Is everything an Estate Agent says, utter BS?

[Philtor]

I've had my house for sale for 5 months, had 4 viewings in that time with the first agent. They did nothing to help, I had to keep calling them asking whether it was a good idea to lower the price etc.

I moved to a different one last Saturday, maybe against my better judgement, because the waffle that comes out of their mouths is just insane.

They know I didn't have many viewings with the previous agent. In the first 4 days of my house being with them, i get 3 viewings booked. Great, I thought.

Then, the first one cancelled a few hours before, apparently "They had an offer accepted on another house". I thought that was a bit weird, but fair enough it must happen. Second one got cancelled the day before. Exactly the same excuse... Now I am starting to question whether they even existed.

I had another one this morning. They did actually arrive. When I signed the contract, with the EA i said i will do the viewings, I have 3 dogs and a cat, they are all rescues with issues, so its easier for me to manage the house and them in it, rather than try and get them all out the house. I showed the family around, funnily enough they are from where i grew up, so had a chat about that. Then 20 minutes after the appointment started, the door bell rings. I open it and its the estate agent stroppy with me because i left her waiting for 2 minutes while i was in the middle of talking to the people looking around my house. She comes in and starts trying to take over. She's never been in my house. She is talking absolute crap. I look at the family and can see they see right through her.

The people who came to view asked "Dont you have a first time buyer coming to view" i said no, they cancelled. Then the estate agent piped up again saying there has been huge amounts of interest and all sorts of other rubbish which i just didn't bother opening my mouth about, as obviously that does benefit me. I then heard her outside talking to them, feeding them another load of BS!

It then makes me think back about viewings I've had looking at houses we want to buy, with her and other estate agent companies in this area. Pretty much all of them have played the same card, like this house already has 2 offers on it, they just aren't what the vendor wants, but they'll accept X amount, or similar things.

I know you shouldn't believe much, if anything that comes out of their mouths, but my eyes have been opened even more this week.

I guess i answered my own question there, and it was more of a rant! But interested to know if anyone else had any similar experiences??

I see you’re in London. Foxtons EA seem to be very popular and reputable from my experience.

That’s not to say you won’t have the odd branch which fall short mind.

 

[BUDFORCE]

Yup I work for mortgage lender, and a common thing I hear is "my estate agent said it's worth X amount".

I'm like, great mate, just go get a letter from your mum saying your good for the money and I'll approve your mortgage.

 

[Efour]

Everything house related and even the actual house seems to be a gamble when buying/selling or getting something done....
It is a royal PITA.

All they should do is get people to a viewing. If your house is garbage then having a skilled BS artist might help to some extent, but if its a good place it will sell itself....
When i bought this place i knew there were 2 others i spoke to at the viewing that were also saying they were very interested.
its very central in the town and has a big plot of land for its local....
the other 2 low balled a lot for a week, while me and mrs discussed it. Its all open bidding, we just offered the asking price and took it on the next day...
The agent kept ringing us during the lowballing week saying if you offer asking they will sell.... how true that was i thought, usual BS, well it turned out to be lol...
its well worth the price, its nothing compared to UK prices.

Im sorry to sound an idiot but i don't trust any salespeople or tradespeople at all. I have to take a hostile stance with them its really sad..

 

[LostCorpse]

Yup I work for mortgage lender, and a common thing I hear is "my estate agent said it's worth X amount".

I'm like, great mate, just go get a letter from your mum saying your good for the money and I'll approve your mortgage.

to be fair its exciting doing it the first time and feeling like your and adult and (partially) independant.

also for interest : https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgrr5557k80o

'Cannabis crooks dumped 10 tonnes of soil in my bedroom' - rent​

 

[Mysterae_]

Here's a good video that'll perhaps answer the OPs question and offers a different approach.

 

[Hades]

Compact and bijou Peter, compact and bijou.

 

[aVdub]

Estate agents sit the same courses as Journo's, but with an added degree of how to ******** a customer.

 

[Vidar]

All sales people are full of ****, no matter what they're selling. It doesn't matter if you're doorstep charity fundraising, selling windows, houses or life insurance they're all singing from the same hymn sheet. It's all psychological tricks like fomo or NLP. The difference is, the really good sales people do it so well you've no idea you're being played. The vast majority just think they're good and come across as slime.

 

[loftie]

Here's a good video that'll perhaps answer the OPs question and offers a different approach.

That an interesting choice of inspirational postit note

 

[DXP55]

Our bungalow was put up as presently presented.
We had to gut it and carpets we gave to dog breeder over the road.

I have always wondered what the house of the person who made up that load of rubbish looked like.

 

[dlockers]

I've had my house for sale for 5 months, had 4 viewings in that time with the first agent

i said i will do the viewings

Nothing worse than a plonker trying to sell their house drawing you into 20 mins of banter about their passion.

