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Estate Agents

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  • 23-05-2013 2:24pm
    #1
    LowKeyReturn
    Closed Accounts Posts: 934 ✭✭✭


    Sorry if this has been done to death. I'm a sales person and have been for many years. In the good ol' days it was all about the hard sell, but thankfully, in recent times it's become about the service and the soft sell. That's not to say I'm not going to try and get every penny I can out of you, but that's always been part of the game.

    So... why is it so hard to get EA to call you back. There is one place 'under offer' on daft and the office can't tell me how much - I have to speak to the agent; who never bothers her arse to answer the phone or call me back.

    Another place, on the market at 90odd with an offer of 82. I said let me have a look, we're cash purchasers and may offer a bit more. They say sale is near completion. I would have thought that they'd either a) want to get me in ASAP to up the offer or b) at least have the common courtesy to tell me the vendor has accepted the other offer.

    Any tips for dealing with these people are very gratefully received. I would have thought the level of customer service would have gone up in recent years, looks like I was wrong.

    /rant sorry.


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    #2
    witchgirl26
    Registered Users Posts: 2,141 ✭✭✭witchgirl26


    LowKeyReturn wrote: »
    There is one place 'under offer' on daft and the office can't tell me how much - I have to speak to the agent; who never bothers her arse to answer the phone or call me back.

    Maybe take the hint on this one - if the place is under offer, maybe they don't want to share that information and in the current climate of house selling want to actually follow through this offer to it's nth degree.
    LowKeyReturn wrote: »
    Another place, on the market at 90odd with an offer of 82. I said let me have a look, we're cash purchasers and may offer a bit more. They say sale is near completion. I would have thought that they'd either a) want to get me in ASAP to up the offer or b) at least have the common courtesy to tell me the vendor has accepted the other offer.

    If they've told you that the sale is near completion then obviously the offer has been accepted I would think. Yes they may like a higher commission but they actually have to act in the interests of the seller & if the seller is happy with the price & a pretty much guaranteed sale why would they let you come in on the possibility that you might up the price a bit. You don't know - the other people might be cash buyers too.

    LowKeyReturn wrote: »
    Any tips for dealing with these people are very gratefully received. I would have thought the level of customer service would have gone up in recent years, looks like I was wrong.

    I get your general frustration with estate agents in relation to call backs etc as I'm currently dealing with them myself however the above two instances don't really invoke my sympathy massively. If the places are under offer or near completing the sale, like I've said above, it may be more hassle than it's worth & risk of losing the sale, for the estate agents to accomodate you. At the end of the day, they are "employeed" (for lack of a better term) by the seller and not the buyer so they act in the sellers interest. If you're getting the same kind of run around for places that are still openly up & open to offers, then yes that's a problem. Best bet in those cases is to keep ringing & contacting them & moving up to the managers if getting no responses.


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    #3
    LowKeyReturn
    Closed Accounts Posts: 934 ✭✭✭LowKeyReturn


    To be fair I did eventually get call backs from most and got some tips which I'll share. On the whole they've been more than happy to discuss offers, probably because they'll end up on the property register anyway.

    If its a bank sale they have to leave it up on daft even though the offer may have been accepted through the estate agent while they wait for the bank to come back to them.

    Sometime they are slow to call back as they are waiting to get full info. I find this one fair enough but if it was me I'd still be ringing the potential punter to have a lead for the next sale.

    Probably sucking eggs for most of you but might help the odd newbie like myself.


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    #4
    Marcusm
    Registered Users Posts: 10,325 ✭✭✭✭Marcusm


    I have to say that I find agents here are generally poor about getting sales from "under offer" to sold. Rarely have they kept in contact with me or with the vendor to know what's going on or to clear bockages. In one case led to 4 months of delays before it fell apart because of planning problems. In another case, they had my deposit for 6 months as a result of lack of follow up to get bank to approve sale, get solicitors to issue documents etc for it all to turn out that the vendors didn't have title to sell. I kid you not on this last part.


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    #5
    shruikan2553
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,113 ✭✭✭shruikan2553


    I'm trying to rent a place for the next year and every time I see a good place on daft and it wants me to contact an estate agent I begin to rethink my choice of that place. Sent an email through daft (ad said to do so) yesterday and saw earlier the ad was renewed. If I hear back I will be very surprised.


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    #6
    pwurple
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,449 ✭✭✭✭pwurple


    Estate agents fall foul of both unfortunate buyers, and unfortunate sellers. I've been both a buyer and a seller in the last year.

    As sellers, we had 2 sale agreed, only for the buyers to lose their mortgage approval during the process (loss of job, change of circumstances etc). The third sale agreed went through.

    As buyers, it's been worse. We have been gazumped (sale agreed, deposit paid, another offer taken 3 weeks later... informed by a cheque for our deposit arriving back in the post). I've been the highest bidder on a property, phoned back two days later to see if my offer was accepted, only for it to be sale agreed to someone else without being informed about the higher offer. We've been sale agreed to discover there is no right of way access to a property. We've been sale agreed to discover that the property didn't have any planning permission to exist in the first place.

    So... all in all, while I despise dealing with them, I do understand that they are trying to maintain a balancing act between their clients and the buyers, either of whom may pull out the rug at any point and leave them high and dry.


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    #7
    valleyoftheunos
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,332 ✭✭✭valleyoftheunos


    Marcusm wrote: »
    I have to say that I find agents here are generally poor about getting sales from "under offer" to sold. Rarely have they kept in contact with me or with the vendor to know what's going on or to clear bockages. In one case led to 4 months of delays before it fell apart because of planning problems. In another case, they had my deposit for 6 months as a result of lack of follow up to get bank to approve sale, get solicitors to issue documents etc for it all to turn out that the vendors didn't have title to sell. I kid you not on this last part.

    In fairness I don't think any of that is down to the EA, once a property goes sale agreed and is over to the Solicitors the EA is out of the loop.


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