Ok. instead of slagging off all our estate agents, can anyone suggest an agent I should use?

I have had dealings with a few so far, have mixed opinions of all of them, but am open to suggestions if there is a real consensus on a good agent...

House I am selling is 4-bed terrace in Nofolk Park...

Matt

Not sure if they cover your area much, but I have heard nothing but glowing references from people selling about Archers...However, whenever we tried ringing them for viewings on Saturdays, we couldn't get through to anything but an ansaphone!!!

Avoid Saxton Mee and Blundells! As a buyer AND seller!

RR seem fairly pleasant to deal with but they seem to undervalue frequently to generate interest. Maybe good for you as a seller???

It's impossible to avoid slating agents in Sheff though! The agents here don't make much effort for buyers or sellers, maybe because there always seems to be a fair bit of demand and they can get away with it??!

Tigs

It often depends which branch is dealking with your sale. We used Reeds Rains (in Banner Cross) and they were ok, probably the best of a bad bunch. They also just charge a flat 1% + VAT, Blundells are very pushy and charge you for extra ads in the Telegraph Property Guide.

Let's face it, no-one likes Estate Agents!

Eadon Lockwood & Riddle seem pretty good

We buy and sell a lot of property in Sheffield and my advice would be not to use estate agent's at all to buy as all the best deals are done privately. It does take a bit of legwork but is well worth it as you can usually save 10% of the open market value and have some nice inbuilt equity. They are still useful for selling thou with Archers, ELR or Spencers a good choice - I'd stay clear of Blundells though.

Have heard good things about Spencers. Nothing but woe about most of the others. Last time we moved we painted a board up hammered it into the front garden and sold it to a bloke who knocked on the door 2 hours later! Now that was lucky...

Habrook are excellent. Our property sale went through in 8 weeks with no problem.

I've sold through Winkworth (Hillsborough branch) who have been bl**dy marvellous throughout the whole process. Can't fault them at all and their fees are very competitive too!

We have just sold using Reed Raines. I chose them as we felt as though they gave good service to us as buyers, and as a seller, you want your agent to attract buyers... We managed to get them to come down quite a bit on their fees by getting other quotes as they are quite expensive, their property details are a bit basic, but all credit to them, they have given us great service, got 14 views through the door in the first 10 days and we were SSTC 14 days after we went on the market:clap:

With the time you spend faffing with estate agents you could have put in on the web and saved yourself some fees!

Originally posted by Bojolo
With the time you spend faffing with estate agents you could have put in on the web and saved yourself some fees!

There was no 'faffing' at all tbh. Most of my viewings were booked after press adverts or visits to the estate agents premises and only one viewer mentioned that they'd seen it on Tinterweb.

I didn't have to filter the potential viewers to see if they were serious/ just nosey/ potential nutters before letting them in my house because the agents did that for me. They've been great with recommendations (e.g. paint that purple hallway white and so on) and are now doing a good job of keeping me updated not only on the selling process but by chasing up the rival agents I'm buying from.

There is also the fact that the agents "financially qualify" offers to make sure they are real

I work for ELR myself and taking my estate agents hat off I do not recommend you use Blundells as we have just had them out to value our property and they were £45,000 less on their valuations then the other agents we have had out and also they are very pushy. I've also heard dont use Jump either they are also very pushy too and also if you get a huge amount over the asking price they ask for a percentage of that price too. So say you are on at £140,000 and their fee is 1% of that if you get anything over £140,000 they charge 1% of that figure too so I have been told which is double rip off!! We at ELR try and take off the bad press and try and make it easier for you to buy and sell as it can be a bloody nightmare.

Originally posted by dave36
I work for ELR myself and taking my estate agents hat off I do not recommend you use Blundells as we have just had them out to value our property and they were £45,000 less on their valuations then the other agents we have had out and also they are very pushy. I've also heard dont use Jump either they are also very pushy too and also if you get a huge amount over the asking price they ask for a percentage of that price too. So say you are on at £140,000 and their fee is 1% of that if you get anything over £140,000 they charge 1% of that figure too so I have been told which is double rip off!! We at ELR try and take off the bad press and try and make it easier for you to buy and sell as it can be a bloody nightmare.

