Estate agent not helping me find a property to buy

Yourself isit

davo10 wrote: »

How naive. The EA's job is sell the property, at the highest price achievable. That is the business relationship, the vendor pays the EA for their services, not the buyer. If both pay, there would be a conflict of interest, the EA would be more likely to steer you towards the purchase of a property where he/she also has an agreement with the seller, therefore getting paid on the double. It isn't hard to view properties on daft/my home and then arrange a viewing, you don't need your hand (or wallet) held by the EA.

So if a EA has 20 properties on the go, one a quaint cottage in the Wicklow foothills, and someone comes in looking for a quaint cottage in the Wicklow foothills there's nothing that can be done?

Realtors in the US work with buyers to match to sellers. Also on BBC TV programmes, but that might be fake.

Yourself isit

riclad wrote: »

Most Estate agents have a website ,or use daft.ie , myhome ie.
lets say you want to buy a house in wexford ,google house for sale wexford , or use those websites , daft.ie etc you can call around and
pick up a printed listing from the office.
do you really need help to look at a list see the houses listed under 300k.?
you may want a 2 or a 3bed semi d or a house beside bus stops ,
dart ,etc you may want a house less than 20 years old or maybe
An old house under 150k.
The agent gets pays by the seller anyway who ever buys the house .
if you want to get more info on a house you can arrange to view it.

That's a ludicrous excuse for a crap profession. Imagine someone with 1M to spend on a house. If he walks into a real estate agent the EA should do something for him. Simple business logic.

4ensic15

Jjjjjjjbarry wrote: »

I'm discussing whether estate agents could do more to sell houses and be more helpful to potential buyers. If they sell the house, they get paid. It doesn't matter to me who's paying them because their goal should be to sell because that's how they get paid and that's what their job is. A car sales man gets paid by the garage but he/she will do more then just tell you to look on Carzone. My original post was whether EA's should be more than just key holders and nothing to do with my own situation which is none of your concern :pac:

You have referred to your own situation in an attempt to condemn EAs. They are not selling cars. A person makes a decision to buy a car and takes delivery promptly and goes away. A person makes an offer on a house and then takes weeks to pay the money over. Deals collapse because it turns out the buyer has changed his mind, he didn't understand some legal issue, or his architect frightens him with some description of a fault. Agents are not going to collect a commission if they hard sell every enquirer. They will have done nothing but waste their time. Agents will put effort into dealing with serious people who know what they want. They will not put effort into people who do not know what they want. You are in the latter category.

riclad

Its not as simple as i have 200k, ill buy house x, you,ll want to view the house.you can put in a bid, the seller may accept or reject your bid.
See rte program find me a home,buyers bid, change their mind ,drop out,
the agent goes back to previous bidders .
until someone signs the contract they can drop out of the transaction .
You cant buy a house in one day,unless you are going to an auction .
And are willing to outbid every one else who wants that house.in your world ,
An agent is supposed to sit down with anyone and show them listings,
or how to use a website ,
Thats not practical in the real world .
IF you have 1 million i presume you have acess to a pc or a tablet and can
type in daft.ie or myhome,ie on it and can afford web acess .
I Think 95 per cent of potential buyers look at websites before they would
go near a agents office.
is it wise to tell an agent exactly how much you can spend before you put
in a bid .
if want to see my doctor for 5 minutes i have to pay 50 euros.
Each house has only one buyer ,
most of the people an agent sees will view a house and may never even put in a bid.

davo10

Yourself isit wrote: »

So if a EA has 20 properties on the go, one a quaint cottage in the Wicklow foothills, and someone comes in looking for a quaint cottage in the Wicklow foothills there's nothing that can be done?

Realtors in the US work with buyers to match to sellers. Also on BBC TV programmes, but that might be fake.

Yes, an EA would probably contact many interested buyers about a property on their books, but the op wants the EA to specifically help him to buy a property.

