Raaaaaaaarrrrrrr!!!!! Pushy estate agent!

I feel your pain. It's as if they have their very own babel fish which translates "we are defo not interested in your manky house" to "we can't contain our excitement about your fantastic property but want to knowck you down in price".

We're n the midst of the housing jungle. Had an offer accepted on the house we want but I can't breathe until everything is signed.

Actually, while you're here, I did a shout out for you the ther week. Are you married to a Grim, speccy ginger? ?

x

As somebody who is trying to sell a house, the pushier the EA is the better ?. Our house isn't manky though. Honest.

Yes I am! But he's not ginger, he's auburn. And no longer a Grim! But he is speccy, though. Who the hell are you?

You want to get yourself a private purchaser, just like us! ? Makes things SOOOOO much easier. I'm sure your house is lovely, though.

Muahahaha! I knew it was you. I am married to a Grim no longer, keysbloke! Lovely to see you (virtually speaking) ?

Hope the family are thriving and woohoo on the house front for you all.

x

ETA - the twins and the username were a bit of a giveaway but I didn't like to assume!

Any sort of purchaser would be good just now ?

We've had 3 2nd viewing where they've all gone on to put offers on other properties ?

Hello! Lovely to hear from you. We'll need to have the three of you over when we have our lovely house (as apposed to our very crammed flat!). Hope you're all well. Good luck with your purchase!

Sorry but ? It must feel a bit like when your boyfriend tries it with a girl before deciding he's gay. You're still in a better position than us in terms of selling. Been on the market 3 weeks, had one viewer and they didn't bloody turn up! We're blaming the EA though because they fecked up the schedule and online lisitng big time.

x

I was thinking more along of the lines of being the one before the one (he marries), but it's along the same lines ?

I hope they've sorted your listing out properly. Ours took us off Rightmove a few days this week and have put it back on today so that it appears in the more recent searches, iyswim. Which reminds me, I need to send them some better photographs later....

You too, it'd be lovely to come and see you guys. Mr.Braw was saying that very thing just the other day when he saw pics of the girls on Bebo.

Fingers crossed on the housing front. I do feel physically sick at the minute and I don't thinkit'll go away until it's all done and dusted. There are still so many things that could go wrong.

Maybe we could meet up somewhere with the little ones in the meantime. Plus Mr.Braw is playing Tuts on Saturday if either/both of you are interested?

x

I think that sums it up better. I like the rightmove trick, good idea - I think I'll suggest that to the EA. We're in a really tricky positio. Two properties to sell, accepted an offer on one, no interest in the other. Offer accepted on the house we want, mortgae approved without having to sell our but means we could end up with two mortgages. Not good.

x

erk no, one mortgage is more than enough ? Good luck

as an estate agent, i have to say i'm loving that sales technique ? i think i should try it on my applicants.

me - hi mr hart, good news on that house you LOVED on x close - the vendor will negotiate!

him- i told you i hated that house and i never even want to go in it again

i think the next time your agent calls you should ask him if he's tried hypnosis ?

but just to put my side - private sales are RARELY easier, and they do actually involve you doing your own chasing up and all the stuff agents would usually do. fine if you've got no problems, but people often like some professional advice and technical support when things go tits up.

sorry, i used to work for a conveyancers and people with private sales seemed to think that we would take up the slack and do the estate agents' work for them. erm, no, you've saved yourself thousands by not employing someone to do all the leg work, but that means it's your job.

depends if you've got good agents or crappy agents in the first place though, if they're crappy you won't be missing much by avoiding them.

for that read, "SHOULD do, but rarely do"

this is why we should be regulated properly. every decent ea agrees with this. there are those of us who take our professional qualifications and work our arses off, and there are those who haven't a scooby what's going on. i remember having an argument with the agent next door to where i now work when i was buying my first house (before being an agent myself). i asked them for an update, they said my solicitors hadn't issued the contract pack. ARGH. makes me angry even now. i think quite a lot of people think of estate agency as more sitting down than working in a dress shop. and i mean no disrespect to working in dress shops,just that EAs should have specialist knowledge.