Ohhhh wow you are obvioulsy not very professional and dont have too much experience of estate agency do you?

When ever was a valuation a statement of actual value? It is a valuers opinion of what he or she thinks a property is worth. There are many factors which affect what someone will pay for a property. We deal every day with numerous situations where other agents have over valued properties and have not sold them (unlike you I wont name names), we are then instructed at a lower and more realistic price to hopefully acheive a sale.

You also have a complete lack of understanding of how Jump work,,,you need to go and do some homework and not rely on hearsay.

I also dont think owning up to getting Blundells round to do a valuation puts you in a very good light. Would your partners approve?

PS I am a partner of Blundells

out of interest dave what do elr charge for selling
and why would you want blundells round if you work for elr
surely perk of your job is not having to pay fees when you sell

We've viewed two properties recently with two different estate agents. From my experience of this, I will not be putting my home on with Blundell's, as I have viewed the same property with them twice and so far haven't had one phone call chasing up to see what I think.

However, Halifax has phoned us the day after viewing (we've viewd two properties with them both on a Saturday and they have phoned us on the Sunday) and asked for feedback etc. So if I was a seller, I would feel like they are working for their money.

Haybrook are good.

Fee's are much the same as anyone but they have a designated progress centre which tracks the sale of your property instead of people in the shop trying too.

They seem quick and hassle free

Originally posted by thomsongirl
We've viewed two properties recently with two different estate agents. From my experience of this, I will not be putting my home on with Blundell's, as I have viewed the same property with them twice and so far haven't had one phone call chasing up to see what I think.

However, Halifax has phoned us the day after viewing (we've viewd two properties with them both on a Saturday and they have phoned us on the Sunday) and asked for feedback etc. So if I was a seller, I would feel like they are working for their money.

We have viewed numerous properties on with Blundells and they have always, without fail done follow up calls to see what we think. However I still wouldn't go on with Blundells as I feel that they do not trade using an ethos with which I feel comfortable, ditto Winkworths and Property Plus. There's something to be said for "you get what you pay for". If you are going to pay peanuts you are going to get monkeys.

We were very pleased with Reed Raines and I would be equally comfortable using Saxton Mee. Selling houses is bug business - do business with a company YOU trust and YOU feel comfortable with, whoever that may be

It's very difficult to get an objective answer to this kind of question, as people's opinions will inevitably be coloured by their experiencs of the whole moving process; if someone had a negative one, it may or may not have been the agent's fault.

We first sold through Saxton Mee and they were fine, but then we were selling in Crookes in '99. They did nothing to get us our asking price - I think it was just luck.

Tried to sell and buy with Reeds Rains, who we found hopeless. We thought doing both parts of the business through the same agency would make it easier, but it didn't. We struggled to get the offer we needed, and when we did, we struggled to find a house to move into. They kept pressuring us to close and move into rented - which we'd said we would NEVER do - and kept sending us details of stuff that was just wrong (area, size, price, you name it). So we withdrew in the end.

We sold last year through Blundells, who were patchy - we did a lot of their work, including rewriting the blurb for the Property Guide (they'd described the house in really dull terms and had made it sound like a potential student landlord house rather than a good buy for a first-time couple, which was what we'd agreed). But the place sold within a month and for three times what we'd bought it for in 1999, so I suppose I can't complain. I'd like to see how they did in a less buoyant market.

Bought current place through ELR, who were good. They seem to value houses realistically and don't automatically expect people to bid over the asking price and get into a bidding war.