 

[Dg834man]

Went for a viewing of a ex council 2 bed semi, place was minging, roof needed replaced, plaster board crumbling from walls due to damp, needed rewire, fuse wire consumer unit dodgy wiring throughout, nothing was salvageable, these only sell for £125k fully modernised in my area was up at offers over £105K, estate agent pulled surprised pikachu face when i said it was overpriced then two sentences later said you'd never see a return on your investment and tried appealing to my emotions about building my dream home crap, had no problem with the condition of the property did with the price.

 

[Jumper118]

People pull out of viewings all the time. They will just go see anything for a nosey around even if they have zero intension of buying it and because they were never serious they will cancel at the last second for seemingly no reason.

 

[GreatAuk]

Always hard to know how much is actually BS and how much is true... Suspect most of what they say is BS unless they actually back it up with some specifics, in which case it might only be 50% BS .

When we bought our current house the 'estate agent' that did the viewing turned up 20 minutes late so we'd already been round the house with the owner who was fortunately in at the time when he arrived. I'd have been fuming if I was the owner! We saw him working in a bar a couple of weeks later - clearly only a part time job for a lot of them, I think especially at weekends they have a lot of part time staff doing viewings.

I'll never forget a different viewing we went on where the agent turned up in an absolutely trashed car (think it was a ford puma) with a parking ticket stuck to the windscreen. Tottered over rather unsteadily because one of her heels was broken, and then spent a few minutes trying to open the front door before getting the key to work. Clearly knew FA about the house, but managed to annoy my girlfriend by saying something about how useful it was to have a handy man around when I opened the back door for her, which she also couldn't manage herself. It was like something from a sketch show .

There was one local estate agent (an independent one as it happens, all the others are chains) that I think was pretty decent and reasonably trustworthy based on dealings I'd had with them as a tenant and some phone calls about houses for sale. So I think there are some estate agents around that aren't too full of BS but they're a rare breed!

 

[Rroff]

We got to see just how much BS they pull when selling my gran's place and the eventual buyer happened to know my mum - if it wasn't for them knowing my mum well enough to say hi the sale would have fallen through and they'd have walked away from their dream home due to the rubbish the agent was trying on.

 

[jaybee]

In answer to the thread title, yes.

 

[sx_turbo]

In my experience there is very very few decent estate agents.

I had a similar experience with you in regards to the magic unicorn viewings that always cancel an hour before supposedly viewing.

One thing though is that first time buyers are the flakiest of all that won't turn up.

My last house was for sale for about 4 months, it was a little on the high side, but was much bigger and well decorated compared to the ones immediately nearby. But there was very little interest, and every time there was a viewing booked they would always cancel an hour before they were supposed to turn up. After the 6th time of this happening, I told them to cancel it there and then.

I then got 3 more estate agents round, sat then down one by one and explained to them I don't want any further ********, tell me what the faults were with the house and the realistic price it should be for sale for. 2 of them fed me the typical sales guff, theirs nothing wrong with the house, it's worth the existing price etc etc, one even said it was worth more than it was up for previously.

The one I went with was a really nice chap, down to earth, fed me know bull, told me the issues with the house as to why buyers might be out of (conservation area mostly) and that the house was genuinely worth a fair chunk less than it was up for.

Unfortunately it was out up at the wrong time of year, summer holidays is never a good time to put a house on the market, they say spring is best.

We had 2 viewings, in 4 weeks, but the second person bought it. We ended up selling for asking price.

I've found the large corporate estate agents are the worst for estate agents, the small independent usually gives better service and care about the sale more.

 

[Semple]

People pull out of viewings all the time. They will just go see anything for a nosey around even if they have zero intension of buying it and because they were never serious they will cancel at the last second for seemingly no reason.

That's typically why an "open day" is better. Try and scatter people's appointments so not everyone turns up at exactly 12pm. If people cancel or don't turn up then it's not too much of a waste of time.

 

[Zefan]

Haven't read OP I'm afraid because I'm a bad person but when it comes to Estate Agents I think you just have to make sure you view every interaction through the lens of what their job is. This means in terms of their objectives, as well as realistic expectations of what is possible for them. This realistic expectation should be made up of a few things, but primarily a combination of how busy they are/the seller (who they are working for) and your judgement of their overall individual competence. Some agents will be switched on and enjoy what they do, others will be lying salesmen who couldn't care less behind the smile, and most will be somewhere in between.

 

[LuckyBenski]

others will be lying salesmen who couldn't care less behind the smile,

IME it's mostly this - in my history renting I've found estate agents will simply say yes to any question and then do ****-all about it. Unfortunately I take things very literally so it took me a while to get wise to this.

The agents who sold us our current house are a local independent and were pretty proactive about moving the actual sale forward from offer to negotiation, solicitors questions etc etc. but in sales mode they were still very much giving generic answers to encourage a purchase. "The oven hasn't even been used!" - I scraped several mm of cooked on grease from the hobs.