Estate Agents: Lazy, illiterate and ignorant... discuss

nightster1

Raskolnikov wrote: »

I really don't understand why you're having so much difficulty with estate agents. I mean, it's really not that difficult. You see a property you like, you ring up, ask a few basic questions, if nothing seems out of line, you arrange a viewing. If you're interested in the gaff during the viewing, you can usually needle out an idea of the price that the seller is looking to achieve. If the price interests you, you bid accordingly.

Are you just sending vague, random e-mails to EA's asking would the seller accept 100k for a property that is currently on the market for 200k? If that was the case, then I would personally just add you to the list of junk mail senders. I am not an EA, but I do know one, and he says that the crash in the market has drawn out so many tyre kickers and time wasters.

EA's are having a hard time now getting sales. During the boom all they were was order takers. Many are unable for the real world where skill is needed! Also, it is not a 'profession'. They are just sales people.

the_syco

borderlinemeath wrote: »

There's 3 premises he thought would be suitable and all 3 are let, 2 are already operating so have been let for some time! Yet all 3 are still on their websites as being available:mad:

Raskolnikov wrote: »

I really don't understand why you're having so much difficulty with estate agents. I mean, it's really not that difficult. You see a property you like, you ring up, ask a few basic questions, if nothing seems out of line, you arrange a viewing. If you're interested in the gaff during the viewing, you can usually needle out an idea of the price that the seller is looking to achieve. If the price interests you, you bid accordingly.

It would seem their gripe is that they probably see a few places they like, cut it down to 3 places that they like, they then ring up the EA but find out that 2 of those 3 places are already let. The EAs do this as it seems it's cheaper to keep a property on Daft, rather than to take it down, and put it back up again at a later date. It also allows the EA to lie and tell people that they have "X amount of properies on the books waiting to be let" :mad:

Cunning Stunt

If I wanted to view a particular house, and the estate agent was being non-responsive, I would contact the owner of the house directly and tell them that I had no choice but to do so because of the idiots they have hired to sell their house.
I am sure any seller would like to know if they have incompetent fools for estate agents, risking them a potential sale.

zyndacyclone

Raskolnikov wrote: »

I really don't understand why you're having so much difficulty with estate agents. I mean, it's really not that difficult... Are you just sending vague, random e-mails to EA's asking would the seller accept 100k for a property that is currently on the market for 200k? If that was the case, then I would personally just add you to the list of junk mail senders. I am not an EA, but I do know one, and he says that the crash in the market has drawn out so many tyre kickers and time wasters.

No. I am also a cash buyer and I've had appalling experiences with agents who apparently don't want to sell houses. For Example:

Called two agents several times during office hours, reached voice mail or message service each time over a period of days, left messages asking to arrange a viewing, no return call from either agent. Both from large chains.

Agents almost NEVER answer email, even if they list an email as contact all emails seem to go straight to junk mail (including highly specific emails requesting a viewing or a call to arrange a viewing). All agents emailed DID manage to include my email address on their 'spam' list. Not one ever contacted me personally.

Particular Agents:

Savills and overpricing....omg. I've grown so tired of the degree to which that agency overprices that I rarely even read their ads any more.

Gunne, horrible time trying to contact their D4 office. Gave up on the property in the end.

Owen Reilly, can't imagine that they ever sell any of the properties that they have on their books below 400k. I've tried to arrange viewings of a couple and each time the agent has tried to brow beat me into viewing much much more expensive properties. Given up on this agent completely.

The agents that have been AWESOME have all been from smaller, independent agencies or have been in the game since long before the property boom.

If you're selling, trust me on this, see how easy it is to arrange a viewing of another property with the agent before you have them sell yours, see how long their properties stay on the market, if they push only the high priced ones, and see if they are overpricing to the extent that it drives potential buyers away.

A final question: I've often wanted to contact the owner of a house and tell him that his estate agent isn't doing a great job on his behalf. How do I find out who the owner is (most houses I view are vacant or let to tenants, and obviously I can't ask the agent).

Gloomtastic!

^ Thoms Directory lists all property owners in Dublin and main cities. Now available online.
http://www.thoms.ie/shared/signin.asp?OrigPage=%2Fcontent%2Fsearchengine%2Easp

TKline

Real estate agents get a bad rep in most countries, and justifiably so. I'd put them pretty close to second hand car dealers. The problem is they're normally just after their commission, and aren't really working in the best interests of either the vendor or the buyer. They'd rather get a low sale than no sale and no commission.

