Estate Agents.....are they all low life scum?

[The Wookiee]

People are so naive to think they can buy and sell their own houses. Good luck I would say ! At least The Estate Agent is regulated and if things are so unsatisfactory ,as you all seem to think so, you have a reputable governing body to complain to !

 

[Hassocks Armchair Fan]

I sold my last house privately, not a stress-less experience but I am convinced an agent would have brought nothing to the event other than a £6k bill.

 

[Skaville]

you may not, unfortunatly many recruiters do. from experience as a job seeker and participating in recruiting, i'm afraid its the majority.

anyway, we're supposed to be bitching at the estate agents, recruiters can have their thread another day.

You? Recruit? You're a "sometime sys admin" (whatever the f*** that is) who couldn't even spell job specification, let alone write one. I can't believe anyone in their right mind would let you loose with a recruitment budget and trust you with hiring decisions. Sorry, I just don't believe you.

You know what I think? I think you're frustrated because you haven't had a lot of luck in the job market because you just aren't that bright and you're blaming recruitment consultants for your own inability to get the jobs you want.

Anyway thanks for the patronising back down. I'll own you again next time you post the same drivel (you did this in 2008 and I owned you then). Now flounce off to that cave in Afghanistan breath boy.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

You? Recruit? You're a "sometime sys admin" (whatever the f*** that is) who couldn't even spell job specification, let alone write one. I can't believe anyone in their right mind would let you loose with a recruitment budget and trust you with hiring decisions. Sorry, I just don't believe you.

You know what I think? I think you're frustrated because you haven't had a lot of luck in the job market because you just aren't that bright and you're blaming recruitment consultants for your own inability to get the jobs you want.

Anyway thanks for the patronising back down. I'll own you again next time you post the same drivel (you did this in 2008 and I owned you then). Now flounce off to that cave in Afghanistan breath boy.

And with a crap post like that I refer you to my previous example of recruitment agents. I guess at least you bothered to reply to someone on here - most don't know the meaning of the word reply.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

People are so naive to think they can buy and sell their own houses. Good luck I would say ! At least The Estate Agent is regulated and if things are so unsatisfactory ,as you all seem to think so, you have a reputable governing body to complain to !

But they're not !

 

[cjd]

May I just say that Fox & Sons, Shoreham, make low-life scum look like paragons of virtue in comparison.

 

[looney]

what i really dont understand is why theres so little price competition on the commissions. i also dont get why with the internet they havnet mostly gone out of business, with people taking snaps and posting to Rightmove themselves. there must surely be demand for a keyholder service to replace the current agents at a fraction of the cost, because that all they seem to do.

Very much agree with this, they are just middle men. I have this theory that people in the UK are happy to be ripped of and just have a moan about it.

 

[Uncle C]

They're certainly not my cup of meat ! I got 5 quotes for my house. 4 quoted around £1,000,000, saying anything under should go quite quickly, say £975,000 - £950,000. MM valued it £600,000 !! Got me wondering what their angle was as it was so obviously a false valuation. Got me thinking that they deliberately undervalue a property, get an associate to bid the asking price, get it, sit on it for a while, and then sell it at the real price. Not saying they are all low life scum, but go into any transaction with your eyes open and go with the ones you trust and who give honest valuations. For me it certainly wont be MM.

And you sold it for £1m?

 

[Weststander]

People are so naive to think they can buy and sell their own houses. Good luck I would say ! At least The Estate Agent is regulated and if things are so unsatisfactory ,as you all seem to think so, you have a reputable governing body to complain to !

Are Estate Agents, carrying out selling (not letting) really regulated?

 

[Skaville]

And with a crap post like that I refer you to my previous example of recruitment agents. I guess at least you bothered to reply to someone on here - most don't know the meaning of the word reply.

So one recruitment consultant not responding to your girlfriend makes the entire industry the paragon of evil?

 

[Justice]

I hate the ones that drive around in the stupid company mini's looking like twats.

 

[Cian]

I've never met a more slow-moving (in terms of getting back to people, etc) than an estate agent OTHER than the mortgage department in my bank.

No chain either side - I'm buying a probate sale - and I'd expected to be in by now. It appears I can't even get to see the correct person to hand them a stack of all fully prepared paper till next Monday... and its not like they're particularly busy.

 

[Yoda]

We were trying to sell my otherhalfs mothers place 2008-09. First comapny went bust due to the global economy going tits up. They past it on to another firm who were useless and got hardly any viewings in (and the ones they did they couldn't get an agent there to show them around). Finally went with King & Chasemore and got a sale.

All offers made on the property were viewing I had to conduct due to other reasons, but the thing that makes me laugh is that Fox & Sons wanted to put it on the market. You could tell they wanted the quick sale and the commision in their pockets as they valued it £25,000 less than the asking price. Which had also gone down by the same amount due to the housing crash at the time.

If her sister hadn't been so greedy, we could've had a cash buyer offering £5000 less than the original asking price, but she tried to get an extra £2500 out of them and they walked never to be heard of again.

