Useless Estate Agents
We are in the process of buying a new home and as a result have to sell our one. Since putting ours on the market we have had nothing but problems with the estate agents that are handling things for us.
Having been forced to use them to sell our house, something that we weren’t particularly happy about from the outset (it was like being held to ransom), we were told their fees would be competitive but ended up being more expensive than some of the agents we had previously had quotes from.
It took them more than a week to have someone come round to take photos of the house and then another 5 days to get the property live on the regular collection of house-buying websites like Right Move and Find-a-Property. When they came round to take the photos, the camera died, so they couldn’t take as many as they wanted and said they’d come back later to take some more. This took another 10 days and even then we had to chase them up to get them round to take them.
It’s been 11 days since they came back and still the new photos aren’t live on the website! The pictures that are up there don’t do the property justice. The first picture you see is the outside of the property but it is inside where our house excels but they don’t use the pictures to that effect!
When the property was put on the websites they made basic errors in the descriptions that misrepresented the property straight from the outset. This included calling the house detached when even the photos clearly show that it is semi-detached!
Since going on the market with them we have had the sum total one person come round to look at our house. What is suspicious, though, is that twice we have had potential viewers but both times they ended up not being able to make it due to “car troubles”. On both occassions I took time off work to be there which was a complete waste of my time!
It took them 4 weeks to arrange to have a For Sale board placed outside our house. Where they’ve put it is partly hidden by the hedge that the board is actually attached to! So we’ve had to cut it down to make it more visible.
We were told that we would receive updates on website viewing stats and leads but have heard nothing from them regarding this so have no idea how the house is doing in terms of generating leads. Although we know that it’s doing badly but can’t compare that to an “average” house.
When you sell a house you need to get an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) which gives information on your home’s energy use and typical energy costs. Since paying for the EPC on the day after signing the contract with them and requesting a copy of it (because we own it not the estate agents) we are yet to see it.
What I find the most stupid thing is that we are buying a property through them, yet we have received phone calls from them asking if we’re still looking or telling us that they have got properties that they think we’d like.
How fricking stupid are they? Do they not talk to each other in the office? Do they have a file on their clients that shows what they are doing? Are these not updated?
Because we were forced to go with them, and there is an arrangement in place with regards to us not selling our property, they appear to be doing as little as possible, which is about zero to fuck-all because they know that they are going to get a fee from the sale. Well we will be disputing that when it comes to it.
If I were to go through the process again I would not go near this agency with a bargepole. They are the estate agent equivalent of Arthur Daley, a bunch of fly by night shysters, with as much concern with customer service as a suicide bomber!
There aren’t that many reivews for the estate agents available to view online, but having done some diggin about, I have found out that the company are operated by a guy who ran a previous letting agency that went into liquidaton in 2008, and the reviews for that one are nearly the worst in the country.
According to All Agents they rate this older company as 9816th out of 9838 estate agents in the UK! The only reason they score more than 1 star is probably because you can’t actually give them a zero star rating!
It’s easy to see why the company we’re using is so useless then, if the old company is anything to go by!
2 move estate agents