Real estate agents in Australia have recently been found to have been falsifying auction clearance rates which is pretty disgusting behaviour. Basically they lie about the health of the market, and those lies are published and taken as gospel by the general public!

zyndacyclone

TKline wrote: »

Real estate agents get a bad rep in most countries..The problem is they're normally just after their commission, and aren't really working in the best interests of either the vendor or the buyer. They'd rather get a low sale than no sale and no commission.

What baffles me about Irish real estate agents at the moment is that it seems that they really don't WANT to sell property. It's not that they'd take a low commission, most of them just don't seem to want to sell it at all...

I am truly confused by their attitude.

Mr. Loverman

Raskolnikov wrote: »

I really don't understand why you're having so much difficulty with estate agents. I mean, it's really not that difficult. You see a property you like, you ring up, ask a few basic questions, if nothing seems out of line, you arrange a viewing. If you're interested in the gaff during the viewing, you can usually needle out an idea of the price that the seller is looking to achieve. If the price interests you, you bid accordingly.

Are you just sending vague, random e-mails to EA's asking would the seller accept 100k for a property that is currently on the market for 200k? If that was the case, then I would personally just add you to the list of junk mail senders. I am not an EA, but I do know one, and he says that the crash in the market has drawn out so many tyre kickers and time wasters.

It is normal to ask for things in writing so they can't pretend "I never said that", hence why I send them e-mails asking specific questions about the property rather than listen to their bull**** on the phone.

For example, I might ask "Does this property currently have broadband? If not, is broadband definitely available in the area?". I know if I ring them they'll say yes, regardless of the real answer.

f9710145

We viewed a house a few weeks ago. Next day I went to the agent and said we were very interested but had a lot of work to do before doing anything about it - there was planning permission I wanted to check out, get some costings for, see where we stood with respect to getting a mortgage, etc. He never rang me back to see if we were still interested. Now granted it was about 6 weeks ago and in the mean time we'd done a lot of work on our own place with a view to getting it on the market, had applied for mortgage approval, checked out everything for the planning - also had some personal stuff go on in this time so it did drag out a bit. We kept an eye on the property though, although we knew we were the only ones to have looked at it in ages. One day we checked up on it and it had dropped 10%, we had been sure it wouldn't drop after we'd shown such interest. Gave us a kick and we'll hopefully be offering on it this week.
If that guy was our EA I'd be rightly pissed off, we had expressed our interest and instead of chasing us he just left it be and now we'll probably get it for €20k less than we had been prepared to pay, just cos he didn't bother following up.
Needless to say we're not getting him to sell our house.

thegreatagent

I'm an agent in Dublin city and i'd just like to offer my point of view on some of the things being discussed here.

I know that estate agents have a very bad rep and in some cases rightly so but there are other reasons in my opinion that a lot of you feel like that.

I'm currently working for one of the big agencies in Dublin and at the moment we are severely understaffed. I'm running a branch and I have no other staff or secretary in the branch with me. I'm constantly on the road as I have around 50 properties on my books (rentals and sales) so am always conducting viewings as well as meeting potential clients etc. I probably spend around 2 hours a day in my office to try and cover the admin side of things so try to keep a little time free during the day for that. My appointments start at 9 o clock and I generally get home at around 8.30 - 9 o clock. I work every Saturday and have to fight people off to keep Sundays free. My phone literally doesn't stop ringing all day and it is impossible to answer every call that comes in. I'll always try to return voicemails that are left for me and check my emails between appointments, but when I come out of a viewing and I have 10 missed calls and 5 email enquiries and I literally have to get into my car to go to another appointment how many enquiries do you think I can get back to?

When I had someone in my office with me literally not a single enquiry was ever left unanswered but it's just impossible at the moment. When I get home I return some calls until my partner nearly beats me telling me to get my priorities right. I know I'm very hard to get in contact with and I genuinely hate that.

Standard practice in my firm is to conduct a viewing and follow up with phone calls to everyone you meet in the following days. At one time that was easily achievable but now my head is spinning with so many different things going on and I just can't get time to sit down and ring through everyone i've met - so any of you that feel an agent didn't follow up with a phone call - i'd say it may not be laziness...

For all of you that are complaining that you sent e mails that weren't returned - make a phone call! Please! If you care that much surely you can make a call - and leave a voice message if you can't get through. A bit of advice I'd offer would be to ring several times a day also. I certainly don't screen my calls I just answer when I can so don't feel you're being rude by ringing a few times. I know it should be easier than this but the property sector is one of the worst hit in this recession and this is one of the consequences. I know for a fact that my firm isn't the only firm suffering from a lack of staff.