I am amazed that an employee of Eadon Lockwood and Riddle has felt it necessary to ask for Blundells and others to value his house ! He clearly has no confidence in his own company assessing the correct asking price. Surely Dave36 you werent considering employing another agency rather than your own to sell your house ?!!!!

used haybrooks in town to buy and sell our house avoid had bad probs with there valueing avoid if poss

Reply to both Cocky and Greensheff - cocky by name obviously and cocky by nature - may I point out that I have over 15 years experience in the estate agency and I have a varying degree of experience and I dont have to answer as to what my experience is and I am very professional in my job, you may say you are a partner of Blundells would you sack a member of staff because they wanted to get another agent round just to see what their sales pitch is? Obviously ELR are a little more understanding then Blundells and you cannot tie your staff into using just yourselves. My Partners are 100% behind me having other agents round and they recommended it so stick that one where the sun dont shine. As for you mentioning valuation you obviously are hacked off with Blundells undervaluing by a vast amount and can I point out Cocky that even though agents put the prices on the property and as you state a valuation is only a reflection of price it is the Buyer who decides the price of the property not an Agent so get that fact straight. I am not going to delve any further with this topic and this as far as I go is the end of the matter. And a reply to GreenSheff we DONT have perks of the job we have to pay fees as much as you even if we work for an agent!!! What a lot of people dont understand is that we have to abide by a lot of rules and regulations we are not all cowboys. All I was offering was this person asking for a good agent and I was pointing out what ELR do not getting into arguments with obviously two hot headed persons who cannot understand what I was getting at and like Cocky that is the end of the matter as far as I go !!!

reply also to sara furn - look I have every confidence with my firm and in fact have gone on the market with my firm!!!!!!!!!! All agents do it is called checking the competition it is one way of making sure you are not charging to much money and the partners appreciate you reporting back other agents fees etc. Yes I can hear you being amazed at this but not only do ELR do it but all the other agents do it too.

Originally posted by dave36
Reply to both Cocky and Greensheff - cocky by name obviously and cocky by nature - may I point out that I have over 15 years experience in the estate agency and I have a varying degree of experience and I dont have to answer as to what my experience is and I am very professional in my job, you may say you are a partner of Blundells would you sack a member of staff because they wanted to get another agent round just to see what their sales pitch is? Obviously ELR are a little more understanding then Blundells and you cannot tie your staff into using just yourselves. My Partners are 100% behind me having other agents round and they recommended it so stick that one where the sun dont shine. As for you mentioning valuation you obviously are hacked off with Blundells undervaluing by a vast amount and can I point out Cocky that even though agents put the prices on the property and as you state a valuation is only a reflection of price it is the Buyer who decides the price of the property not an Agent so get that fact straight. I am not going to delve any further with this topic and this as far as I go is the end of the matter. And a reply to GreenSheff we DONT have perks of the job we have to pay fees as much as you even if we work for an agent!!! What a lot of people dont understand is that we have to abide by a lot of rules and regulations we are not all cowboys. All I was offering was this person asking for a good agent and I was pointing out what ELR do not getting into arguments with obviously two hot headed persons who cannot understand what I was getting at and like Cocky that is the end of the matter as far as I go !!!

What?........ does this make sense to anybody?

Hot headed?.... sounds like you had steam coming out of your ears when you wrote this!!! I like someone who starts a discussion and then throws the dummy out of the cot and doesnt want to finish it!!!

I would be very disappointed if a member of my staff used anyone else because to me that would show a complete lack of confidence in their colleagues. We dont charge our staff fees for selling their properties.

If Blundells undervalue why is it we sell more than three times the number of houses in Sheffield than our nearest competitor? Surely people want the best price for their property and so they will instruct the agent who has the best track record for achieving that?

As anyone got any expereience on dealing with heppenstall's? I am thinking of changing from my current agent and Heppenstall's do seem to move houses pretty quickly.

have you thought about looking for websites as an alternative ?

there's quite a few out there eg Fish 4. A new website called sell4less is sheffield based and they're doing houses for free at the moment i believe.