 

[beorhthelm]

People are so naive to think they can buy and sell their own houses. Good luck I would say ! At least The Estate Agent is regulated and if things are so unsatisfactory ,as you all seem to think so, you have a reputable governing body to complain to !

you mean the voluntary obudsman and possible fines of a couple of grand?

Anyway thanks for the patronising back down. I'll own you again next time you post the same drivel (you did this in 2008 and I owned you then). Now flounce off to that cave in Afghanistan breath boy.

afgan breath? a bit odd. no, i've been frustrated by having to sit in an interview and have the employer ask me about somthing on my CV which i didnt write and i knew nothing about. do you know how stupid one looks at that point? i've been to interviews where there is no spec available (and surprise i'm over qualified for), i've been for jobs where the job spec doesn't match what the job is, or doesn't match what my skills are. one occasion the agent insisted a company were moving to a technology that in the interview they had no interest in. oh and i've been verbally abused when i turned down a job because it didn't suit me. some are quite quick to get offensive when things aren't going their way.

as a senior in my department (despite the quality of my non-work gammer and speeling) i've reviewed CVs and been in interviews seeing the other side where its clear the person has been done up like a kipper by the agent, who dont pass on there's a test or what the job is involved in, or minor details like shifts or oncall rotas. i've learnt of agents giving false feed back, seen great CVs that come through at 9am but the candidates are in other jobs at lunch time, seen how the quality of CVs suddenly goes up when telling the agent we are off with another firm. my missus in public sector HR sees the same issues, so i know its not my bad luck, the companies ive worked for or IT.

i dont see why you must take it personally, you must know there alot of these practices and probably more.

reveiwed 2008... my what an aggressive responce then as well. im not really sure i was, but being "owned" by a recruiter has been my general feeling when dealing with them, so par for the course.

 

[Skaville]

you mean the voluntary obudsman and possible fines of a couple of grand?



afgan breath? a bit odd. no, i've been frustrated by having to sit in an interview and have the employer ask me about somthing on my CV which i didnt write and i knew nothing about. do you know how stupid one looks at that point? i've been to interviews where there is no spec available (and surprise i'm over qualified for), i've been for jobs where the job spec doesn't match what the job is, or doesn't match what my skills are. one occasion the agent insisted a company were moving to a technology that in the interview they had no interest in. oh and i've been verbally abused when i turned down a job because it didn't suit me. some are quite quick to get offensive when things aren't going their way.

as a senior in my department (despite the quality of my non-work gammer and speeling) i've reviewed CVs and been in interviews seeing the other side where its clear the person has been done up like a kipper by the agent, who dont pass on there's a test or what the job is involved in, or minor details like shifts or oncall rotas. i've learnt of agents giving false feed back, seen great CVs that come through at 9am but the candidates are in other jobs at lunch time, seen how the quality of CVs suddenly goes up when telling the agent we are off with another firm. my missus in public sector HR sees the same issues, so i know its not my bad luck, the companies ive worked for or IT.

i dont see why you must take it personally, you must know there alot of these practices and probably more.

You've clearly had some bad experiences. However, as stated in my first post, there are good and bad in all industries. I run a very successful division in a highly successful local agency and I will swear that not a single person in my team would ever get away with a single thing that you have outlined. That's why we're good. You don't judge all doctors by Harold Shipman do you?

I'm hoping to exchange on a house tomorrow, I know all about the difference in service levels between good and bad estate agents. I just don't think it's fair to assume that hundreds of thousands of people in a certain sector are bastards because of the few.

 

[Brightonfan1983]

Finding potential buyers. Not so many of them out there, these days.

Wasn't there a story about someone who sold raffle tickets for his house at say £50 each, but was prevented from concluding the draw as it contravened gambling laws? That'd be a great way to do it!

 

[Westdene Seagull]

So one recruitment consultant not responding to your girlfriend makes the entire industry the paragon of evil?

I've dealt with dozens of agents both as an employer and as a candidate and a vast majority are very very poor. I'll admit there is the odd good one but they are brought down by the rest of their industry.

 

[The Wookiee]

Are Estate Agents, carrying out selling (not letting) really regulated?

Isn't there something called the estate agency act which was brought in around 1979 ? Property mis descriptions act aswell? Also the property ombudsmen scheme and any decent agent would be members of the national association of estate agents ?

 

[Skaville]

I've dealt with dozens of agents both as an employer and as a candidate and a vast majority are very very poor. I'll admit there is the odd good one but they are brought down by the rest of their industry.

Why are they "brought down" by the rest? Surely they just stand out as the best. I've met some amazing people in the industry who are hardworking, tenacious, customer centric with high integrity. Why label swathes of people because of a few bad ones. Surely that's bigotry. Even i can see that and I'm just a lowly recruitment consultant.

 

[Skaville]

Ps I will also admit to meeting some absolutely vile idiots, some utter tools!