I'm not looking for sympathy at all - I know that most companies are understaffed and a lot of employees are overworked and underpaid but this is just one of the reasons EA's are so hard to get in touch with.

All I'm really trying to say is that as an EA I work my absolute backside off under a lot of pressure to produce numbers to my bosses and and to come online and see people ripping estate agents for being "lazy illiterate and ignorant" it's a little frustrating. I've met a lot of EA's that are all of the above to be fair, but there are still some hard working ones out there!!

And just before any assumptions may be made - I've never worked in the boom I've only worked in the recession and so have never been an 'order taker'. I work hard to get deals for my clients and I'm sorry if I can't keep everyone happy but I do try my best

nightster1

thegreatagent wrote: »

I'm an agent in Dublin city and i'd just like to offer my point of view on some of the things being discussed here.

I know that estate agents have a very bad rep and in some cases rightly so but there are other reasons in my opinion that a lot of you feel like that.

I'm currently working for one of the big agencies in Dublin and at the moment we are severely understaffed. I'm running a branch and I have no other staff or secretary in the branch with me. I'm constantly on the road as I have around 50 properties on my books (rentals and sales) so am always conducting viewings as well as meeting potential clients etc. I probably spend around 2 hours a day in my office to try and cover the admin side of things so try to keep a little time free during the day for that. My appointments start at 9 o clock and I generally get home at around 8.30 - 9 o clock. I work every Saturday and have to fight people off to keep Sundays free. My phone literally doesn't stop ringing all day and it is impossible to answer every call that comes in. I'll always try to return voicemails that are left for me and check my emails between appointments, but when I come out of a viewing and I have 10 missed calls and 5 email enquiries and I literally have to get into my car to go to another appointment how many enquiries do you think I can get back to?

When I had someone in my office with me literally not a single enquiry was ever left unanswered but it's just impossible at the moment. When I get home I return some calls until my partner nearly beats me telling me to get my priorities right. I know I'm very hard to get in contact with and I genuinely hate that.

Standard practice in my firm is to conduct a viewing and follow up with phone calls to everyone you meet in the following days. At one time that was easily achievable but now my head is spinning with so many different things going on and I just can't get time to sit down and ring through everyone i've met - so any of you that feel an agent didn't follow up with a phone call - i'd say it may not be laziness...

For all of you that are complaining that you sent e mails that weren't returned - make a phone call! Please! If you care that much surely you can make a call - and leave a voice message if you can't get through. A bit of advice I'd offer would be to ring several times a day also. I certainly don't screen my calls I just answer when I can so don't feel you're being rude by ringing a few times. I know it should be easier than this but the property sector is one of the worst hit in this recession and this is one of the consequences. I know for a fact that my firm isn't the only firm suffering from a lack of staff.

I'm not looking for sympathy at all - I know that most companies are understaffed and a lot of employees are overworked and underpaid but this is just one of the reasons EA's are so hard to get in touch with.

All I'm really trying to say is that as an EA I work my absolute backside off under a lot of pressure to produce numbers to my bosses and and to come online and see people ripping estate agents for being "lazy illiterate and ignorant" it's a little frustrating. I've met a lot of EA's that are all of the above to be fair, but there are still some hard working ones out there!!

And just before any assumptions may be made - I've never worked in the boom I've only worked in the recession and so have never been an 'order taker'. I work hard to get deals for my clients and I'm sorry if I can't keep everyone happy but I do try my best

It sounds you have a v. hard time, however you are overwhelmed with work and are thus unable to function as you should. You cannot do your job properly due to workload. Result? frustration all around with nobody happy and much complaints. Look from support or continue to get a bad name.

ShadowHearth

Thegreatagent ( m8, the name is a bit overkill ) I was allways wondering how many EA are reading boards.ie. Surprisingly not many come out to day light here so far.

I read a good few horrible things here about EA and I was shocked and a bit scared.

This was my first ever experience with EA. I am talking about buying a house. It was a sherry Fitzgerald crowd. I got in contact with him on Sunday and had taken info on houses I want to view, then he asked me to call on Monday morning. When I called he took details on 3 houses I wanted to check. He called me same day and said he got 3 more houses in same location and similar price and if I would like to see them too? That was a nice touch and I was pretty happy. When we meet he started showing us properties ( was a long damn day lol ). He was very helpful and showing stuff or just being silent when needed( not in bad way, sorry english is not my native language ). When it was coming to price he pretty much made it easy by not playing bull**** dance. Properties were listed 95k so he would just say " they open to offers, 70k would take that property easy". Again very helpful and spot on fella. Ather week I called him and asked him to arrange anather viewing on 2 properties we already sow and one new. No problem there, took pictures and took my time inspecting properties.