Originally posted by Tigs
Avoid Saxton Mee and Blundells! As a buyer AND seller!


I agree. But if you see a nice house on offer from the said estate agents, don’t let it put you off completely, you'll just have to do more annoying and causing fuss etc!

you didnt answer my question about fees
also few more questions for you to answer

i cant believe you dont get discount for selling with elr when you work there do you get discount then
good for you cocky for not charging staff

why waste other agents time you can check out the market without having to get them out
obviously you dont have enough houses to sell if you did then you wouldnt be wasting there time

also if you didnt slag of blundells in the first place im sure this post would have ended a while ago

ps wonder if nick sally or alistair would care to reply and join in

Originally posted by greensheff
you didnt answer my question about fees
also few more questions for you to answer

i cant believe you dont get discount for selling with elr when you work there do you get discount then
good for you cocky for not charging staff

why waste other agents time you can check out the market without having to get them out
obviously you dont have enough houses to sell if you did then you wouldnt be wasting there time

also if you didnt slag of blundells in the first place im sure this post would have ended a while ago

ps wonder if nick sally or alistair would care to reply and join in

Gosh, this is getting cliquey. I imagine that when Cornerstone started this thread he wanted independent recommendations and not back biting and in-fighting from agents.

I don't think any of you are doing your employers any favours... What next - handbags at dawn?

Originally posted by Sara
Gosh, this is getting cliquey. I imagine that when Cornerstone started this thread he wanted independent recommendations and not back biting and in-fighting from agents.

I don't think any of you are doing your employers any favours... What next - handbags at dawn?

Couldnt agree more Sara. There is no point in slagging each other off it only reinforces the publics view of estate agents!!!

Just about to put a house up with Saxton Mee.

What's wrong with them?
I ask because the prop is an investment/refurb project and I'd like the place to be aggressively sold, if EA's actually SELL houses in a fashion other than putting an ad in a window.

An investor once told me Remax were good, but I've had no experience of them.

I realise that this is once again turning into a negative discussion, and that selling is a very subjective process, but I would not use Blundells again for the following reasons:

1. Now on our 4th agent for the sale of our house, over a couple of months.

2. On two occasions, we discovered that we had offers on our house through prospective buyers telling us. When I phoned the agents, it turned out that offers had been made, but in the first instance they'd not phoned to tell us, and just sent an offer letter out. In the second instance, they had phoned the home tel and left a message, despite the fact we had repeatedly asked them to use our mobile numbers and not the home phone no. We lost a couple of bids during this time, partly (I believe) as we thought that we had no current offers, and so couldn't use it to back up our case.

3. On uncountable occasions, I have had to chase the various agents to - chase up feedback, find out any progress on our sale, and have had to chase on the latter over a period of weeks. Every time it was a case of: "We'll look into it and call you back later today or tomorrow", and yet I would be the one chasing again after a few days.

4. We dropped the price for the friday property guide, but it was changed on the website instantly. This one I think was crossed wires, so we do have to take some responsibility for this.

5. (Follows on from 4.) The same night, someone asked to view unofficially. They liked the property and said that they would be offering the asking price (we assumed the higher price), and due to this we said we'd throw our cooker in. Before they left, it turned out the asking price was the revised one. Now without a cooker for the move, but 5k worse off!

6. (Follows on from 5.) The next morning, the couple phoned up at 9am to make the offer. I then phoned up before 10am to ask the agent to remove the property ad, but she was not aware of any offer, and so advised that the ad went in regardless. When I spoke to her just before lunch, she believed that no offer had been made, which was obviously not true. Thus we will have to foot out for an unnessecary ad, when the bill comes.

A lot of the staff at Blundells are helpful and friendly, and I'm sure that they do the best they can under difficult, under-resourced circumstances. However, it appears that they can give a shoddy service and get away with it, because they sell such a large market share of sheffield houses.

Humphhh, rant over!!!

