Me versus the estate agent – how I won

@Lombear there would need to be a way to view, of course, and this may be the only downside to your idea. EAs do offer a secure way to look at properties. However, maybe EAs could become Hpuse Viewing Assistants instead, on around £20,000 pa with 0.25% commission from the proceeds of the sale if a house sells due to their knowledge and professional behaviour.

I have bought and sold several houses and my experiences have been very mixed. I hate the ‘cheeky chappie’ EA who comes across like a used car salesman and I am equally underwhelmed by the ‘cool kid’ type with Hollyoaks hairdo and pinstriped skinny suits. That said, I have had some very professional and good EAs who just do a job and do it well.

I also bought and sold a house in the USA and I have to say, the UK system is better. In the US, anyone can show your home from a big database that is accessed online. This means that when we were shown properties, they simply read the info off a sheet, (the same as we had access to) and knew little about the property or area. When selling, you pay the listing realtor and the agent who sells. We negotiated a fee of 5% (3% for the realtor, 2% for the agent) which was 1% lower than average as we knew the agent, not well, but enough.

All in all, most EAs in the UK, from my experience, do some work to sell a house… not so much in the USA where in general, they would just walk along behind us guessing where everything was along with us or saying nothing at all. For that they get 2%!!

Agree 100% with Lombear, it’s only a matter of time before estate agents will and should be removed from the equation. It used to be the case before the recession(s) that a for sale sign was put up and your house was sold in a matter of weeks with the EA happily collecting their fee at the end having put in little or no work to complete a sale. Now they are actually having to work at their job and by god are they struggling. I honestly have not got a good word to say about estate agents, they are the ones who are making the business of buying and selling houses so stressful, it’s like they are playing god with one of the biggest financial transactions any of us will ever make. I have had numerous dealings with estate agencies in the both Glasgow and Edinburgh and I can honestly say I could not recommend one. Doing away with them and implementing a similar idea to the one Lombear has suggested would get this market moving and remove the distress that comes with dealing with Estate Agents.

I viewed a property twice and subsequently made an offer of £315,000, the property was being marketed for £350,000. My finances were also in place and I had no chain. 5 days later I had heard nothing so I contacted the agent, only to be told that my offer had been declined and the seller was prepared to sit and wait for an offer much closer to the asking price. The agent agreed to keep me informed of any other interest or offers made. 2 weeks later I saw on the Internet that the property had been sold (subject to contract). I phoned the agent to complain about not being given the opportunity to counter offer but was told they couldn’t discuss anything with me. I was extremely angry about the poor service and lies, however, I was further confused to find 2 months later that the property had been sold for £250,000.

I put my house up for sale last April in that time I had only 15 people look at my house so I decided to take my house of the market. But every time I spoke to the agent to take it off they say that they have done but every time I look on there web site my house is still up for sale? I have talked to them 4 times since November but still nothing has change can I get help

“I am really surprised the owner didn’t tell me there is asbestos in the roof”

What’s the biggest load of crap your real estate agent has tried to feed you?

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LET THE (HOUSE) BUYER BEWARE!

This compilation is intended to be read particularly by house buyers. It is a caveat emptor for those unfamiliar with what goes on in the housing market today (2014). If you are a first timer, you really DO need to read this.

In my time, I’ve bought and sold something like 14 houses since I was in my twenties, to include a London leasehold flat. I live in Leeds now, and have done since 1984. Up until recently there hasn’t been much trouble for me from estate agents. If only I could say that now! The existence of the internet and the number of people with on-line access has changed things, and has highlighted certain practices by estate agents, some illegal, some not, but always reprehensible. If you want to be savvy about these practices, and you’re going to spend £100,000 plus of your own money, or borrowed from a building society, THEN READ ON!

Probably the most common scam perpetrated by agents is simple LYING. The classic one is — “we’ve had a rather better offer than that Sir”. IF a better offer has indeed been made, it carries no hard evidence with it whatsoever. It’s merely word of mouth by a very interested party, the agent. Don’t underestimate the importance of simple lying. Think — are you going to trust these people with anything between £100,000 and £400,000, knowing they are lying to you? Of course you aren’t. Walk away and don’t go back. Think again — would you spend £5,000 on a second-hand car knowing the dealer was a notorious scammer? Of course not. Then you won’t spend twenty to EIGHTY times as much with a lying estate agent. It used to be possible to detect these estate agents who were up to no good by typing their names into an internet search engine plus the word “complaints” or “problems”. For some strange reason, that facility no longer seems to work like it did, so you have to cast your net(!) further.
Then there is “virtual lying”. What’s that? Virtual lying is NOT telling you something you really should be aware of. So you have to be on-guard for this one. Examples: You aren’t told there are savage dogs being kept next door. You aren’t told there are neighbors from hell next door. You aren’t told there is a pig farm nearby which stinks when the wind is in the right direction, and so on. YOU must do your own homework, and take your time over the deal with repeat visits to the area at different times. It’s all about checking, checking, and more checking.