This is so far so good. Now we gave an offer of full amount asking price on property we like, it's repossessed/ priced to sell house. He told me that he will come back to me with info from bank if they are happy. It did gave me suspicion as I expected to arrange a meeting to close the deal, not to be waiting for banks answer, but I guess I am just a bit too paranoid.

I allways thought that forums need 2 threads like this? One for good auctioniers and one for scum bags? There are bouth out there. T

rust me, I know a thing or two about profiling. Being a car enthusiast constantly branded as a boy racer..

Spiritofthekop

ShadowHearth wrote: »

Thegreatagent ( m8, the name is a bit overkill ) I was allways wondering how many EA are reading boards.ie. Surprisingly not many come out to day light here so far.

I read a good few horrible things here about EA and I was shocked and a bit scared.

This was my first ever experience with EA when I am talking about buying a house. It was a sherry Fitzgerald crowd. I got in contact with him on Sunday and had taken info on houses I want to view, then asked me to call on Monday morning. When I called he too details on 3 houses I wanted to check. He called me same day and said he got 3 more houses in same location and similar price and if I would like to see them too? That was a nice touch and I was pretty happy. When we meet he started showing us properties ( was a long damn day lol ). He was very helpful and showing stuff or just being silent when needed( not in bad way, sorry english is not my native language ). When it was coming to price he pretty much good times by not playing bull**** dance. Properties were listed 95k so he would just say " they open to offers, 70k would take that property easy". Again very helpful and spot on fella. Ather week I cLled him and asked him to arrange anather viewing on 2 properties we already sow and one new. No problem there, took pictures and took me time inspecting properties.

This is so far so good. Now we gave an offer of full amount asking price on property we like, it's repossess priced to sell house. He told me that he will come back to me with info from bank if they are happy. It did gave me suspicion as I expected to arrange a meeting to close the deal, not to be waiting for banks answer, but I guess I am just a bit too paranoid.

I allways thought that forums need 2 threads like this? One for good auctioniers and one for scum bags? There are bouth out there. Trust me, I know a thing or two about profiling. Being a car enthusiast constantly branded as a boy racer..

???...???

ShadowHearth

Spiritofthekop wrote: »

???...???

I am confused about you. Atleast say the problem.

I presume it might be hard to read as my English is not the best and iPhone spellchecker like to be as stupid as a plank.

If you say I did a mistake, then atleast say it. Thank you.

Victor

Keep it constructive please.

up4it

GreatAgent: If you are busy then that is very good for your future career prospects! Like anything else there are good and bad EAs.

I have spoken to more than one EA outside of Dublin recently that told me that they did not have a single offer on any property on their books! Though, I do admire their honesty it does say a great deal about the current property market situation. ie. Most EAs are anything but busy.

An agent in Limerick also told me that they do not open weekends because they could do all their weekly work in 3 hours!

Dades

ShadowHearth wrote: »

If you say I did a mistake, then atleast say it. Thank you.

I understood completely your point, btw.

the_syco

Dades wrote: »

ShadowHearth wrote: »

If you say I did a mistake, then atleast say it. Thank you.

I understood completely your point, btw.

Likewise.

Spiritofthekop wrote: »

???...???

Your post is completely unhelpful, and due to total lack or words, I cannot fathom what the funk your post is about, nor which part confuses you. Instead of your mocking have any effect, your inability to express yourself has infact mocked you.

DazDame

Word of warning to anyone who is trying to rent out a property through an estate agent (any of them!!) in Naas....you would be much better off doing it yourself!!

Trying to find a house to rent for a few weeks now, EVERY estate agent we have called or emailed will not get in contact with us! The only one who did (from Murphy Mullen Ward) gave us the wrong address, never turned up at the viewing, and never called to cancel! :mad:

djmcr

@Shadowhearth - Good constructive reply, I too have had a positive experience with estate agents, in selling my house and in renting and also now that I am thinking about buying.

TOMP

EA's dont like email because it leaves a hard trail of who said what, unlike a phone call which is transient. If you make an offer on a property, follow it up with an email and cc third parties such as your solicitor, etc.