I used to work for Halifax Estate Agents and because they confirm to the Banking Code, Ombudsman, etc etc I found there to be so much admin work to do as well as sales pressure that I took the fun out of negotiating and offering my vendors good customer service.
Now that I have now moved to another agent who are just an Estate Agent and not a Bank, I can really get on with enjoying my job.
I believe that anyone can have a bad experience with any estate agent and a lot of it has to do with the branch and staff that you deal with.
Has anyone had any experiences good or bad with Halifax Estate Agents on Ecclesall Road?

I can only respond from a buyers perpective, but Spencer's seemed quite good. I was bidding on a flat through them early this year (didn't get it in the end) and they kept me fully informed of what was happening throughout. They even called me before 9:30am on the day after bidding closed to tell me I'd been outbid and unsuccessful - I have always had to chase other agents for this slightly vital piece of information!

I am buying through Haybrook at the moment. I found the staff at their Gleadless branch to be terrible. When I took my ID into the branch after my offer was accepted one of the agent's actually sat and argued with me about whether you can make an offer subject to survey. I obviously wanted it subject to survey and contract, she claimed that that wasn't how it worked, and that you wouldn't drop out of a sale because of a poor survey! I said that I would if it was so bad that it needed thousands of pounds of work done on it, to which she replied that surely I could see there was nothing wrong with it so I wouldn't even need a survey!! I then found it an uphill struggle to get even the slightest piece of information from them (like the length of the lease on the property, or what the service charge was). I needed all this for my mortgage application and told them so, but all I got in return was "you're solicitor will find it all out for you", so as a result my mortgage was delayed for several weeks.

I also don't find the progress centre to be particularly illuminating - they ring from time to time and tell me things that are about 3 weeks out of date, like last week they called and told me all the searches had been done and were satisfactory and it should be only a matter of time, and were surprised to hear when I informed them that we had agreed a completion date and were about to exchange!

HI There
In defence of Haybrooks at Gleadless, I have bought and sold through them and their advice is always sound, the manager inparticular always calls you back and even though they don't usually start work officialy until 9am i have often had calls outside working hours, before 9am after 5.30, just to keep me updated !

Estate agents are the front end receivers of stress, as moving house is stressful and people do (Obviously!) want their property/transaction to be treated as the highest priority which does put pressure on the poorly paid staff!

I have used Blundells, and others, but would definately go back with Haybrooks at any stage

Something I forgot to add about my experiences with Haybrook at Gleadless was the shambolic experience of viewing the property I am buying. I rang to arrange a viewing late one Friday afternoon. By late Monday I had not heard anything from them about a time to go around, so I called again. I was told by the agent that I had in fact already been for a viewing at that property the day before and they had left a message on my mobile to ask for my feedback. I stressed that I hadn't been, indeed I knew nothing of the viewing that had been arranged, and there had been no messages left on my phone. They actually argued with me about this, insisting that it had all be confirmed - but when I ask what number they had tried to contact me on they had completely the wrong mobile number down (and I don't mean a digit wrong, I mean completely wrong!).

They didn't have an answer when I asked how they had managed to confirm a viewing with me when they didn't have the correct number! And then to top things off, when I finally went for the viewing I apologised to the vendors for having to wait in when I wasn't told of the viewing, to which they expressed their surprise because Haybrook had told them that I had agreed to the viewing and that I phoned on monday to say that I hadn't been able to go after all!

I wouldn't use Reeds Raines- their website is so out of date and they're slow at putting 'sold' signs up- which leads to you (as a buyer) thinking a property is available when it was actually sold weeks/months ago. A neighbour put their house on the market with them nearly three weeks ago, and the details are still not on their website.

I would use either ELR or Winkworth's - Winkworth's are good at getting feedback from viewers without being pushy. ELR's property details (including website) are really good with good photos & floorplans etc.