The second most common scam is overpricing the property for what it is and where it is, partly to please the vendor, and partly to get the vendor’s business, and to hope there is an idiot out there with CASH. Remember, “fools and their money are soon parted”. True, — but someone usually has parted them from their money already, so that side of the scam doesn’t work. Overpricing is easy to detect. Websites like Rightmove/Zoopla publish recently SOLD properties nearby, based on land registry figures. It’s usual to reckon on 5% ‘haggling room’ in a house sale, but overpricing means 20 to 25% over.

The third most common scam is the exact opposite of the above, UNDERPRICING. That scam attracts naive buyers into thinking they might get a bargain. The first law of house buying — THERE ARE NO BARGAINS! There is always a reason a price seems cheap. Example: The house needs a humungous amount of money spending on it. Tot. that one up and you’ll find you’re spending more on it than if it were ok in the first place. Builders are charging a lot more for their work than they used to, so beware. Example: No-one wants to buy it for a variety of reasons — it’s a flat with a short lease (typical of ex. council flats), — or one of it’s utilities is missing (i.e. no gas supply), — or it’s next to a scrapyard, — or it’s next to a bad ‘pub, next to a bus stop, etc. etc. ad infinitum.
Be very careful about UNDERPRICING. Both gazumping and gazundering are rife here, the agent is trying to start a price war with you as a victim. A victim may have spent up to £1000 on two surveys, his own and the building society and his lawyer drawing up a contract to buy, only to be be gazumped at the last moment before contracts are exchanged. Then that gazumper can try guzundering the vendor at the last minute just before contracts are exchanged. In this type of case, everyone seems to be trying to scam everyone else. DON’T GET INVOLVED! JUST WALK IF YOU’RE SUSPICIOUS. REMEMBER, REMEMBER, THERE ARE NO BARGAINS WITH HOUSE SALES! OF COURSE, YOU COULD PAY TOO MUCH!
And a word here about house AUCTIONS. A HOUSE ONLY GOES TO AUCTION WHEN IT CAN’T/WON’T SELL THE USUAL WAY. AGAIN, THERE ARE NO BARGAINS HERE! These houses always fetch a lot more than the so-called “guide-price” and are in such a poor condition they only interest builders who will simply sell them on, after a cheap refurbishment.
And another word, about television shows re. selling/buying property. These shows are ENTERTAINMENT ONLY and shouldn’t be taken seriously at all.

Now onto agents themselves. There is no doubt that the large national estate agents, especially the ones who also act as rental-agents for landlords, are the most likely to be indulging in scams. This is exactly how they got so big over time. Old established LOCAL estate agents are much more likely to be fairly honest.
If you find there is a TENANT in a property up for sale, alarm bells should be ringing in your head. NO LANDLORD IN THIS WORLD SELLS A HOUSE THAT IS PRODUCING GOOD RELIABLE RENT. There must be a reason he is selling it, and you must find out WHY. E.g., it may need a humungous amount of money spending on it to fulfill regulations/fix a fire escape problem/fix subsidence etc. Generally speaking, DON’T BUY A HOUSE WITH A TENANT IN IT! MUCH BETTER BUY AN EMPTY/VACANT PROPERTY!

Now we enter the crazy dark world of the SERIOUS SCAMMING ESTATE AGENT. And this first scam is to FULLY ADVERTIZE FOR SALE A HOUSE THAT IS NOT FOR SALE AT ALL! The classic “FAKE-SALE”.
This wierd practice goes on everywhere. The first clue is THE TENANT IN RESIDENCE as mentioned before. The second is that you just don’t seem to be able to get in it to view. There is always THE EXCUSE. The best one I came across in Halifax was “sorry sir, the vendor has gone on holiday abroad for three weeks”. (One instantly wonders why the owner didn’t leave some keys with the agent!) But the classic excuse is to get a ‘phone call from the agent just before you go to view after an appointment has been made, with (a) “The vendor has withdrawn it from the market” or (b) “The vendor has accepted an offer yesterday” — ( that’s a silly one — what genuine vendor wouldn’t find out first what YOUR offer might be after viewing?) Now you are alerted, you’ll be able to recognize the scams. Another fake-sale scam giveaway is “the completely disinterested in you” syndrome; example: You get a no-show as they deliberately fail to turn up for a viewing; and when you call them you are met with a wall of arrogance, completely out of character for a salesman. Another example: A house has been on the market for two years at a fair price and hasn’t sold. And, what a surprize, it has a TENANT. It’s a fake-sale scam for sure. Note the scamagent and KEEP WELL AWAY FROM THEM! The scamagent will go for all the usual advertizing, by sale boards and Rightmove/Zoopla, even mentioning the Government “right-to-buy” scheme. The scamagent is doing this in conjuction with the landlord to get his advertizing boards up on the property and to get the property on Rightmove/Zoopla for more advertizing. This “bigs-up” the scamagent making them seem to have more houses for sale than the truth, thereby attracting “floating-vendors” who haven’t yet made up their minds who to use as agent.

