winning over estate agents as a customer?
March 27, 2015 7:55 AM Subscribe
The treatment I get from estate agents in the UK is almost as though they are not looking for business. I have been trying to buy a house for over a year and find estate agents to be surly, often not returning calls. How do I make clear my interest and what should I do to make sure I am treated well and fairly by estate agents in the UK?
If you're buying a house, not selling a house, you're not a customer. If you're expecting an estate agent to do a lot of footwork and personal service and you're not on the super wealthy end of things, you might just need to adjust your expectations! They're not going to project manage your search for you.
If you call them to ask specifically for a viewing of X property, or to put in an offer of £Y, that will work better than calling with a vague desire for a house.
If you mean that you've been trying to buy a specific house and having no luck, then I'd consider knocking on the door of that house, apologising for talking to them directly, and then telling them that you want to put in an offer and you have the mortgage/cash ready but that the estate agent isn't doing their job.
posted by emilyw at 8:10 AM on March 27, 2015 [2 favorites]
If you call them to ask specifically for a viewing of X property, or to put in an offer of £Y, that will work better than calling with a vague desire for a house.
If you mean that you've been trying to buy a specific house and having no luck, then I'd consider knocking on the door of that house, apologising for talking to them directly, and then telling them that you want to put in an offer and you have the mortgage/cash ready but that the estate agent isn't doing their job.
posted by emilyw at 8:10 AM on March 27, 2015 [2 favorites]
What emilyw said, particularly if you are in a hot market - they have all the buyers they want. It's easier now as nearly everything is on Rightmove or Zoopla anyway, but essentially I would just call the agents on a regular basis (sometimes you will get to hear about something before it goes up on a website), make appointments to see what you want to see, and don't expect anyone to get back to you about anything.
posted by crocomancer at 8:16 AM on March 27, 2015
posted by crocomancer at 8:16 AM on March 27, 2015
Yeah, if you are somewhere like London, they do not need your business. The sort of descriptions of real estate agents Americans on metafilter give make me laugh (and then cry).
Here (Sydney, one of the world's hottest markets) a real estate agent does not give a shit about you as a buyer. They will screen your calls to voicemail, and not reply to emails. They cancel showings without telling you. They sell houses that you have explicitly expressed interest in without even calling to find out if you would like to counter offer. They have no need of any individual customer because they are already getting twenty offers per property unsolicited, usually at the first open house. Properties are selling at $1-200,000 above asking price, so the chance that any one extra phone call or bit of leg work will increase that further sufficiently to influence their commission is unlikely.
So what we do is rely mainly on websites to see what is listed, and go to a lot of open homes. At an open home, if we are interested, we assume that is our one and only chance to talk to the estate agent. So we ask all the questions we care about, insist they write down our full contact details and make a note to call us if they get an offer before auction that they are considering, and we get info like whether they accept personal cheques for the deposit, or who to make bank cheques out to, right then and there.
If you do have to call them later, you should expect voicemail, and leave a message there, plus a message with the main receptionist, plus an email. You might have to do this several times. Best chances are if your message is "call me about an offer on 1 Main Street."
They will often try to gauge your price range, and honestly, in a hot market there isn't much point being secretive. If your range includes what they are hoping for for that particular property, then you are more likely to suddenly become a valued customer, and they will actually call you back and let you know about other offers. You aren't going to get a bargain in a hot market anyway. And if you have honestly told them your budget and they aren't calling you back, then it probably means they are already dealing with offers far above what you could manage, so you might as well forget that property anyway.
posted by lollusc at 5:08 PM on March 27, 2015 [1 favorite]
Here (Sydney, one of the world's hottest markets) a real estate agent does not give a shit about you as a buyer. They will screen your calls to voicemail, and not reply to emails. They cancel showings without telling you. They sell houses that you have explicitly expressed interest in without even calling to find out if you would like to counter offer. They have no need of any individual customer because they are already getting twenty offers per property unsolicited, usually at the first open house. Properties are selling at $1-200,000 above asking price, so the chance that any one extra phone call or bit of leg work will increase that further sufficiently to influence their commission is unlikely.
So what we do is rely mainly on websites to see what is listed, and go to a lot of open homes. At an open home, if we are interested, we assume that is our one and only chance to talk to the estate agent. So we ask all the questions we care about, insist they write down our full contact details and make a note to call us if they get an offer before auction that they are considering, and we get info like whether they accept personal cheques for the deposit, or who to make bank cheques out to, right then and there.
If you do have to call them later, you should expect voicemail, and leave a message there, plus a message with the main receptionist, plus an email. You might have to do this several times. Best chances are if your message is "call me about an offer on 1 Main Street."
They will often try to gauge your price range, and honestly, in a hot market there isn't much point being secretive. If your range includes what they are hoping for for that particular property, then you are more likely to suddenly become a valued customer, and they will actually call you back and let you know about other offers. You aren't going to get a bargain in a hot market anyway. And if you have honestly told them your budget and they aren't calling you back, then it probably means they are already dealing with offers far above what you could manage, so you might as well forget that property anyway.
posted by lollusc at 5:08 PM on March 27, 2015 [1 favorite]
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Realtors get lots of waste-of-time calls from people who have no real ability to finance a deal. Thus, agents sometimes make snap judgments about a potential buyers ability to actually close. If they think you have no money, they might blow you off.
If you show right up front that you can finance the deal, trust me, they will call you back.
posted by Flood at 8:04 AM on March 27, 2015