Originally posted by hatter
I wouldn't use Reeds Raines- their website is so out of date and they're slow at putting 'sold' signs up- which leads to you (as a buyer) thinking a property is available when it was actually sold weeks/months ago. A neighbour put their house on the market with them nearly three weeks ago, and the details are still not on their website.

I would use either ELR or Winkworth's - Winkworth's are good at getting feedback from viewers without being pushy. ELR's property details (including website) are really good with good photos & floorplans etc.

Reed Raines were slow at updating their website, our property was sold by the time they actually got it on... But.... THEY SOLD IT IN 14 DAYS!!!!!!!!:thumbsup:

Oh, and our sold sign was up next day

I don't have any recommendations for selling a house as I just rent, but avoid Saxton Mee like the plague - we had the misfortune to rent from them twice (we liked the houses!) and they were appalling - completely disorganised, difficult to contact, and never seemed to get anything done.

Definately NOT property plus. Bungling inepts!

Originally posted by shirker
Definately NOT property plus. Bungling inepts!

We contacted Property Plus about one of their properties and they said the owner had accepted an offer, but that we could still view and put in a higher offer - rogues

Originally posted by Sara
We contacted Property Plus about one of their properties and they said the owner had accepted an offer, but that we could still view and put in a higher offer - rogues

Oh I hate gazumping! Unfortunately Estate Agents obviously have their commission to think of, so some of them will encourage higher bids after another bid has already been successful. It's not good for their reputation though and can seriously affect repeat business, so some are better than others at discouraging it.

Regarding renting - Lewis Wadsworth were terrible in my experience. I organised to look at a flat last year. I had to go in the evening as they insisted the current tennant had to show me around rather than one of their agents. So they arranged for me to go a couple of nights later. I went, loved it, and called them first thing the next morning to tell them I wanted to take it. They then informed me that it had been let two days before (the afternoon after they arranged my viewing). They hadn't bothered to tell the current tennant (who had stayed in especially to show me around), and of course they hadn't bothered to call me and cancel. A few days later I was waiting to view another property and got talking to someone else who was there to see it. He had had a very similar experience with Lewis Wadsworth as well - except he turned up to meet one of their agents for a viewing and the agent didn't turn up. He rang them and they told him the flat had been let, and again they had just not bothered to cancel the subsequent viewings.

I am with castle Estates at the moment - sometimes they are ok, sometimes bad - it all seems to depend on who ends up dealing with your query. I have now learnt to ask for one particular member of staff because she is usually very efficient at sorting anything wrong. The main problem is the charges they try to impose - I received a list as long as my arm of what they charge for doing the most trivial little things. E.g. They charge something like £35 plus VAT just to renew your lease - I'm still trying to work out how they can justify that!

I've just bought a hosue through Haybrook and I have to say they were great; very helpful and friendly - particularly as we were first time buyers.

Generally, in our viewings we dealt with most of Sheffield's big agencies; Blundells, ELR, Saxton Mee, Spencers to name a few. The only ones I'd tell you to avoid as a buyer are Blundells.

We found their staff rude and abrupt. We were completely inexperienced in the whole process and needed a little guidance. Haybrook provided this every step of the way.

We found Blundells very unhelpful and they actually laughed at an offer we put in.

If you do buy through them, I'd advise you to take the number of the vendor and ask to be kept in the picture. My friend has just sold a house through them and she had three offers which she was not told about.. Rather than giving her the opportunuity to accept an asking prices offer, Blundells had the potential buyers bartering amongst themselves thus pushing the price up. If one of her buyers hadn't contacted her she'd have had no idea she'd been offered the asking price a week prior. When she confronted them she was told they were very busy. Naturally, she was quids in at the end of the day as they pushed it £20k over the asking price!

We also expereinced this as buyers with two properties we put offers in on.

It's a very frustrasting, stressful and dififcult process.

It was good to be able to buy through an agent who appreciated this and did what they could to make it a little easier for us.

I bleive that estate agents have a legal obligation to pass on ANY offers on a property to the vendor. If you ever experience an estate agent not doing this then you can report them.

