Anyone feel like telling sellers just how bad their EA is?

mollypop

I'm afraid to start another EA bashing thread but...

We've been house hunting now for about a year, taking it slow, we've read almost every ad on daft.ie for Wicklow & Wexford at this stage. Firstly, 9 out of 10 are awful - spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, 'olde worlde' etc. Most pictures are desperately bad, a child could take better.

Aside from the ads, we've made the mistake of touring some of these houses with estate agents. Of the 10+ we've met, I'd maybe hire 1.

80% of the time we've known more about the house than the agent as we took the time to research online beforehand. 1 denied a price drop we'd clearly seen on property bee. Most don’t have any idea of energy ratings, we've been told things like we're responsible for getting them done, it’s not a legal requirement, no one gets them done etc. when we know better ourselves.

I guess my question after this rant is, does anyone ever feel like helping to poor property owner out and sending them an anonymous letter saying:
"We went to see your property today with xyz, they didn’t know the square footage, they didn’t know the energy rating or what an energy rating even is , they didn't know the layout, the site size, what heating is used, how old the property is, etc."

We did go to see one property on sellityourself.ie and were shown around by the owners. Such a huge improvement.

I would never use an EA after my experiences, and I feel very sorry for the people paying them right now.

gogglebok

Hi Mollypop. I don't think writing them a letter is the way, certainly not an anonymous one, but I share your frustration. I can't believe there are still estate agents who don't respond to emails.

Before I used an agent to sell a property I think I might check them out from the other side - pose as a buyer, essentially, and get them to show me around somewhere.

EKRIUQ

Suppose its like most jobs, there's good estate agents and bad, I'm in the group where I don't care what an estate agent says to me I'm big and ugly enough to make up my own mind without someone trying to paper over the cracks (no pun intended).

I would never use an EA after my experiences, and I feel very sorry for the people paying them right now.

Thing is no one is paying them right now, they only get paid on commission when a sale is completed.

athtrasna

My favourite was the one who told us we were 10 mins late for our viewing and they had to be elsewhere so we had to go. We were late due to traffic and had tried to contact the agent but their phone was off. We left and sat in our car on the street for 20 mins, all the time the agent was still inside. Reported them to the agency manager.

bobbiw

athtrasna wrote: »

My favourite was the one who told us we were 10 mins late for our viewing and they had to be elsewhere so we had to go. We were late due to traffic and had tried to contact the agent but their phone was off. We left and sat in our car on the street for 20 mins, all the time the agent was still inside. Reported them to the agency manager.

I met a few good estate agents but they tended to be older gentlemen. The young girls tended to be dip****s.

remember for years these morons were able to make money by doing nothing.

They dont know what to do now, maybe they can ask do you want fries with that" but then I think people in fast food have more brains.

jmayo

As I said on this forum and over on Rip Off Ireland forum, the quality of some of our younger sales staff be they EAs, car sales staff or just sales staff in a shop is truly awful.
Previously these people got away with it, since it was like selling water to a man dying of thirst in the Sahara.
Even though now the tide has turned, they still think they can trott out the same BS, do no research, just turn up and some eejit will take their arm off and buy.

These people never had to try and sell back in the bad ould days when one had to put in effort and work hard to get a sale.
That is why the older ones have more ability and cop on.

A radio programs recently carried out a survey in Dundrum shopping centre found that out of 4/5 shops visited only one had decent sales staff that actaully engaged the customer and tried to sell.
I always remember the day me and my two friends, who between them had €60,000 euro in todays money, to spend on two new cars being told by young salesguy that he was shutting up and come back on Monday. I wonder would he do the same today :rolleyes:

Anyway you always remember as other poster said, trust nothing that comes out of EAs mouths, they are a vested interest and it is their job to get a sale at as high a price as possible, not to get you a bargain.

iguana

bobbiw wrote: »

remember for years these morons were able to make money by doing nothing.

Indeed, one of my worst experiences was in 2004 when we saw a house in south Dublin. It was empty as it was an executor sale and it was an older house, so all the rooms had fireplaces. In the fireplace in the back bedroom there was a dead pigeon that had fallen down the chimney. It smelled a bit and obviously a dead bird in a bedroom, isn't really the cosy homely look most buyers are attracted to. We mentioned it to the EA, we weren't complaining, we just thought she'd want to know. 10 days later we had a second viewing and there was the same dead pigeon in the fireplace. It didn't stop there being a bidding war though, the EA didn't give a crap because she didn't have to.

The other worst was this older guy who would never call you back, even if you'd made an offer. You'd have to call him and then he would tell you about the other offers that had been made. If you made another offer and someone else topped it, he still wouldn't call you, he didn't need to. We got sick of his attitude and stopped calling, even though we actually would have been willing to pay more. But the house still sold for €30k more than the last offer we made.

Thank god he was like that though, those houses are marketed now for quite a bit under what we would have paid back then. I almost want to send him a card, do Hallmark do "Thanks for being such an arrogant douche. You saved me a fortune!" cards?:D

bobbiw

iguana wrote: »

Indeed, one of my worst experiences was in 2004 when we saw a house in south Dublin. It was empty as it was an executor sale and it was an older house, so all the rooms had fireplaces. In the fireplace in the back bedroom there was a dead pigeon that had fallen down the chimney. It smelled a bit and obviously a dead bird in a bedroom, isn't really the cosy homely look most buyers are attracted to. We mentioned it to the EA, we weren't complaining, we just thought she'd want to know. 10 days later we had a second viewing and there was the same dead pigeon in the fireplace. It didn't stop there being a bidding war though, the EA didn't give a crap because she didn't have to.

