Estate agents - where's the sell?

Estate agents are money for nothing con artists. They even ring you up asking if you can show a viewer round (empty probate property) because they haven't got time. They are basically collecting 1.5% fee for taking a phone call.
 
shifty_uk said:
Looking at new properties so dealing with a lot of estate agents at the moment and from what I can see, they're getting money for nothing... List the property online, show some potential buyers around then sit back and wait on that all important call.

The amount of times I've had to chase the agent to chase the seller to negotiate a deal is unbelievable. There's no prior research into the property before conducting the viewing, not the slightest attempt to try any sales techniques, little to no follow up calls and generally not proactive in the slightest.

Have I just had an unfortunate streak of dealing with poor agents?
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You can apply the same logic to pretty much any person who has a job title containing the word agent.

And no. You've not been unfortunate, but letting agents are worse. For both tenant and landlord.
 
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We went with a branch-less estate agent. They're online only and came out to do viewings whilst we were at work as well as handling everything with the buyer and chasing solicitors with me. The rate was under 1%, some are a low flat fee.
You have to made of money or a right Dorothy Doughnut to go for a big branch estate agent these days.
 
Caged said:
Your landlords details should be on your contract
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Which you don't get till you've already handed over all the initial fees to a letting agent.
Useful if the agent comes back and tries to charge you £100 to sign a new bit of paper after the initial contract period though.
 
We have just bought a buy-to-let flat so can comment from the 'other side'.

The agent was useful and pretty pro-active about keeping both sides informed. Also letting us know what our solicitor had and hadn't done (including stuff he said he had done and hadn't).

The letting agent has been really good as well. we've paid £300 up front for them to take the property on and then then charge 5% for a fully managed service. For this they:

1) Conduct a full inventory
2) Check the status of the tenants
a) Financially
b) Immigration status
c) Past history
d) Follow up references
3) Register the deposit
4) etc.

All in all I feel that both sides have earned their money so they are not all blood sucking ticks.
 
You could draw similar comparisons to other industries. I'm sure a similar argument could be made for recruitment agencies for example.

With any however there are always good and bad ones. When I was selling my flat a few years ago I went with a online estate agent with the opinion that going with a traditional high street estate agent wasn't worth the increased cost.

Had my flat on the market for a year with the online estate agent, a few viewings but nothing concrete came from it.

Decided to go with an estate agent down the road. Even though they advertised my flat in the same places online (rightmove, etc), they also had a database of people to contact.

Ad was placed on the Friday, got a call Saturday for 3 viewings on Mon/Tue the following week, offer made and accepted Wednesday.

May have just been pot luck I guess.
 
When the market is quiet then they probably earn their keep. In certain areas with mad markets its easy pickings for them.

I used to live in a area where the average time to sell a house was 2 days and most houses sold before the estate agents had even printed the packs for them. My mate listed his in the morning, somebody came at 1pm and offered him full asking price.

Its time like then it seems the estate agent isnt worth it for the few thousand they get.

When your house has been on the market for a year and they have shown lots of people round then they probably earn their fees.

But you take the good years with the bad.
 
The estate agent I bought my house through (and sold my previous one at the same time through) was absolutely brilliant in my view. I was able to use his complete lack of integrity to my advantage thankfully. He was worth every penny :P
 
Dont get me started on Estate Agents.

They help you sell you house fine but when you are looking for a house to move to they are useless, thing is I wont move out of mine until they help me find something. so its a catch 22
 
I think you have to take a view on your own property and whether it's the sort that could sell easily without an agent, in which case, try doing it through an online EA - you've nothing to lose. If you struggle, no EA is going to refuse to try and sell your house if you've failed

I sold my house in Jan after it being on the market for 2.5 years. The last EA, in place from Apr 2014, did 34 viewings...I think he earned his fee
 
LeeUK said:
Estate agents are money for nothing con artists. They even ring you up asking if you can show a viewer round (empty probate property) because they haven't got time. They are basically collecting 1.5% fee for taking a phone call.
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I've had this!
Selling a house, the first lot of estate agents were completely useless,three offers for below asking in three months, second lot and we had ten viewings and five offers in the first two weeks.

Considering they will be pocketing 4k their service is generally shocking.
 
Caged said:
Your landlords details should be on your contract
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tom_e said:
Which you don't get till you've already handed over all the initial fees to a letting agent.
Useful if the agent comes back and tries to charge you £100 to sign a new bit of paper after the initial contract period though.
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Usually the contract has the Landlords name on but usually with a c/o address of the letting agent. Which again is not very useful.
 
Pipe & Slippers said:
I think you have to take a view on your own property and whether it's the sort that could sell easily without an agent, in which case, try doing it through an online EA - you've nothing to lose. If you struggle, no EA is going to refuse to try and sell your house if you've failed

I sold my house in Jan after it being on the market for 2.5 years. The last EA, in place from Apr 2014, did 34 viewings...I think he earned his fee
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I would strongly disagree. If it took them 34 viewings to sell your house, they're doing a rubbish job.
 
Two purchases and one sale and..... my opinion of estate agents.... I hate them..... They would see their mothers for a few quid.
 
Just sold an unoccupied house down south which I had to put on the market when I relocated around 300 miles away. Estate Agents conducted all the viewings after I left a key with then and were very prompt to give me feedback on viewings and offers that came in. They even went to the house to pick up the boiler service history which the eventual buyers solicitor had requested a copy of. Moreover the buyers solicitor really weren't very competent and required daily chasing for a month to eventually get exchange & completion (deposit was coming from a remortgage which was too hard for buyers solicitor to co-ordinate apparently).

All in all was very happy with the service and while 2% may seem high, in my case I consider it to be worth every penny based on the amount of effort they put in to achieving the sale.
 
skolem said:
Why even use an online estate agent. Just advertise it yourself on Rightmove.

You obviously have to show people around yourself, but if it's practical for you then it's a no-brainer.

Estate agents used to be useful in that they would advertise your property in their branch and in the paper. But since Rightmove and Zoopla they're pretty much defunct.
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I'm fairly sure you can't just list it yourself on RM. Hence the reason these cheap, online agents are springing up.
 
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