Originally posted by Jozafeen
I've sold through Winkworth (Hillsborough branch) who have been bl**dy marvellous throughout the whole process. Can't fault them at all and their fees are very competitive too!

We have Winkworth around - they have offices all over the country, and they're pretty reasonable.

To be fair, estate agents have to work under regulations and rules by the Mortgage Code, don't they ?

When I was trying to buy a house back in 2002, I was gazumped a few times, and also overbidded quite often. This was with various estate agents. Halifax, Blundells, Reeds & Rain et al.

What a lot of buyers may not be aware of is that, once a seller signs a contract with the estate agent, then they are bound to sell THROUGH them. (If I recall this information correctly.) The house buying/selling game is just tedious itself. U can have ups as well as downs. It just the way it is.

Recently, I am having to become a seller myself, and was just contemplating which estate agent to go with. I was a bit shocked at the 1% commission that estate agents charge. But then again, if u think of it in a business sense, that 1% is being paid to the estate agent for marketing your house. They have ppl go through their doors every day... and adverts in papers. Surely that itself mounts to a couple of hundred quid alone. 1-2k is almost inevitable.

To answer the original Q by the thread starter. Honest to hand, my opinion is that Blundell has a lot of adverts, and many houses are on their books. I know, cos I was a buyer once. I didn't trust the various other agents as much because there were not as many adverts for their houses. A lot of the more 'decent' houses which I was after (i.e. first time buyer) were by Spencers. Only because I know their shop was on Ecclesall Rd, and they have many first time buyers walking through their doors to look at their brochures. They also seemed to have a lot of more trendier places that I liked. My conclusion from scanning copies upon copies of the Telegraph were that;

Spencers = First-time buyer,
Blundell = Various market ,
Saxton Mee = Higher end family homes,
Halifax = Medium Range Family homes,
Reeds & Rain = Med range family homes

If u are a sellar, u have to think about the location of the estate agent. Having a local shop in the area of the place that u want to sell, would mean that u target local buyers. Pending on who u want to sell your house to....

If I want to sell my house, I would contemplate Blundells, not because (and judging from ppl's opinions here) that they provide a good service, but at least I know that they have access to a greater range of buyers. They do have a lot of branches too. So therefore getting a brochure from whatever branch makes it easier too.

it's common knowledge that Blundells valuations are at the very low end of the spectrum of estate agents' valuations.

Perhaps this could be passed off as being "realistic" for the very high end properties, however Blundells as an agent tend to attract more of the middle and lower range value of properties for sale and use their "lower valuations", or certainly did so when the market was booming to attract in eager and perhaps naive prospective buyers thinking they may get a bargain property.

What this practice tended to do was to encourage people to offer more than they could really afford to when the bids were getting frothy in the fear of losing out altogether when it inevitably came to sealed bids (tho' we all know sealed bids at Blundells weren't that "sealed" especially if you'd make it known that you're a FTB and you'd take the full range of mortgage, buildings, contents, repayments insurance etc that they wanted to flog you)....

Blundells valuations were/are more of a marketing strategy than a fair valuation and most of the time in the booming years they got away with it because it created the effect described above for the vendor who was obviously happy.

Consequently Blundells became known particularly at the lower end as a good agent to use to sell with, but not a good one to buy from.

Some of the properties you've had on the market have been so out of phase with the realistic market value that it beggers belief. How about explaining one in particular a 3 bed detached on Crimicar Lane at £165K still on your website?

Most people in Sheffield who've bought and sold a few houses know all about Blundells and the games they play, your reputation as estate agents doesn't get enhnaced at all by either denying the practices we all know you do, or openly slating off other agents in such a puerile manner...it just serves to reignite all those misgivings that people have had for years about the probity of estate agents.