The other worst was this older guy who would never call you back, even if you'd made an offer. You'd have to call him and then he would tell you about the other offers that had been made. If you made another offer and someone else topped it, he still wouldn't call you, he didn't need to. We got sick of his attitude and stopped calling, even though we actually would have been willing to pay more. But the house still sold for €30k more than the last offer we made.

Thank god he was like that though, those houses are marketed now for quite a bit under what we would have paid back then. I almost want to send him a card, do Hallmark do "Thanks for being such an arrogant douche. You saved me a fortune!" cards?:D

Well you have to remember that EAs at least most of them are uneducated people.

They made good money but they are all gone and they are now on the dole and are unlikely to get work again.

You have to feel sorry for them becase eventualy the dole will run out and that will be the end of it.

irlrobins

bobbiw wrote: »

Well you have to remember that EAs at least most of them are uneducated people.

Eh.... what? Got a source for that?

bobbiw wrote: »

You have to feel sorry for them becase eventualy the dole will run out and that will be the end of it

Again, what are you basing that on?

bobbiw

irlrobins wrote: »

Eh.... what? Got a source for that?


Again, what are you basing that on?

I will take it that either you are an EA or know and EA or something like that.

I base my experience on exactly dealing with people like this. I have found some people to be useful but as a whole I found most of them to be morons. I wouldnt hire them to clean my house.

It was a show up and get 5 people bidding on substandard properties.

Now they are still saying, get on the property ladder, when people are begining to realise that there is no property ladder.

Property is unlikely to be the same price it is even today for the next 20 years, anyone who buys a house in todays market is a fool.

irlrobins

bobbiw wrote: »

I will take it that either you are an EA or know and EA or something like that.

Ah yes, the old "He doesn't support my view, he must be a EA/Banker" argument. :rolleyes: Except you're wrong.

Just because someone didn't meet your expectations doesn't mean they're uneducated.

You're just trolling I think, looking at some of your posts.

jmayo

irlrobins wrote: »

Ah yes, the old "He doesn't support my view, he must be a EA/Banker" argument. :rolleyes: Except you're wrong.

Just because someone didn't meet your expectations doesn't mean they're uneducated.

You're just trolling I think, looking at some of your posts.

A lot of EAs were arrogant ignorant a**holes who had inflated opinions of their own self worth but that doesn't necessarily mean they are uneducated.

Some of the biggest a**holes I have met have spent many years in college.
Sadly they never learned basic manners as it wasn't a required module for their course :rolleyes:

oceanclub

Not just EAs selling houses, but renting too. We're out looking, and I'm amazed how few agents will even do the basics and return phone calls. And we're talking about places that, weeks later, I still see on daft.ie.

P.

t-ha

I would tell the sellers tbh if you can spare the time as it's basically costing them alot of money. I think alot of places, especially the 'big' traditional agencies got swollen with lazy/incompetent staff during the boom-times. A mate of mine couldn't get his place sold for over 8 months through a well known agency, same story as previous posters - they were slow to return calls, unenthusiastic, blaming everything on the recession etc. His g/f's dad recommended a guy he'd used for rentals and he had it gone in 2 weeks! He handled the BER too AFAIK and generally was just alot more impressive. I'd say recommendations are the only way to go these days until the recession is finished weeding out the industry.

J-blk

oceanclub wrote: »

Not just EAs selling houses, but renting too. We're out looking, and I'm amazed how few agents will even do the basics and return phone calls. And we're talking about places that, weeks later, I still see on daft.ie.

+1 - the amount of EAs that couldn't be ars*d to return my calls was mind-blowing. Three months later and a few of those places are still on daft :eek:.

Or an EA that arranged viewings with two other couples at the same time. WTF? They couldn't stagger the viewings out by like 15 minutes? The days of people queuing to see a place are long gone...

And the place I left behind didn't rent for well over a month, was reduced every week and took ages to shift in part I believe because the EA had ridiculous demands on the daft.ie listing (like faxing in your work/landlord references just to view the place!).

Like the OP, I tend to feel sorry for owners/landlords sometimes that have these muppets essentially been paid for nothing (and even damaging the chances to sell/rent a place)...

Raskolnikov

They're just as useless when it comes to letting property. Tried to view a property outside of 9-5 hours - flat out refusal. Got laughed at when I told the agent it was a legal requirement to provide a BER cert before renting a property. Agreed to let a property, arranged to hand over rent and deposit only to be later told the house was let.

If I was selling today, I wouldn't even waste my time with one.

ntlbell

I don't really understand why buyers are so concerned about ea's.

do your own research into the house when you find a few you want to look at use the estate agent like the key of the door use him to open it then put on your headphone's to full volume and have a stroll around

if you like the house put your bid to the EA and advise him you will be putting the bid directly to the owner's also and leave

They're a bit like condom's they just get in the way and ruin the moment.