In the US the buyer pays a realtor to find a property and negotiate a price, I get the sense that the op thinks an EA should act on his behalf as a buyer without the op having to pay the EA. Maybe I'm wrong, the op might be paying an EA to find a property and is complaining about not receiving the service paid for.

Jjjjjjjbarry

4ensic15 wrote: »

You have referred to your own situation in an attempt to condemn EAs. They are not selling cars. A person makes a decision to buy a car and takes delivery promptly and goes away. A person makes an offer on a house and then takes weeks to pay the money over. Deals collapse because it turns out the buyer has changed his mind, he didn't understand some legal issue, or his architect frightens him with some description of a fault. Agents are not going to collect a commission if they hard sell every enquirer. They will have done nothing but waste their time. Agents will put effort into dealing with serious people who know what they want. They will not put effort into people who do not know what they want. You are in the latter category.

You are a bit misguided. I do know what I want and am not looking for a 'hard sell'. I'm just looking for an EA to put a little more effort into their job rather than turn up with a key and refer back to daft. I'm sure there are some great agents out there too.

I'm sure you probably know that the photos and descriptions on daft vary in quality? It's not always possible to get a good sense of a property from daft and it's not practical to visit every house. Some daft adverts are very detailed and some minimal. Do you not think an EA could make a simple suggestion like "from what you've told me, there's a house in such and such location that I think you might like" instead of saying nothing? Or is that just me wasting their time?

4ensic15

Jjjjjjjbarry wrote: »

You are a bit misguided. I do know what I want and am not looking for a 'hard sell'. I'm just looking for an EA to put a little more effort into their job rather than turn up with a key and refer back to daft. I'm sure there are some great agents out there too.

I'm sure you probably know that the photos and descriptions on daft vary in quality? It's not always possible to get a good sense of a property from daft and it's not practical to visit every house. Some daft adverts are very detailed and some minimal. Do you not think an EA could make a simple suggestion like "from what you've told me, there's a house in such and such location that I think you might like" instead of saying nothing? Or is that just me wasting their time?

If you know what you want why do you need an EA to tell you a particular house will suit you? Before a visit you should know by the location, size, price, property type, layout etc whether it is of interest. Unless you demonstrate clearly that you are seriously in the market that you are seriously in the market for specific properties in specific locations EAs won't be interested. They are not going to begin to try to talk you into anything, knowing that you will likely back out down the line.

Jjjjjjjbarry

4ensic15 wrote: »

If you know what you want why do you need an EA to tell you a particular house will suit you?.

To avoid wasting everyone's time which is the counter argument you seem to be making. Also to suggest a house that I may overlook on Daft because as I said, some adverts on Daft are very poor and show photographs taken from a bad phone with a short description. Maybe the EA knows more about this and can make a suggestion? For feck sake, it's not like I'm expecting them to stay up all night doing research for me!!!!
Is making a few suggestions from knowledge they should already have, too much trouble or wasting their time? What on earth has happened this world?!

witchgirl26

Jjjjjjjbarry wrote: »

To avoid wasting everyone's time which is the counter argument you seem to be making. Also to suggest a house that I may overlook on Daft because as I said, some adverts on Daft are very poor and show photographs taken from a bad phone with a short description. Maybe the EA knows more about this and can make a suggestion? For feck sake, it's not like I'm expecting them to stay up all night doing research for me!!!!
Is making a few suggestions from knowledge they should already have, too much trouble or wasting their time? What on earth has happened this world?!

You do realise though that the pictures on daft & myhome are generally the only ones they have. And even if there are hard copy brochures (which are rare now as they are pricey to get made up), they are the same pictures and fewer on.

Quality of pictures depends on the estate agent I find - some have been on courses of the best way to take pictures or have photographers. Others is just on a phone and yes aren't great.