As regards recommendations for agents in my experience ELR are the best and I've also had good experineces with Crapper and Haigh, however ultimately if you want your house to sell you must expect to have to take a lead role yourself and make whichever agent you go with get the impression that you expect high standards and pester them until they deliver - this is all part and parcel of selling your house, they have lots of sell, you've usually only got one!

Originally posted by cocky
What?........ does this make sense to anybody?

Hot headed?.... sounds like you had steam coming out of your ears when you wrote this!!! I like someone who starts a discussion and then throws the dummy out of the cot and doesnt want to finish it!!!

I would be very disappointed if a member of my staff used anyone else because to me that would show a complete lack of confidence in their colleagues. We dont charge our staff fees for selling their properties.

If Blundells undervalue why is it we sell more than three times the number of houses in Sheffield than our nearest competitor? Surely people want the best price for their property and so they will instruct the agent who has the best track record for achieving that?

Me and my husband are planning to buy our first home in the next few months and are both pretty clueless about the whole process of buying a house. I must say, I'm not really looking forward to having to deal with estate agents (from what I've read on this site, many seem to be a law unto themselves in Sheffield!).

I'm reading quite a good book on house buying though, which has some suggestions about finding a decent estate agent. Apparently if you want to find an agent who isn't going to rip you off, you should make sure they are a member of Ombudsman for Estate Agents scheme (OEA). This organisation can award compensation against agents who breach the rules. Membership of the scheme is voluntary and apparently most complaints are made against agents who aren't members. So, where possible it's best to go with an agent who is part of this scheme (www.oea.co.uk).

Agents in Sheffield who are part of the scheme:

Brownill Vickers
Bairstow Eves
Winkworth
Bagshaws
Halifax
William H Brown
Willow Properties
Bloor & Co

I accept that as first time buyers, we might have to reluctantly go through the likes of Saxton Mee and Blundells as they seem to have the market sewn up in this area, but if I was selling, I would definitely make sure I was using an agent on the OEA scheme.

post your experience on here if you like and I'm sure people will try to help if you encounter any difficulties

Originally posted by Georgiegal
Me and my husband are planning to buy our first home in the next few months and are both pretty clueless about the whole process of buying a house. I must say, I'm not really looking forward to having to deal with estate agents (from what I've read on this site, many seem to be a law unto themselves in Sheffield!).

I'm reading quite a good book on house buying though, which has some suggestions about finding a decent estate agent. Apparently if you want to find an agent who isn't going to rip you off, you should make sure they are a member of Ombudsman for Estate Agents scheme (OEA). This organisation can award compensation against agents who breach the rules. Membership of the scheme is voluntary and apparently most complaints are made against agents who aren't members. So, where possible it's best to go with an agent who is part of this scheme (www.oea.co.uk).

Agents in Sheffield who are part of the scheme:

Brownill Vickers
Bairstow Eves
Winkworth
Bagshaws
Halifax
William H Brown
Willow Properties
Bloor & Co

I accept that as first time buyers, we might have to reluctantly go through the likes of Saxton Mee and Blundells as they seem to have the market sewn up in this area, but if I was selling, I would definitely make sure I was using an agent on the OEA scheme.

"Consequently Blundells became known particularly at the lower end as a good agent to use to sell with, but not a good one to buy from."


-It's quite interesting what u wrote there Bertie. I'd always thought that the house-buying game is quite different to those down South. Only because of the wide price range.

I know that when the market was buoyant up North, it was a case of low asking offers, and most ppl tend to overbid the asking offers. For properties down South (especially when it's more saturated), ppl tend to pay just below the asking price or on the asking price. (You can see this happen often in those TV house programmes.)

So, in retrospect, is it not fair to say that the northern Estate Agents acted more or less accordingly to the market fluctuations ?

Well, that's what I thought the reasons were...

Just out of interest why would any of you use an estate agent?

Originally posted by Caronp
Just out of interest why would any of you use an estate agent?

Because people are lazy and clearly think asking somebody else to sell your home is easier (although definately not free - in terms of money or hassle!)