Another subtle scam on you as a buyer is the TINY LITTLE QUESTION slipped into the conversation when you call them to inquire about a property in which you’re interested, but don’t know is a fake-sale. And that tiny little question is — “Do you have a house to sell Sir”?
If the house is a fake-sale, this scam gets you into conversation with the scamagent about other houses the scamagent has for sale after telling you an offer has JUST been accepted on the property you called about — but they DO have LOTS of houses you will be interested in buying instead! They are so helpful and considerate it’s not true! (It’s not true all right… and that’s irony)… As you likely will have a house for sale also, It makes for a chance of getting YOUR house for sale onto THEIR books, thusly replacing one they are trying to sell to you. ONE HOUSE DOWN, ONE HOUSE UP. GOOD BUSINESS FOR THEM! REMEMBER, MOST BUYERS ARE ALSO VENDORS OF THEIR EXISTING HOUSE. Only 1st. timers aren’t.

One positively illegal activity (possibly shown up by suspiciously cheap sales IN BLACK* on the “sold house prices” sector of Rightmove/Zoopla), is to hold back a decent offer from a buyer like you by not telling the vendor. The scamagent then tells you after 24 hours your offer is refused. Eventually after a long while like several months, the scamagent tells the vendor a very modest offer has been made by a Mr. X., and it would be sensible to accept it. Upon completion of the sale, Mr. X. gives the scamagent a massive backhander of thousands of pounds. Mr. X. is probably a buy to let landlord with a big portfolio of property, well trusted by the scamagent.
*Right now I’m looking at a Halifax property sold 18/12/13 for only £37,883 — when houses in the same short street were selling in 2010 and 2013 respectively for £125,000 and £130,000 — most peculiar. The sold entry is in black — no advertizer, so I can’t find out what agent was involved. This of course could be a %age ownership deal, (but not likely at the address with those properties. Entries in blue have the link to the agent.

I think the days of the conventional estate agent are now numbered, and this will of course include the scamagent. Along with retailing operations like supermarkets, many enterprizing on-line agents now exist, advertizing properties for sale directly for the vendor ON-LINE. In return for a fee of £500 to £750 instead of around £2000 with conventional agents, they will advertize your property on Rightmove/Zoopla. All the vendor has to do is —
a) Provide some pictures of the house, together with the usual room dimensions, facilities, town, street etc.
b) Show the house to buyers like you by arrangement from the telephone number in the advert.
c) Ensure that you, the buyer have your loan in place or have proveable cash.
The advantage of on-line house selling is that the vendor deals DIRECT with YOU, the intending buyer, so scams are IMPOSSIBLE. There can be no subterfuge by a scamagent fouling things up and slowing things down.

I would have agreed with John Ward about conventional estate agents being useful if it were a few years ago, but things have changed. Nowadays, if I were selling a house I would def. go for on-line agency, because:–
1) The fee is very much less, esp. if you’re selling in London/home counties.
2) YOU have much better control over what’s going on with your sale.
3) Yes, you have to work more and be careful about the buyer’s credentials, not getting involved in chains etc., but I don’t mind work if it’s to my advantage — and I’m saving money.
4) Most people are using Rightmove/Zoopla on-line to find a house in the first place anyway, so it makes sense to continue the methodology.

In a previous contribution, I wrote “Government’s right to buy scheme” when I should have put “HELP to buy”. — Apologies.

I am a first time buyer and had an interesting experience in the bidding process. The asking price for the flat was 830K. An agent told there is someone at 800K already. Being serious about this property at the time I came in with the 815K first bid. The agent told there have been more bids over this weekend and hence the owner has asked to come back to all the interested buyers to see if they could improve they offers. The estate agent told my offer is the highest but it would be wise to improve it if I am serious about the flat. So I have raised it to 820K. He then came back that this is one of those nitty-gritty cases where everyone continues fighting, so the owner has asked to submit the final offers by noon next day. The advice of the estate agent was ‘to throw couple K in’ just be sure. According to him, the other bidders were just couple K below me, but really close. However I have decided that I would stay at 820K. At that point I did not doubt about the other competing offers but I have started doubting whether I really like this flat that much. It’s one of the smallest within the Mansions block so at 820K is really expensive per sq foot (calculation I should have done prior bidding this number). So, not increasing the 820K I was expecting to naturally loose out the bidding war and get out of the situation. To my surprise, the agent phoned up 2 days later to congratulate me with winning the flat. I took a day to think things over and then next day, Saturday morning, informed that I am pulling out. I really did not want to mess it up for the seller so he still has got all the other buyers. The surprising bit was when the estate agent has called me on Monday morning and told that the seller will give me the flat at 810K! That’s 5K below my first offer!! That’s when I smelled the rat – most likely there have never been another competing offer, the estate agent was trying to squeeze out the max! It’s rather unlikely everyone decided to change their mind at exactly the same time. Currently, 3 weeks later, the flat is still available to buy on Zoopla and all other main pages. I am wondering how ethical the behaviour of the estate agent is. Of course he’s acting in the interest of the seller. However given the seller would have been happy at 810, maybe he isn’t the best at selling either. Maybe all estate agents are like that? I know for sure I should have asked to confirm that there are other bidders in approx. that range via email. However currently I have crossed over this agency from my list.