left unanswered, emails not replied to. Never mind actually trying to get a time to view a place!The only thing that seems to grab their attention is to hound them!

Only viewing i actually found very helpful was one that was being sold directly by the builder!

Its hard enough being a first time buyer and knowing how things work but having rude, unhelpful agents to deal with makes it worse.

Sensual Cucumber

Dublin25 wrote: »

So glad to see this is not just happening to us!

We've been stood up by an agent, with not so much as a call, text, email afterwards to explain/apologise for being stood up. Calls to other agents left unanswered, emails not replied to. Never mind actually trying to get a time to view a place!The only thing that seems to grab their attention is to hound them!

Only viewing i actually found very helpful was one that was being sold directly by the builder!

Its hard enough being a first time buyer and knowing how things work but having rude, unhelpful agents to deal with makes it worse.

Write them an email saying you will post your experiences on social media outlets and they'll be off their high horses quick enough;)

Rasmus

I have only ONCE had a good experience with an estate agent. Other times, I have been stood up, not called back, bull****ted to (and in the latter case, had such a horrific experience with the estate/letting agent that I vow to NEVER deal with one should I rent again). Some agents shouldn't even be in business.

monkeypants

Sensual Cucumber wrote: »

Write them an email saying you will post your experiences on social media outlets and they'll be off their high horses quick enough;)

Or post to it to the owners, assuming they still live at the address.