Honestly as someone who is looking at houses at the moment, I don't have time for EA's to be calling me when I'm in work so I prefer the current system where I can look at the websites in the evening when I have time and can send off a few emails requesting viewings etc.

davo10

Jjjjjjjbarry wrote: »

To avoid wasting everyone's time which is the counter argument you seem to be making. Also to suggest a house that I may overlook on Daft because as I said, some adverts on Daft are very poor and show photographs taken from a bad phone with a short description. Maybe the EA knows more about this and can make a suggestion? For feck sake, it's not like I'm expecting them to stay up all night doing research for me!!!!
Is making a few suggestions from knowledge they should already have, too much trouble or wasting their time? What on earth has happened this world?!

You are asking to be lied to.

masterK

This whole tread reminds me of the way recruitment agencies work. You ring them up giving details of what you are after, from then on they only contact you when find jobs exactly matching your criteria and in the area specified.

Oh wait, that's not what happens at all, they ring you with anything remotely related to what you're after regardless of whether it's in the area of you want or not. All they want is the commission.

If EA's operated similarly I suspect you would have exactly the same outcome.

Denny_Crane

OP it's a sellers market. You need to do your research and get yourself along to viewings. I'm not sure why you would think otherwise but putting that aside a few things I found helpful:

Many ads - Probably the majority aren't actually for sale. There are many reasons but if you don't get traction on a property that's been on the market for more than a few weeks, move on.

Personally I found myhome.ie better than daft, YMMV. Set up alerts and keep checking daily for new properties, keep and eye for sale agreed properties coming back onto the market, find out why if you're interested in it.

Cloak and dagger works better in people's minds than it does in reality. If you know you're prone to being manipulated or can't stick to rules you set yourself - fair enough you need to come up with strategies to deal with that. The problem with a lot of the suggestions on don't do X Y Z (budget, financing amounts) is at best you may come across as a timewaster at worst an awkward punter who is more hassle than it's worth - EAs have too many other options.

Above all - nothing is final until you've done a dump in the toilet and had sex in at least two rooms. I'm being vulgar to underscore the point many sales fall through. It's much harder to get back into the swing of all this rather than keep going, so keep going! Booking deposits are fully refundable.

Jjjjjjjbarry

Denny_Crane wrote: »

OP it's a sellers market. You need to do your research and get yourself along to viewings. I'm not sure why you would think otherwise but putting that aside a few things I found helpful:

Many ads - Probably the majority aren't actually for sale. There are many reasons but if you don't get traction on a property that's been on the market for more than a few weeks, move on.

Personally I found myhome.ie better than daft, YMMV. Set up alerts and keep checking daily for new properties, keep and eye for sale agreed properties coming back onto the market, find out why if you're interested in it.

Cloak and dagger works better in people's minds than it does in reality. If you know you're prone to being manipulated or can't stick to rules you set yourself - fair enough you need to come up with strategies to deal with that. The problem with a lot of the suggestions on don't do X Y Z (budget, financing amounts) is at best you may come across as a timewaster at worst an awkward punter who is more hassle than it's worth - EAs have too many other options.

Above all - nothing is final until you've done a dump in the toilet and had sex in at least two rooms. I'm being vulgar to underscore the point many sales fall through. It's much harder to get back into the swing of all this rather than keep going, so keep going! Booking deposits are fully refundable.

great post- thanks.

riclad

I don,t see what services the agent can provide to you when all
the data is avaidable on myhome, daft.ie
You can operate a pc or laptop you have internet acess ,
most houses on the web have 4-5 photos posted .
And room sizes etc Theres no point in viewing a house unless you can afford it, you like it, and you are prepared to bid on it .
And its in an area you want to live in.
And you can afford it.
theres no way of an agent knowing you are really interested unless you put in a bid.
And you are not paying the agent anything.
And you are hardly gonna tell him i can afford 130-150 k
to buy a house in area x.
Buying a house is like finding a wife,
at some point you have to make up your mind and make a comittment .

BabySlam

The service you are looking for, OP, is called a Buyers Agent - it was mentioned above somewhere. Did you look into this option? A buyers agent works for the buyer, estate agents work for the seller.