and another thing while i'm in rant mode ?

it pisses the hell out of me how proud people are about ripping us off. i had a guy ring up today and say he had no intention of paying the contribution towards his HIP he was due to pay under contract when withdrawing his property from the market. because surely, if we were good estate agents, we would have sold his house, so if the house isn't sold we're not due anything.

well sir, i don't know if you've heard the news, but the market has declined. prices have dropped. but your no-mark 90s 2 bed semi now apparently should command a higher price than a 4 bed semi bungalow in a better area, because you won't consider reducing.

and when i gently pointed out that we'd already paid for his hip, and it was only a contribution towards our losses, he said "aha, well i could just keep my house on the market FOREVER, couldn't i, and then you'd never get it and you'd have to keep advertising it".

so what you're saying is that rather than fulfil the terms of a contract you willingly signed and pay your share (we will still have made a loss) you would prefer to try to screw over a local independant business during a recession (which tbh it certainly is for us), because estate agents aren't real people who need jobs and need pay so they don't lose their own homes, they're just mindless evil creatures, and you should laugh with your friends at your feeble attempts to defraud them.

and bear in mind that his total fee, had he sold, was 1.25%, which is piss all. would this knob have laughed about trying to screw over a solicitor, or are they professional people who deserve the merest hint of respect?

and then he offered to beat up our manager.

and then i waited an hour and a half at the doctors for a painful thing, and now want wine.

Oh, MooMoo, what a knob! I know there's good agents out there, we've worked with a few, but this company in general are just laughable. And (fingers crossed) our private sale *should* go through ok. The only thing we have to worry about is a bill for our new roof which has yet to be paid - our factor put it on last year and has yet to bill us! I mean, come on to feck! We're quite happy to pay it - we just can't find out eaxctly what it is!

BWC - two mortgages is not fun! We have the same, but thankfully we're only selling the one property. H's new job means we can keep the other one, which is lucky, as his mum lives in it! And she won't move out either, which is altogether another story. I know what you mean about not breathing til it's done, I feel like we can't get on with anything until we know what's happening for sure. And now it's Friday again and we have to have it hanging over us over the weekend... I'll get H to phone or text MrBraw (loving that name!) and we'll see if we can meet tomorrow.

We viewed one and then the agent called us for feedback. We said that it was Ok but we preferred another and in the meantime we had offered on it. He asked how much we offered, so I told him. He said he would check if his clients would accept a similar offer (same house, same condition, different street)

I said I wasn't willing to offer on his. He called me again anyway and said they would be happy to accept £X. I said Ok I would keep it in mind in case anything happens with the one we want. He has called me back at least once a week since then to ask if we have "made a decision about his property" I keep saying no, we're not interested, we want another one and won't know if we can get it until ours has sold. So it could be a while, ie don't keep calling me every week bawbag, I will call you if I want to proceed. He is like a bloody stalker!

I feel your pain, Mal! I have I feeling I haven't heard the last of my girl. I know they're only trying to make a living in what must be a really tough market just now (one EA in our area currently has 86 properties on their books. This time last year they only had 16!) but it's really put me off ever using this company for a sale of our own. We bought our flat from them and they were really difficult to work with, very inflexible. This has just cemented our opinion of them!

I know it's annoying as a uninterested viewer for an EA to keep on at you, but as a seller you do at least want someone who will contact the viewers for feedback.

There are 2 main EAs where we live, we viewed houses that both had on and one of the EAs never ever called us for feedback. Needless to say, when we were selling we went to the other one, because they always called...(notwithstanding the fact EA1 was the property branch of the horrible firm I worked for, so we wouldn't have gone with them anyway!)

They are desperate aren't they lol, I think most EA's genuinely believed that property always went up and now don't know what to do with themselves now the buyers are calling the shots, I find it all very amusing.

It'd be good to see you both, especially after today. I may get very, very drunk and show myself up in front of the 'cool kids'. ?

x